I'm looking to have a mobile phone holder for my car, to fit in the cup holder. I found one on Ebay;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271922138463

But it's ridiculously expensive and probably won't fit my phone. I want to make one from some kind of stiff foam, I'm thinking the same stuff that Crocs are made of? Does anyone know where I could get the raw material from, or even what it's called?

Food for thought?

http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=4770.0

It shouldn't be too tricky to adapt for your purposes, i wouldn't use your phone as the actual blank in the mould as it might stick to it.

Dave

Phone in condom, place inside a cup, fill with silicone. leave to set. remove phone, hey presto.

Through my Lo cost eyes it looks like a drinks mug with a reinforced lid containing a slot lined with Karrimat Plas ta zoate then all sprayed black. 😂

You could mould one using polymorph and your kettle but by the time you buy a bag and experiment a bit you will be half way there!
You could also make a deluxe ali one ( or nylon ) and mill out a slot

Excellent ideas, thank you. The expanding foam has certainly got to be the most ingenious, but I think in a car environment it's just going to vibrate into crumbs. Polymorph is similarly clever, but a melting point of 60 degrees would also mean it's life in a car would be limited. The silicone idea was pretty much what I was thinking about, just didn't have a clue what to actually call silicone!

I'd love to do the aluminium one, it would fit perfectly in the car (lots of fake metal trim). I think the phone would come off the worst with that though, and using foam pads etc would lose the aesthetics. The nylon version would be a good compromise, again with shiny black it would match the car interior and would be fairly easy to work with, and hopefully nylon would do less damage to the phone.

Time for me to do some shopping! Thanks again everyone.

What about using some sort of self setting material like latex.

You could try Sugru - I've seen some amazing things made out of it.

I was thinking about this before - too much time on my hands and I wondered if you could vac form the top half of the original idea from some ABS and line the slot with either foam or felt as phone wouldn't need supporting along it's full length unless it's a mega deep one.
Doing it that way the former isn't too deep ( so less likely to break through) and could be built up quickly in a couple of stages. If the mould is any good you could knock them out for others.

The SUGRU stuff looks interesting we did try something very similar for taking moulds off things for pewter casting replicas but it cost quite a lot and didn’t have a very good shelf life. I will try some when we go back to work


[Edited on 31/7/15 by trextr7monkey]