Eric Hart figured out how to make a vacuum former for free, and wrote this instructable showing how:

I recently needed 12 fake candlestick phones for a musical (“Crazy For You”). Real candlestick phones are incredibly expensive, and even replicas were too much for my budget. All 12 needed to match as well. I decided to make them all.

I wanted to match the shape of the bases to the real thing, but it would take too long to sculpt 12 bases, and casting them would be too expensive. It looked like it could be vacuum formed. I’ve worked with plastics in the past, but never with a vacuum former, though I’ve seen some in action. I couldn’t spend a lot of time or money building a vacuum forming machine for this project; I figured if I liked what it was capable of, I would build a nicer one after this project based on what I learned.

After researching what I needed, I found I could build one for free. I already had the necessary components in my shop. I figured many prop makers will already have these parts as well, so I am sharing how I did it.