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[TroyO]

Still haven't gotten to the oven, but have made progress on the rest.

I finished most the parts for the plastic holding frame, although there may be more to do. I ended up with around an inch all around to clamp the plastic and am now second guessing that... perhaps I should have gone with more like an inch and a half.

In light of that, I have been toying with the idea of making a more aggressive bite on the working part of the holding frame by driving nails or screws through it so they will "bite" the plastic when I clamp it down. That should hold it, I think. ;-P

I am working out the last details on a counter weighted pulley system for raising the clamping frame up to the oven. It works now, but I decided I prefer it on the 24" side rather than the 32" side just for various minor convenience reasons.

That's the current update. I still haven't gotten the pics deceloped so not much to see for now.

[TroyO]

It's been a while!

I actually have the machine going, did my first pulls last weekend. It works! yay!

My first up project is a Guy Faulkes mask for a V for Vendetta costime. I have one of the Comic-con masks and used alginate to make a copy of it in Hydrostone. I've since touched it up, fixed some differences between it and the movie mask and deepened the details a little.

I am having some issues, but I think it's just learning curve stuff. Some webbing, but I'm starting to figure out how it pulls and am learning to place things to minimize it or move it off the project.

Pulling .090 plastic (I think that's right... pretty thick) I'm not getting the detail I'd like, but that I think is a function of it just being to thick for this particular project. I'm going to try and pick up some .060 and .040 for this weekend to try that and see if I like it.

The pics I took didn't some out.. I think maybe the one use camera froze in the garage? In any case, I will try to get pics of what I did and get them posted but it probably won't be until after Starfest at the end of April.

All told... it works! I think a "Half szed" sub-frame may help with webbing, less droop and all. I thought about a drop off support that would hold the droop up near the oven too... always thinking upgrades, but all told it works.

[crashmann]

Congratulations TroyO!!!

There's nothing like the smell of fresh melted plastic in the morning. It's that smell... It smells like.. props!!!

You are correct, going with a thinner gauge plastic will help bring out the details in the mask. And with practice, you will learn how much room to leave between the bucks to compensate for webbing.

It's funny, I'm spending more time upgrading my vac table than creating new molds to pull on it. Just like when I fool around with computers... I spend more time tweaking them than actually "using" them

Congratulations on a successful table! It's alive!!!

Charlie