to Spence.... vacuum forming

[murof]

hello,

I'm reading your post about plastic cover & vacuum forming..... can you post a photo of your cover?....

thanks and excuse for my english

bye

[Spence]

The ones below are for 50's style P90's. The second shot shows them side-on which may look roughly finished to you but that's the way they were back then.

[murof]

Hello Spence,
thanks, cover in photo seems a perfect vintage-style mold....
do you build also modern style close jazzbass cover or soapbar for bass? or if you do not build these, do you think that vacuum forming is a good method to reproduce these kind of cover?

i'm starting to build a vacuum forming machine.....
thanks

[Spence]

Well I only really use them for vintage P90s and Strat covers. You can make any cover you like but you need to make really crisp molds and spend quite a bit of time cleaning the covers up before you can use them. However, the advantage is that you can make them as you need them which is way quicker than waiting for them to arrive in the post.

It's worth pointing out that vacu-forming is very satisfying but requires a lot of trial and error to get right. I make my moulds using chemical metal which is like car body filler with aluminium dust in it. I have found that brushing hot vaseline on the former is the best release agent for plastic covers.

[David King]

Sheldon Dingwall makes his pickup covers with ABS plastic and a vacuum former. They look really sharp though the ABS seems a tad bit softer than most of the injection molded plastic covers.

[David Schwab]

Sheldon Dingwall makes his pickup covers with ABS plastic and a vacuum former. They look really sharp though the ABS seems a tad bit softer than most of the injection molded plastic covers.

I was just going to bring this up. I asked Sheldon how he made his covers and he said they were vacuum formed, but then he went on to say: "It's not a very precise process and limited detail wise so we'll be transitioning over to casting as soon as I get the time to make up the masters."

He also said he casts his knobs.

That was January '07. I wonder if he is still vacuum forming?