The Phlatformer

Workshop

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

View more articles by Sean Michael Ragan

@seanragan

November 13th, 2011 8

The Phlatformer is a hobby vacuum- forming machine that quick-melts 10″ square plastic sheets into form-hugging shapes. Originally built for R/C modelers to make identical, lightweight body parts, it has many uses; for example, I plan to form custom holders to display my raygun collection. The kit’s parts and thoughtful extras never skimp on quality, and include everything except a vacuum cleaner and a hot plate — I use a Rival S11P 11″ skillet from Wal-Mart ($20). The DVD build guide can be supplemented with the active forum at phlatforum.com, and although there are lot of parts, most of them are self-indexing and more or less impossible to assemble incorrectly.

8 thoughts on “The Phlatformer”

MAKE | CNC Panel Joinery Notebook says:

April 13th, 2012 at 9:02 am

[…] nut joint is seen on a number of commercial products featuring CNC-cut parts, for instance the Phlatformer vacuum former kit and several popular 3D printer […]
CNC Panel Joinery Notebook | House of Mods says:

April 13th, 2012 at 9:59 am

[…] nut joint is seen on a number of commercial products featuring CNC-cut parts, for instance the Phlatformer vacuum former kit and several popular 3D printer […]
CNC Panel Joinery Notebook says:

April 13th, 2012 at 4:48 pm

[…] nut joint is seen on a number of commercial products featuring CNC-cut parts, for instance the Phlatformer vacuum former kit and several popular 3D printer […]
High Technology » Blog Archive » CNC Panel Joinery Notebook says:

April 13th, 2012 at 9:28 pm

[…] nut joint is seen on a number of commercial products featuring CNC-cut parts, for instance the Phlatformer vacuum former kit and several popular 3D printer […]