Building the heat box for forming the skins: Part 1

The heat box is needed to essentially soften the PVC foam board which will then be pushed over a 500mm hemisphere to shape the pieces as a skin for BB8.

The Skin pieces...

There will be 14 pieces that will need to be softened and formed this way, with 6 of them becoming circle (ring) panels and the other 8 becoming triangle pieces between each.

The design of the BB8 unit skin looks like this:

The skins will be 2mm in thickness and will cover the cheese + sides of the chassis.

This is yet another item that I have never done... so this will be both exciting and nerve racking to say the least.

First the box... why?

We need to soften the plastic pvc so we can shape it over objects... we can also build out a vacuum forming kit that once the pvc is soft, placing it over a vacuum bed will shrink fit tight objects to replicate them using the PVC molding.

How do we build it?

We purchase a Quartz heater (shop or garage heater) that basically heats by direct versus heating up the air...

This unit will be placed in the belly of the box, it is roughly 12" x 20" in size...

The box will be roughly 30" high and tapered at the top... meaning the sides will go from 12" to 22" forming a somewhat angular rectangle.

This allows the top to be 22"x22" while the bottom sits tight around the heater.

Here are some photos of the build so far...

Using 1x2" studs will screw the sides together using sheet metal 3/4" screws,,,

Closeup of the 1x2" stud against the two sides...

You can see the angle from the narrow lower portion forming to a more square upper portion.

Another view of the studs alignment.

Test placed the heater at the bottom - perfect fit!

Looks like we are ready for the next piece...

Tin foil the insides :)