scratching satellite dishes?

[Dr. Snuts, M.D.]

The only effective method I can think of to create custom spheres in various sizes is to vacuform over a sphere. I've never vacuformed anything in my life and was curious if there were any alternatives?

[NNYGamer]

Depends on how big you want, ping pong balls make a nice sturdy and thing dish. Sometimes plastic packages have the right shape to them.

[Wug]

Hi Dr. Snuts,

NNYGamer is right. If you can find a plastic object with the proper curvature, use it.

For shallow sections over a sphere, you won't need a vacuum former. The simple heat and smash technique should work fine.

HTH

Mike

[Mr. Badwrench]

The trinkets that come in gumball dispensers. Plastic Christmas ornaments. Fishing floats. Vacuformed candy blister packs.

[Chacal]

Bottoms of beverage cans — very thin.

[Andrew Gorman]

I've cold formed some up to about an inch in diameter from sheet styrene with a dapping block and punch. Here's a random link with a picture-
http://mechanicalphilosopher.blogspot.c ... d-die.html
I've made some blisters, astrodomes, radar dishes and landing gear feet with mine.

[jgoldader]

I've recently vacuformed a high-gain antenna for a model of a satellite. I bought a few elliptical domes from Plastruct, and am using them for forms. The domes are cheap, a few dollars each, and I cobbled together the vacuform box out of leftover bits of wood from the basement. The heat gun was $18 at the local MicroCenter, it was meant for wire shrink-wrapping.

10- or 20-mil sheet should work best, though I wasted many sheets because I didn't have them at the right temperature. My efforts ended up being more heat-n-smash than real vacuforming. I might try using my oven in the future.

Hope this is useful.

Jeff