How to vacuum form an army helmet

Andy showed us a picture of the war helmet we would be making and scaled this image up to the right size on another piece of paper.

• Stick this image onto a thin plastic sheet and mark where the centre is

• Cut only half of the shape of the hat out.

• Cut the remaining half of the hat out. The outline of the hat should be left on the bigger piece of plastic and cut this off.

• Sand the edge down slightly to get a smooth finish

• Stick the end that would be the centre of the hat to the end of a stick using super glue and an agent that sets if off quickly.

• Using a small block of wood drill a hole big enough for the stick to fit inside it. Then stick this to a board of wood using a mixture of super glue and PVA glue (to give a fast sticking but strong glue.)

• Then coat this with 2 layers of sealing agent so that the plaster doesn't soak into the wood.

• The stick can then be put into the hole. You can coat the hole in Vaseline to help it rotate.

• Mix plaster by putting warm water into a bowl and sprinkling plaster until it makes peaks in the water.  

• Mix with hands until mixture thickens

• Slop mixture in centre of the board around the base of the stick. Rotate the stick every once in a while to scrape the plaster into the shape of the helmet.

• Build up the layers till you have a helmet mould then remove the stick.

• You can now take this to the vacuum former. Place the mould onto the table and lower it.

• Cut a piece of plastic (around 27 inches squared) and place on the section above the table (shiny side up.)

• Lower the metal frame and clamp handles

• Bring heater over the plastic until you can see it go wavy

• Push heater back and bring table up (by pulling the lever on the right of the machine towards you) and press start.

• After a few seconds push the stop button (the plastic would now have been moulded around your plaster mould hat.) and wait till the plastic has cooled. (You will know when it has cooled when you push your fingernail into the plastic and it doesn't dent.)

• Unclamp the frame and take the plastic from the plaster mould.

• Cut your plastic mould around the base of the hat. 

And there you have it!