Vacuform Machine and Helmet Design and Fabrication

So I decided to start this thread for those of us at the watch and chat level of the Fon Davis Class (and anyone else who might like to chime in).  We wont have instructor interaction at this level but at least we can help and inspire each other.             

I spent some time at OSH hardware and saw a lot of the parts necessary to build the vacuformer but didn’t get anything as of yet.  They had a small shop vac there for a reasonable price but when I opened it up I saw that it didn’t have a straight vac tube that we saw in the demo one so it would not work.  They also had perforated aluminum sheet that looks a lot like Fon’s old platen. It is pretty thin so it would need re-enforcement below to make it work but would save a lot of drilling.  (Although Fon mentioned he wouldn’t use this material again because of the deformation under vacuum). 

Seeing as I don’t have a lot of the tools in my shop to cut, grind, and weld I am going to hold of on the heater portion of the vacuformer for a bit. 

So I have been working on a couple of concept sketches for my helmet.  Some things I am thinking about are practical; like comfort so I am designing a space at the back for a small squirrel fan.  The other things I am thinking about conceptually are utilitarian (i.e. if I was designing a real helmet I would want…)  So for this idea I am thinking that the wearer of the helmet has electronically elevated senses.  The overall animalness of the design is because many in the animal kingdom have greater sense of hearing and smelling.  I want to put small servos in the ears to rotate giving the character the ability to hone in on certain sounds as well as offering the ability to animate them for reactions. The large eye areas are meant to give the wearer full range of site including the periphery. 

I was thinking of constructing the plugs on the half and seaming it down the center but that may create construction problems.  I’m not sure would love input.