It took me a few weeks to put together a vacuum forming machine, I searched around online for a while to figure out the best way to do it. I started with a sheet of concrete board, and 8 coils of nichrome heater wire, stapled them to the board and wired them to the 240v line. I calculated the wattage at a little under 10k, wow! I built a frame to hold my plexiglass, which is just a hinged steel job, some window gasket on the inner side does a good job of keeping the sheet in place. The frame for the whole rig is just steel, and is really very simple (I just built this for doing a part here or there, not production). After a few tries, I got a part that works! Next time I'll use a more solid mold though, as the one I built didn't stand up well to the vacuum force.