Molding Depron

[CNCadmin]

Anyone here know anything about molding depron foam?

[rustyolddo]

Here are a few links to some general information & construction. Best I can tell the secret is heating the material to the proper temperature and constructing your model form correctly.


http://www.halloweenfear.com/vacuumformintro.html

http://members.aol.com/GCGassaway/vacuform.htm

http://members.aol.com/KMyersEFO/vacuum.htm

http://www.warmplastic.com/

http://www.hhhh.org/~joeboy/resource...cuumtable.html

http://www.build-stuff.com/

[One of Many]

Anyone here know anything about molding depron foam?

This link gives some details. It is a stryrene type of material. It cannot be thermal formed due to its intolerance to heat in this form of foam without degrading the properties that make it good for model use. It is also not chemical resistant. Whatever glue you use, should be made for use with styrene foams.

Cutting it using steel rule dies and then compression forming it with heated dies might be how GWS does a lot of this stuff. Just a guess!

Working with Depron Foam

DC

[Brokengears]

I have a plastic form molder in my shop I can give you the dimensions of the table and you could send a sheet, currently I use ABS plastic and PET-G food safe plastic sheets to make my molds, let me know if I can hekp in anyways my machine just seems to sit anymore, would be nice to fire it back up again and make something

Joe

[drcrash]

Depron is an extruded polystyrene foam, and it can definitely be thermoformed, but it's tricky.

Some radio-control kit planes are made that way, vacuum forming the foam into a cavity mold to make a wing or a fuselage half.

There have been threads about this on rcgroups.com forums. Go there and search up a thread about "Theraforming Depron" (sic) and one about a foam Starship. (That's a Beechcraft Starship airplane, not something out of a sci-fi movie.)

I've never done this myself, but I've vacuum formed 2, 3, and 6mm EVA foam (a rubbery foam, sold cheaply as "craft foam" at craft stores). That's much easier---you can do it over a male mold if you don't mind a loss of detail. (Or if you want it, to smooth out imperfections in a buck that has no fine detail or sharp edges.)

[CNCadmin]

Here is my line of plane using a folded depron wing http://airfoilz.com