Today we managed to get an induction on the vacuum forming machine and create our plastic moulds.
We had to select some plastic which was roughly the correct density that we wished to use for our objects. Then we had to place our wooden moulds into the machine. Then place the plastic on top of it, in the tray. The heat up the heater, place it over the plastic for around 30 second, then tap the plastic to see it had become malleable. When it was, We dragged the heater back away and pulled the lever down, then pressed the vacuum, which sucked all of the air from around the wood.
Once we had done this, we had to prise the wood from the plastic without breaking it then this gave us our moulds.
The tablet package mould was very succesful. It wasn't perfect, with a few creases in the plastic but this was as good as we could get it and would be brilliant for product photographs. We just need to sand this down now and add the tablets and the printed silver paper to the back, before making the packaging for it.
The bottle holder was less successful. For a start, the inside section was a little to bit, and the text on the side, didn't really vacuum properly, leaving a bad take. We will have to re-cut the mould, then re-vaccum to achieve better results for this. But now we know what to do, it shouldn't take half the time it did.
Overall, really impressed with the results of this. We can move forward from here to crete the packaging.
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