anyone have any good tips on building a cheap vacuum forming machine at home?

Im making a guy manuel de homem christo helmet and the final piece will be vacuum formed, any tips?

There are several threads on here about vacuum forming, hope these will be of some help to you.......there may be more but I just did a quick search............

http://www.therpf.com/f9/my-vacuum-forming-table-my-easy-heating-125499/

http://www.therpf.com/f9/anyone-ever-built-style-vac-form-machine-59607/

http://www.therpf.com/f11/vacuforming-questions-133703/

Shylaah

How large of a surface build area do you need?
What is your definition of inexpensive?
I teach technology at a high school and have a small vacuum former that is fairly cheap and good quality. It has a 10"x14" area but we have never done something that large. The total cost for the former cost us about $1000

Shylaah said:

http://www.therpf.com/f9/my-vacuum-forming-table-my-easy-heating-125499/

Click to expand...

I built one of these, works really really well.
But if you are looking to vac-form a transparent visor you may have difficulty. I couldn't get pet-g to completely cover my buck for my guy-man visor, just couldn't get the suction. it pulled about 95% of the way. ended up getting it done professionally.

If you are looking for a one off, you might be better going to speak to a local professional, if you ask really nicely they might do a one off pull.

This system works amazingly with styrene though, so it wasn't a complete waste.