Vacuum former: update post 1 (and some catch up)

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Aligning the vacuum form: the oven is positioned over the vacuum box at the proper height and aligned with the frame.

This is my first daily update, where I plan on documenting my progress on whatever geeky activity I'm working on.

My current project is a vacuum former. I'm enrolled in an online workshop put on by the Stan Winston School School of Character Arts and being taught by Fon Davis, titled "How to make a sci fi helmet.". The goal of the workshop is to create a prop that can be used in a movie or as part of a cosplay costume (I'm still uncomfortable with the use of cosplay as a noun), but the workshop includes building a vacuum former and showing how to use it. It's a tool I plan on using for my own prop making and costume building.

Fon Davis is a master model and prop builder, having worked on Star Wars, Matrix, Starship Trooper, Nightmare Before Christmas, and many other films and projects. We've had two of the three classes so far, and they have been AMAZING!

I haven't been very good about recording the last two weeks of work since I hadn't started this blog. So I'll give a brief recap with a few progress pictures (very few) and then document today's progress. Future posts won't be so long (I think...)

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The oven I used. You just see the sheet metal shell I removed when dismantling for parts.

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The key parts removed from the oven, although I won't be using all of them.

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The shop vac being disassembled.

In the last two weeks, I bought a toaster oven and a shop vacuum at Costco. These have been dismantled for the parts (see the pictures above).

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The oven box, but without the wiring

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The box that holds the shop vac parts and where the controls will go.

I've finished most of a heat box with the oven components that will be used for heating the thermal plastics. I've been building a box for the vacuum that will be used for pulling the softened plastics over the patterns (also called the bucks or forms). Both of these are shown in the photos, above.

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The shop vac is mounted, the base of the vacuum chamber has been built and sealed, and the switch plate has been installed.

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Current state of the platen; 126 holes to go...tomorrow.

Today I finished the vacuum box and worked on the chamber that distributes the vacuum over the working area. I also started work on the platen that is the base of the working area that supports the buck patterns. The platen is an aluminum plate into which I'm drilling 609 holes over a 1/2 inch grid. It's where the softened plastic gets sucked down over the pattern, creating the shaped item.

Finally, I worked on the mounting system that holds the oven over the vacuum (shown in the very first photo, above). When complete, I'll explain and demonstrate the operation, and why the major components are positioned and aligned the way they are. For now, the picture shows how I've used a pile of wood (of which there is no shortage in my shop) to set the height and alignment. Tomorrow I'll mount the channels (and buy the screws ... d'oh!), finish and mount the platen, and possibly start work on the wiring.

About me

NOTE: The contents of this post (with some important editing) has now become my About page. I recommend reading that over bothering with this post.

Well, I need to create some sort of bio for the about page. I'm enjoy creating these altered images of our traditional statesmen, imagining what they'd be like if exposed to modern geek culture or what geek culture would be like if it stretched back into their eras. Sort of like the steampunk concept. I'd like to think that a slight temporal nudge would establish Ben Franklin as one of our founding geeks. Think of the geek aphorisms that we'd have right now.

I'm nowhere near his league in experience or wisdom, but compared to the vast majority of younger geeks I meet at conventions and online, I have achieved some sort of elder status. Combined with my interest in the breadth of geek culture, I've wanted a place to store my explorations, thoughts, observations, experimentation, and occasional exploitation of my geek experience. This site will become that repository.

I've been a geek for over half a century. I count the start when I read my first comic book. It was a Marvel Journey Into Mystery featuring Thor, and I remember that he was fighting gangsters. I believe it was issue #89 with a cover date of Feb. 1963, and that more or less fits all of my other memories of the time.

Since then I've marveled at the Silver Surfer, wondered at the coming of Galactus, cried over Gwen Stacy and Jean Grey, watched the Hulk fight the Wendigo and some little Canadian guy dressed in yellow and black, rolled my eyes at the Punisher, tried to understand The Watchman, felt overwhelmed by Crisis after Crisis, and ... well, you get the idea.

And that's just comic culture. I voraciously read science fiction and fantasy; grokking the Kwisatz Haderach while flying on a white dragon with my precious. I've watched the premier of EVERY Star Trek series (TOS through Enterprise, and I like ALL of them). I remember asking my father about every villain in the Batman TV series (remember I was a Silver Age Marvel reader). And in college, I took a woman on our first date to see Star Wars (before it was called A New Hope).

Gaming has run the gambit from RPGs (including the original D&D), LARPs (Shadowrun and Vampire: The Masquerade), text games (Crystal Caves, Zork, etc), video games (from Pong and ASCII Star Trek to Lara Croft), MUDs and MMORPGs (so many choices), and the current table top craze (who'd have thought).

Although I attended the first San Francisco Star Trek convention back in the 70's, I took a long break from conventions until my 50th birthday when I finally attended San Diego Comic-Con. I've been back ever since. Convention culture has become its own phenomena, and so I'm also attending WonderCon and APE, and plan on adding a few more conventions to my schedule in the next couple of years.

And every year I've tried some new geek sub-culture, from Bronies to Furries. Some stick (I attend the Kung Fu movie round up every year at Comic-Con) and others don't (I appreciate My Little Pony, but it's not on my regular watch list). My current obsession is Cosplay, and I'll be documenting my progress.

To be clear, this ain't no humble brag. I'm flat out bragging. I like geeks, and I'm proud to be one. I like the imagination and creativity they show, the seriousness and the humor, the detail and the lack of continuity. I dive in where I can and try to understand the joys, motivations, and dreams. I've lived long enough to have some perspective and have enough disposable income to explore. What I record here is subject to my biases and viewpoint.

Live long and prosper, may the force be with you, and excelsior!

Let's give this a try

I want to create a place where I can record my geek life in a bit more detail, without spamming the friends and family who follow my personal blog or Facebook account. I'll log my explorations into geek culture, including discoveries, critiques, acquisitions, and progress reports. Although I welcome visitors, the real intent is to keep a personal log of all of these activities. I'd like to be able to refer back to older projects and find references, methods, and materials.

My track record on maintaining a regular presence in social media is uneven (well, honestly it's been MIA), so this is also a fresh attempt to see if I can maintain a regular presence.