making plastic pickup covers?

[tubedude]

PT or Psychotherapist? if it's psycho.... I really need to up my game with clients!

Physical Therapist. I know 5 Psychologists. 4 of them are bats#!t crazy. They don't belong in anyone's head.
It seems many people are attracted to the field as a desperate appempt to self diagnose.

 

[tubedude]

It’s usually done with the aid of a vacuum, commonly referred to as vacuum forming. Styrene is the plastic and you’d be pretty limited on the thickness doing it at home without making yourself a vacuum forming machine.

It looked like a hair dryer and a form would work. I guess the thermoplastic are too thick? I know the one used in my splint certainly is. It's about eighty thousandths.
A vacuum forming rig makes it more trouble than most will bother with.

 

[Fender_Bender]

It looked like a hair dryer and a form would work. I guess the thermoplastic are too thick? I know the one used in my splint certainly is. It's about eighty thousandths.
A vacuum forming rig makes it more trouble than most will bother with.

One of those heat guns for stripping paint would be hot enough but may be tricky to use . People often soften the plastic in their oven but you need some sort of frame to hold the sheet while watching for the sheet to sag.

 

[rudy4444]

Many of us older folks had the Vac-u-form toy that was marketed in the 1960's. It was a complete small machine that used heated styrene plastic sheets to stretch and vacuum form over a pattern to make model parts and other items.

Here's a good video by Adam Savage detailing how he uses vacuum forming in his shop to create things he uses in his experiments. He is using styrene, some of which is almost 1/8" thick.

 

[NedRyerson]

It’s usually done with the aid of a vacuum, commonly referred to as vacuum forming. Styrene is the plastic and you’d be pretty limited on the thickness doing it at home without making yourself a vacuum forming machine.

I was going to suggest vacu-forming. Lots of people in the cosplay communities do this for their extensive and intricate components, many of which are far larger and more complicated than a pickup cover.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Many of us older folks had the Vac-u-form toy that was marketed in the 1960's. It was a complete small machine that used heated styrene plastic sheets to stretch and vacuum form over a pattern to make model parts and other items.

Here's a good video by Adam Savage detailing how he uses vacuum forming in his shop to create things he uses in his experiments. He is using styrene, some of which is almost 1/8" thick.

I have some knowledge of vacuum forming from back in my career. One of the companies that I worked for did a lot of it in their model shop. They had the good industrial machines of different sizes, and could make all kinds of cool stuff.

But for this little job, I think it's way too much experimenting and tooling. And the final vacu-formed shell would still require a lot of secondary work to reinforce mounting points and fill space. It could be done, but I think the other methods would be less trouble and better results.

 

[Beej]

If you don't mind gluing the plastic directly to your pickups and then shaping them, it can be done pretty easily with simple hand tools. I made these by gluing hobby plastic sheets onto inexpensive jazz pickups with the ears cut off. The thread with the steps starts at this post: Summer Build Off 2024 - Triple Triples: Triple the Third

Summer Build Off 2024 - Triple Triples: Triple the Third

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[Bruce Johnson]

If you don't mind gluing the plastic directly to your pickups and then shaping them, it can be done pretty easily with simple hand tools. I made these by gluing hobby plastic sheets onto inexpensive jazz pickups with the ears cut off. The thread with the steps starts at this post: Summer Build Off 2024 - Triple Triples: Triple the Third

Summer Build Off 2024 - Triple Triples: Triple the Third

Invalid Link Removed

Yes, that's exactly what I think is the simplest and best solution here.

 

[Means2nEnd]

Hi, we have been printing custom covers in many materials. We do a MM and single custom from Nordstrand. For a huge project we have been working on for about 5 years. Injection molded blk plastic ones work well and keeps a sort of standardized sizing for a bunch of options for that reason. I can put up some pics later. We are a team of 4 guys and the Fusion360 software we use for our CNC is very much the same in terms of coding for printing. Carbon fiber I like for texture and feel but they need to be sealed w a finish or those pesky micro fibers over time will do what it does like fiberglass. It's not about strength so much so although dug the feel we have to spray it and it's terribly hard on the printer tips. We are lucky to have the Bamboo printer available to us to try and prototype. That's actually the only reas
on in the beginning we were printing anything was to see if it all worked. Then send off to a printer farm or something.

MusicMan 5 in CF took over 4 hours to print on a decent printer. Cost is pennies it's just time. They have some with actual wood in the materials ect. I hate when there are so many cool options and printer surface plates with patterns of all kinds. Like freaking ProTools to me. I go down all the rabbit holes trying to learn. The use in serious production not so sure but things are getting faster and cheaper all the time relatively to the economy.

 

[Water buffalo]

I just found this thread. Very timely because I have been on a search for the same; creating my own plastic pickup covers.

Recently, I found one of these locally on FB Marketplace...


All it said was vacuum forming machine. I was immediately interested.

The model name was Pro-form, I looked it up and it is a small machine used in the dental industry. I felt pretty sure that this would work for what I needed.

Then, I looked up using this machine for hobby purposes. Adam Savage (who wrote one of my all time favorite books; "Every tool's a hammer") had posted another video about using one of these for other molding uses. THis sealed the deal.


It took me a couple of weeks to hook up with the guy. It was worth it though as he told me that he had two of these machines. Both worked, I bought them for $25 each. Score.

I found other similar used machines for around $100.

I decided to make a cover for a Gibson EB mudbucker, due to it being a simple design. I made a wooden form/plug. Note; I made it quickly, I wanted to play with this thing.

Adam's video helped so much. One thing I didn't listen to was keeping the plastic sheet away from the heat source, it was cold in my shop and the heating element took a bit to heat. Again, I got in a hurry and placed the plastic up against the heat element. I did it twice, with the results pretty much the same (i waited until the plastic was smoking. Not good.). On both pieces, the finish ended up somewhat rough. The first time I tried it, the plastic sheet came with a protective layer and I left it on. It never came off. Lol.



The second try looked much better, but still rough.


The .060" turned out not to be thick enough. I have ordered some .060" black ABS plastic. I feel that it will be thick enough and hopefully it will still be pliable enough.



I'm going to make a more accurate form, with little, if any roundover. I would like to look Fender-ish if that makes any sense. I feel like this can make a professional looking pickup cover.