Best video I've seen so far on how to recycle plastic and make parts with it. Very well done. All other videos I saw was people just making a plastic sheet as thin as paper and telling people you can make all kinds of parts.
If you re-melt the shavings you will get a great blank with less voids. The smaller you get your pieces in the first place will result in better more solid blanks. If you can powder the scrap hdpe down (maybe on a belt sander or similar, and collect the powder) then re-melt the powder, it will come out perfect. Great video btw keep up the good work! Another thing you can use to get smaller pieces is to buy an old blender/liquidiser, take the blade out and sharpen it, then reinstall and blitz the scrap pieces of HDPE until it's as small as you can get it.
Some plastic product will contain additives, normally glass beads and fibers to improve the certain characteristics of it. Either structurally rigidity and strength or wear resistance and toughness. This means that machining reused plastics(with additives) can wear down tools quicker as the plastic basically act as a kind of sandpaper. in your case it doesn't matter too much sins you use carbide tooling. But it is a good idea to check if it does contain additives some time it will be marked on the part, but at other times it will not. A quick way to check is to burn a piece of the plastic and crush the remains between two pieces of metal and listing after a crunching sound. place some sand in between two pieces metal to get rough idea of the sound.
First thing that I learnt here after watching other HDPE vids on YT is that you guys in the US don't have toaster ovens that make 350 degrees Celsius (OMG!) but that it's Fahrenheit instead. Good video!
Nice video. I am thinking that part of the problem with the voids in the stock is due to the size of your original chips. A possible solution could be to use a cheap food processor on the grater function to produce smaller shavings from your original chips. They come with a range of blade types so there is the potential to experiment with the most suitable type of blade to use. It is well worth checking out cheap food processors at your local big brand store as the small investment is well worth it in comparison to getting into trouble for ruining someones [usually a she who must be obeyed type] expensive unit which was probably received as a gift.
HDPE is a fun material. Some woodworkers like using it because you can get crazy colors from household product containers, and end up with awesome colors and patterns.
If you're talking about removing the bubbles from the round stock by making it uniform you can also do that by creating a vacuum or adding certain additives so you get a near perfect stock from the get go. I'm not sure what you would be making that wouldn't eventually require a lathe to shape it though unless you were directly adding your melted material to a mold.
what everyone doesn't own a lathe? I still have mine that I bought when I was 16 I'm 41 now It's a 1960's standard modern 10" utilathe I love that old girl LOL!
+Adam R Blue plastic drums are also HDPE, quite a lot of buckets are too, almost all the liquid detergent jugs i've come across, some plastic bags, and a few of the heavy duty drainage pipes. One of my neighbors is pretty in to recycling stuff and does art pieces on the side with the thing. So i "donate" most HDPE things to him. Beware, of HDPE from gas cans and flammable liquid containers, unless you really know what you're doing with the cleanup part, the thing might flash even after a while, being left to vent.
+Adam R yeah hdpe is everywhere detergent bottles are also made of it shampoo bottles 5 gallon buckets and even shopping bags which i molded into a one foot long strip similar to a furring strip and i tried breaking it with two channelock pliers and with all my effort it was nearly impossible to bend this stuff is awesome
you can also do the same with PP, most botle caps here are made of pp so when we tried we didnt have enought hdpe to make something like that. We used pp in an oven with a thermostat around 220ºC, maybe a little higher for a little while until we started smelling smoke or nasty smells from the pp. The rresult was quite usable, no bubbles quite smooth, the only thing is that you need to keep it longer and mix it if posible to about layering and weak points. Still the result was as good as aluminium for making parts that do not need friction resistance.
+Laharl Krichevskoy agree, I found PP and HDPE very similar , PP melting without burning around 200, HDPE 220 deg C, PP perhaps slightly more brittle than HDPE
racketman2u we cut a tiny piece with the hacksaw and even thought the bounding wasnt that good we had a hard time bending it or even breaking it. Even in the vice we couldnt break it, it just bent and became white in the bending point..
I really liked this video! It would be cool if you did more HDPE recycling videos in the future. I would like to see a practical application of it in one of your projects. You should do something with it
+Pedro Laroque Will most likely burn the plastic and release the toxic fumes that come from heating somewhere over 425-450F. The best way to mold HDPE is with injection molding, making a mold and inserting plastic under pressure.
Nice ! If you're planning to use a lot of these you may try out some kind of vacuum chamber or pressure chamber, which may be a little tedious to make but it'll save you a lot of time. Greetings from Argentina !
One thing you might want to try for the next one, is to try and find one of those metal cans that fit inside silicone dispensers, the gun type with a press. That will give you a lot of pressure, AND, you can machine a disc that fits in place of the regular washer, thus, no more leakage because it doesn't fit the can. :D Heck, if you're down for it, you can machine a small bib (think of it as a bolt and a long nut, the bolt is drilled through, you place the bolt through the end of the can before you melt stuff and keep it shut with a nail or something) and place it on that can, and voila, you have a way to make HDPE cable. :) Which is good if you want to wrap handles and stuff like that. It's durable and you can make it any color you want.
Excellent video, great re-use idea. Love the music too. Tip for those it annoys, turn the sound down on your PC.........simple eh? Keep up the good work.
Use silicone spray to remove it from your can mold. (I'm a machine operator at a plastic car parts factory) It works on industrial steel molds, curious to see if it would work small scale and on a different metal.
Good idea for a DIY. I used to run a small injection molding machine when I lived in WA. Mostly ABS and PVC for Jacuzzii jets and control panel bezels. We had a grinder for making Re-grind from parts that failed inspection. I think the maximum we used was about 35% regrind to new material which came as pellets. Course our pellets went through a dryer for a day or so to remove moisture which cause "splay" or marks on the surface. I have a bunch of those old dremel cases. Wonder if that playground equipment is No. 2? Good Vid.
You make interesting and informative vids - but any chance you can lose the repetitive sound loops, please? They quickly get very irritating and just make me mute the sound, so where is the point? Does anyone like them??? What is wrong with a bit of peace and quiet with the natural noises of what you are doing?
I would caution anyone who attempts this at home. I worked in plastics for over eight years. I have put out countless plastic fires and even in controlled environments these fires spread fast! Also if you get it on your skin in liquid state. You will bear scars for the rest of your days. Let's not even touch the health problems you will get from inhaling the fumes. I am all for DIY but I would leave this one to the professionals.
Professionals? What kind of pro? Like a phD graduate in chemistry department or something? 😂 knock it off! The term professional is so wisely abused these days. Professional plastic melter, pro pancake flipper.. 😂
haha great job brah. at first i thought you where gonna make a mold of the final piece then melt,pour and cast the final piece that way but machining it from stock cylinders u make , brilliant! now if only i could find a lathe machine hehe and space to put it in
I liked this video. This is a pretty straight forward video. As far as the people hating because you're not telling them why they need to do this, you should ignore them. If they don't see the value in HMWPE that's their failing not yours. I'd really like the video if the volume of the tools turning on were muted somewhat. The video does almost have an ASMR quality to it, but the sound of the tools clicking on is a little harsh. Maybe bring the volume down to 60%.
To help get rid of some of the voids, try leaving it in the oven for a longer period of time in the last step, this allows the bubbles to work there way up to the top, or at least all the way to one end which gives you more usable material. It would also be nice to see another video once you have done this more to see if there is anything you have learned or changed to yield better results.
that metal is probably worth more than the plastic you melted and the electricity and the metal would be cheaper just to buy the plastic stock is there any way to make a reusable mold?
Nerys Silicone is stable at this temperature and makes an excellent nonstick mold medium. RTV (Room Temperature Vulcanizing) silicone is very easy to work with, but ideally after mixing it is put through a quick but thorough vacuum chamber cycle to remove the air bubbles introduced in the mixing stage, so it does require some special equipment to do it properly and get the optimum results. The silicone is rather flexible (which makes it perfect for removing cast parts of complicated shapes which are not flexible and do not have incorporated draft angles), so depending on the form it could deform while pressing the HDPE in. Two solutions occur to me: the silicone could be a lining within a more rigid form, or put the mold, full of HDPE, back in the vacuum chamber to remove all the air (you let the vacuum run until the bubbles stop "boiling", then release the vacuum and the material settles down into the form). Definite potential there for the home workshop, but it would take some experimentation.
You maybe able to keep the squeeze out from getting your wooden disc from being stuck inside the freshly pressed HDPE. Just make a longer disc; i.e., a cylinder the length of the can, plus a little extra. This will keep the hot, melted HDPE along the can walls as you press down. You might even be able to use wax paper aid in release of the cooled melt from the mold.
great! Thanks for the tutorial. Were you the one who told me about hdpe few days ago? someone told me about it, I didn't know it before, but this video helps a lot!
What a pleasure it was to watch this vid! Now if you could only invent a transporter so that you can teleport yourself to my side of the world, materialise next to me and fix my glasses frames... that would be just great! Not sure that/if it means anything to anybody, but you've made yourself a very happy, new subscriber today! We have a winner! (prolly would be more rewarding if it had been a cash prize instead tho'... :)...) Tx again for imparting the knowledge, not to mention some beautiful handywork! Shot bud! ps What did you end up making with that 'stock' piece? And how do you mould your 'stock' piece into other things?
My first thought when seeing the completed stock is that it would be a great way to make custom pipe adapters for plumbing. I can't help feeling that there are going to be some toxic fumes floating around when melting it though, I would need to investigate before trying this myself.
+Matt Tester (UKMatt2000) Your concern is valid. That's why the ventilation is always on, to prevent inhaling any of those fumes, although there is almost absolutely no smell at all.
I really want to make tyre 'shielding', my dog when excited runs in front of my bike. He's shaved his leg in a few places. It would be nice if I could cover those parts that rub on him.
Jon Massey you are right; if you can glibly talk of spending six quid and then worry about a few pence of power, you are wasting your time even watching this clip.
There is also the added value of recycling; less plastic in the ground/ water. Then there is the DIY advantage of cooking at a mere 350 degrees F. Large scale recycling facilities use a much higher temps which produce toxic gases.(Let's leave out the "cleaning" chemicals, for now.) Then there is the choice of color; liquid laundry detergent bottles come in a variety of bright colors and can usually be got from the local laundromat. (One of my local places separates the detergent bottles from regular trash, but still has to pay to "dump" it. He loves to see me coming. Most of the other laundries will allow you to take them from the trash bins without hassle if you ask politely and have gloves. .. Wear gloves for this....Trust Me.) If you think you will do more than a few projects a year, invest in a guillotine. You may find it useful for many other projects as well.
This would be very useful for quick repairs or rapid prototyping. Waiting for plastic stock to arrive in the mail is tedious, especially if you only need a minor part to get a machine operating again, or some cheap parts for remote field repairs. In the past I've made a bunch of plastic blocks for setting the gaps between panels in solar arrays, rather than measuring each gap individually.
I wouldn't use an oven that I was going to bake food in afterwards, perhaps a old toaster oven dedicated to hobbies such as baking clay would be a healthier option, nice video though.
I have a lot of rustoleum paint can lids, they are plastic but does not have markings on it to tell me what kind of plastic they are, could you tell me how to find out?
+Will6804 you could knead the powder in like dough with oven proof gloves when the hdpe is melted which would give a nice metallic effect but in order to see the effect you would need to use milk jugs which are translucent just realize that powdered metals are flammable
What lathe do you have? I am looking for a good home unit that isnt balls out massive, requiring two New Zealand Prop Forwards to carry the thing in and out for you whilst consuming the equivalent kw/h of Chicago.
I thought you were going to pull a vacuum on it when I first saw the wooden piece with the hole in the center. So there isn't a problem with air pockets in the center? very cool idea
+tom adams The way I did it was not the best. Since I don't have a powerful vacuum system for this, next time I will poke some holes in the can to help air escape. I hope it will work.
+johnnyq90 I think holes would just make a mess. How about after the 2nd addition of plastic placing a heavy weight weight on it while in the oven. I think you could do it with a hand vacuum pump at this scale and it would work better than anything else. I've used a mason jar as vacuum reserve before. It will give you a good quick pull, and it's easy to make. Two holes in the jar lid, and a couple of hose barbs.
+tom adams what i would do is preheat the mold in the oven this would make sure the hdpe doesnt rapidly harden and become unworkable while trying to clamp it down and using a vacuum wouldnt work because hdpe is very thick when melted which a vacuum would be able to fix. the best thing to do is clamp it down really tight and keep tightening the clamp every 5 - 10 minutes since hdpe shrinks when it cools down
Dean Walcott A long time ago I had a toy they would never allow now. It made injection molded toy soldiers. It was like a big syringe mounted on a stand. It came with several metal molds that slide in the base. To make a soldier, slide a mold in under the heated cylinder. Plug it in and wait for it to get dangerously hot. Then measure out a scoop of plastic granules and pour them in the cylinder put the plunger in and wait for the plastic to melt. Then quickly press the plunger down until plastic came out of the molds air vent. There were no indicators, temperature gauges, or lights. We learned by experience when it was ready. It was the most dangerous toy I and my brother ever got, even more than the pellet rifle.
+seac777 if you melt it below 350 from my experience it hardly smells at all just make sure you keep your eye on it and remove it from the oven as soon as its melted
i like this idea. how about extrude those pieces? the extrudate can become filament for 3d printing or you can chop it. so it will become HDPE pellets. by extruding, you can also minimize the amount of gaps. it will be a lot of effort, but i'm sure it will be better than using lathe... ^-^
How can you identify HDPE if you have no info about the plastic? I know it doesn't shatter. By the way you wasted a good dremel case :D The yellow pipes used in gas installations in Greece are HDPE.
you can with a comparison if you can a sample of know HPDE, there are several tests, like burn,smell, smoke and so on, but its easier to just not use plastic which has no marking on it. 95% of the plastic has a marking so its not worth the hassle to identify unmarked plastic.
I tried this and not all HDPE plastics are going to melt equally fast.on 180 c so before doing this do some experiments for better results later :) Also you can use baking paper to prevent plastic from sticking on baking plate or whatever you are using for melting in oven ...
+Ivan Boskovic yep, it also depends on additives but PEHD or HDPE rather melt around 105°C. Just consider the variations of temperature inside your hoven, and adjust for the best melting without burning. Btw,in the industry we usually don't add more than a few percent of recycled material to new batches 'cause it influences a lot the strength of resulting parts.
+Okto Putsch Tell me if you know what kind of fumes HDPE releases when melting on 105/180°C ? Are they toxic ? I know for sure that burning will release some nasty stuff but i am not sure if melting does the same thing.
Ivan Boskovic Yeah, fumes and sometimes smokes too, but on the overall every kind of emanations from various compounds and byproducts, 'cause you must take in account the amount of additives (colorants, plastifiers, etc) which interact altogether at these temperatures. All of this can contribute to an hypersensitivity, so be careful with your lungs... Depending on work conditions, any absence of ventilations, subtle reactions with other chemicals around (trichlorethylen, greases, etc), and so on can harm you on a longterm, or enable your sensitivity. Unless you really want to develop an hepatitis, think twice and be careful... At least, try to avoid mixing same materials from different origins with different colors, and please, turn the air extractor ON. I'm french and our jargon file isn't exactly the same, so i can only recommand you to check for the related english based litterature on health and safety in the plastics industry and the following respiratory hazards. Take care !
Pulleys, rollers, knobs, handles, whatever. That for round stock on the lathe, but you can also make flat blocks and sheets and you can use those for a lot of stuff.
+MrBiky anything that doesn't require a high strength, or submited to big efforts. Consider plastic injection to enhance your parts, for a better ratio material/volume.
Best video I've seen so far on how to recycle plastic and make parts with it. Very well done. All other videos I saw was people just making a plastic sheet as thin as paper and telling people you can make all kinds of parts.
If you re-melt the shavings you will get a great blank with less voids. The smaller you get your pieces in the first place will result in better more solid blanks. If you can powder the scrap hdpe down (maybe on a belt sander or similar, and collect the powder) then re-melt the powder, it will come out perfect. Great video btw keep up the good work!
Another thing you can use to get smaller pieces is to buy an old blender/liquidiser, take the blade out and sharpen it, then reinstall and blitz the scrap pieces of HDPE until it's as small as you can get it.
Very interestnig! It's a pleasure to see the lathe cutter going through the plastic without blinking. awesome!
+Cactus! workshop Thanks!
Some plastic product will contain additives, normally glass beads and fibers to improve the certain characteristics of it.
Either structurally rigidity and strength or wear resistance and toughness.
This means that machining reused plastics(with additives) can wear down tools quicker as the plastic basically act as a kind of sandpaper.
in your case it doesn't matter too much sins you use carbide tooling.
But it is a good idea to check if it does contain additives some time it will be marked on the part, but at other times it will not.
A quick way to check is to burn a piece of the plastic and crush the remains between two pieces of metal and listing after a crunching sound.
place some sand in between two pieces metal to get rough idea of the sound.
thks for info very interesting
First thing that I learnt here after watching other HDPE vids on YT is that you guys in the US don't have toaster ovens that make 350 degrees Celsius (OMG!) but that it's Fahrenheit instead. Good video!
Nice video. I am thinking that part of the problem with the voids in the stock is due to the size of your original chips.
A possible solution could be to use a cheap food processor on the grater function to produce smaller shavings from your original chips. They come with a range of blade types so there is the potential to experiment with the most suitable type of blade to use.
It is well worth checking out cheap food processors at your local big brand store as the small investment is well worth it in comparison to getting into trouble for ruining someones [usually a she who must be obeyed type] expensive unit which was probably received as a gift.
Brilliant! i would never have thought of that, I'm now going to try to make a part for my lathe.
Great easy to follow video,.
Exactly what I wanted to see. Thank you :)
HDPE is a fun material. Some woodworkers like using it because you can get crazy colors from household product containers, and end up with awesome colors and patterns.
great way to recycle plastic.... silent simple and intelligent video
"The procedure is quite simple" if you have a lathe ;)
Digger D Many of us subscribe to the channel because we do.
If you're talking about removing the bubbles from the round stock by making it uniform you can also do that by creating a vacuum or adding certain additives so you get a near perfect stock from the get go. I'm not sure what you would be making that wouldn't eventually require a lathe to shape it though unless you were directly adding your melted material to a mold.
Jon Miller 0
Digger D
what everyone doesn't own a lathe? I still have mine that I bought when I was 16 I'm 41 now It's a 1960's standard modern 10" utilathe I love that old girl LOL!
Awesome, thanks for sharing!
Thanks!
johnnyq90
Hey Johnny I just picked up a HF 7x10 lathe. I have no idea what I'm doing but I'm excited to learn. Thanks for the videos!
Thank you for a very valuable idea. HDPE machines beautifully. I love the idea of recycling.
I believe most milk gallons are also HDPE. Very common and in larger amounts.
Yup. They are hdpe.
+ExplodingScience And allot of drinks bottles caps
+Adam R Blue plastic drums are also HDPE, quite a lot of buckets are too, almost all the liquid detergent jugs i've come across, some plastic bags, and a few of the heavy duty drainage pipes.
One of my neighbors is pretty in to recycling stuff and does art pieces on the side with the thing. So i "donate" most HDPE things to him.
Beware, of HDPE from gas cans and flammable liquid containers, unless you really know what you're doing with the cleanup part, the thing might flash even after a while, being left to vent.
+Adam R The 10 or 25 Liter plastic containers used for chemicals work too
+Adam R yeah hdpe is everywhere detergent bottles are also made of it shampoo bottles 5 gallon buckets and even shopping bags which i molded into a one foot long strip similar to a furring strip and i tried breaking it with two channelock pliers and with all my effort it was nearly impossible to bend this stuff is awesome
you can also do the same with PP, most botle caps here are made of pp so when we tried we didnt have enought hdpe to make something like that. We used pp in an oven with a thermostat around 220ºC, maybe a little higher for a little while until we started smelling smoke or nasty smells from the pp. The rresult was quite usable, no bubbles quite smooth, the only thing is that you need to keep it longer and mix it if posible to about layering and weak points. Still the result was as good as aluminium for making parts that do not need friction resistance.
+Laharl Krichevskoy agree, I found PP and HDPE very similar , PP melting without burning around 200, HDPE 220 deg C, PP perhaps slightly more brittle than HDPE
racketman2u we cut a tiny piece with the hacksaw and even thought the bounding wasnt that good we had a hard time bending it or even breaking it. Even in the vice we couldnt break it, it just bent and became white in the bending point..
NIce video. Liked it and never guessed this would be possible.
+Roma Maastricht Thank you sir!
I really liked this video! It would be cool if you did more HDPE recycling videos in the future. I would like to see a practical application of it in one of your projects. You should do something with it
Easy when you have the right tools to mill it down into a part! But like alot of people are saying not everybody has a lathe!
Will be trying this for my quadbike chain rollers
Try making a mold of plaster or clay, filling it up with shavings and baking the whole thing in a charcoal fire (an oven should work just fine)
+Pedro Laroque Will most likely burn the plastic and release the toxic fumes that come from heating somewhere over 425-450F. The best way to mold HDPE is with injection molding, making a mold and inserting plastic under pressure.
Nice ! If you're planning to use a lot of these you may try out some kind of vacuum chamber or pressure chamber, which may be a little tedious to make but it'll save you a lot of time.
Greetings from Argentina !
One thing you might want to try for the next one, is to try and find one of those metal cans that fit inside silicone dispensers, the gun type with a press. That will give you a lot of pressure, AND, you can machine a disc that fits in place of the regular washer, thus, no more leakage because it doesn't fit the can. :D
Heck, if you're down for it, you can machine a small bib (think of it as a bolt and a long nut, the bolt is drilled through, you place the bolt through the end of the can before you melt stuff and keep it shut with a nail or something) and place it on that can, and voila, you have a way to make HDPE cable. :) Which is good if you want to wrap handles and stuff like that. It's durable and you can make it any color you want.
You could probably also melt it and use in a silicon mold for recreating small plastic parts instead of resin. Good video!
LOL, looks like we had the same script! Cool video tho!
+The Small Workshop I subbed to your channel as well. Good video
+The Small Workshop I was obviously inspired by your video, it was very well done ;-)
+johnnyq90 Yea, no worries mate, I was inspired by others and so on :)
+The Small Workshop Immediately thought of your channel less than a minute in.
Ima check you out next homeboy
that has to be the cleanest lathe ever.
Excellent video, great re-use idea. Love the music too. Tip for those it annoys, turn the sound down on your PC.........simple eh? Keep up the good work.
Amazing video. It will be very useful for my projects. thank you
what are you planning on building
+Nicholas Ruiz What did he build?
MM420 custom plastic parts
Use silicone spray to remove it from your can mold. (I'm a machine operator at a plastic car parts factory)
It works on industrial steel molds, curious to see if it would work small scale and on a different metal.
Good idea for a DIY. I used to run a small injection molding machine when I lived in WA. Mostly ABS and PVC for Jacuzzii jets and control panel bezels. We had a grinder for making Re-grind from parts that failed inspection. I think the maximum we used was about 35% regrind to new material which came as pellets. Course our pellets went through a dryer for a day or so to remove moisture which cause "splay" or marks on the surface. I have a bunch of those old dremel cases. Wonder if that playground equipment is No. 2? Good Vid.
You make interesting and informative vids - but any chance you can lose the repetitive sound loops, please? They quickly get very irritating and just make me mute the sound, so where is the point? Does anyone like them??? What is wrong with a bit of peace and quiet with the natural noises of what you are doing?
SAHBfan gay
SAHBfan true :/
I would caution anyone who attempts this at home. I worked in plastics for over eight years. I have put out countless plastic fires and even in controlled environments these fires spread fast! Also if you get it on your skin in liquid state. You will bear scars for the rest of your days. Let's not even touch the health problems you will get from inhaling the fumes. I am all for DIY but I would leave this one to the professionals.
alexanderracer please i want to learn work from you
No man stop scaring people. What is your reason to scare people away ? Cooking pizza or cake can burn in the oven also and create fumes.
Professionals? What kind of pro? Like a phD graduate in chemistry department or something? 😂 knock it off! The term professional is so wisely abused these days. Professional plastic melter, pro pancake flipper.. 😂
haha great job brah. at first i thought you where gonna make a mold of the final piece then melt,pour and cast the final piece that way but machining it from stock cylinders u make , brilliant! now if only i could find a lathe machine hehe and space to put it in
I liked this video.
This is a pretty straight forward video.
As far as the people hating because you're not telling them why they need to do this, you should ignore them.
If they don't see the value in HMWPE that's their failing not yours.
I'd really like the video if the volume of the tools turning on were muted somewhat. The video does almost have an ASMR quality to it, but the sound of the tools clicking on is a little harsh. Maybe bring the volume down to 60%.
Great job..first time or not great work 👍
Excellent idea!
To help get rid of some of the voids, try leaving it in the oven for a longer period of time in the last step, this allows the bubbles to work there way up to the top, or at least all the way to one end which gives you more usable material. It would also be nice to see another video once you have done this more to see if there is anything you have learned or changed to yield better results.
always see your videos, thanks for sharing your knowledge.
+Bruno Alves Thank you ;)
Nice job.. A manual bench press and some aluminum tubing would make this a lot easier... I have tons of pla and abs scrap if you want to play with..
that metal is probably worth more than the plastic you melted and the electricity and the metal would be cheaper just to buy the plastic stock is there any way to make a reusable mold?
Nerys Silicone is stable at this temperature and makes an excellent nonstick mold medium. RTV (Room Temperature Vulcanizing) silicone is very easy to work with, but ideally after mixing it is put through a quick but thorough vacuum chamber cycle to remove the air bubbles introduced in the mixing stage, so it does require some special equipment to do it properly and get the optimum results.
The silicone is rather flexible (which makes it perfect for removing cast parts of complicated shapes which are not flexible and do not have incorporated draft angles), so depending on the form it could deform while pressing the HDPE in. Two solutions occur to me: the silicone could be a lining within a more rigid form, or put the mold, full of HDPE, back in the vacuum chamber to remove all the air (you let the vacuum run until the bubbles stop "boiling", then release the vacuum and the material settles down into the form).
Definite potential there for the home workshop, but it would take some experimentation.
Cool video as always
You maybe able to keep the squeeze out from getting your wooden disc from being stuck inside the freshly pressed HDPE. Just make a longer disc; i.e., a cylinder the length of the can, plus a little extra. This will keep the hot, melted HDPE along the can walls as you press down. You might even be able to use wax paper aid in release of the cooled melt from the mold.
great! Thanks for the tutorial. Were you the one who told me about hdpe few days ago?
someone told me about it, I didn't know it before, but this video helps a lot!
+DerKrawallkeks It wasn't me, but I'm glad that I helped;-)
;) seriously, just a few days ago. Someone was like "hey, to create your own plastic parts, you can use HDPE like that, it's in there, lala and so on"
Ahh, now I know what to do with those empty tool cases I see at the local 2nd-hand shop!
Thanks for the great idea
Wow very neat!
Ive known ballerinas move less gracefully than you rotate a bit of plastic or empty can.
What a pleasure it was to watch this vid! Now if you could only invent a transporter so that you can teleport yourself to my side of the world, materialise next to me and fix my glasses frames... that would be just great! Not sure that/if it means anything to anybody, but you've made yourself a very happy, new subscriber today! We have a winner! (prolly would be more rewarding if it had been a cash prize instead tho'... :)...) Tx again for imparting the knowledge, not to mention some beautiful handywork! Shot bud! ps What did you end up making with that 'stock' piece? And how do you mould your 'stock' piece into other things?
A lathe will set you back a couple of thousandth dollars
My first thought when seeing the completed stock is that it would be a great way to make custom pipe adapters for plumbing. I can't help feeling that there are going to be some toxic fumes floating around when melting it though, I would need to investigate before trying this myself.
+Matt Tester (UKMatt2000) Your concern is valid. That's why the ventilation is always on, to prevent inhaling any of those fumes, although there is almost absolutely no smell at all.
Cool, nice video, thanks for sharing
It sounds good. Melting it is easy but forming it into the desired shape is not as easy until you have elaborate jigs.
The evil man destroyed a DREMEL case!
I saw a carrefour bag!! You must be in a French area LOL
"honey what the hell are you cooking it smells like shit!"
Me- 😳😬😳
remember to wash shavings with detergent to get rid of any machining oil
excellent...wonderful...very helpful
+Sajid Rafique Thank you sir.
Thank you sir.
Cool! but sorry for my ignorance, but what´s the machine you use to remove the grasp?
I really want to make tyre 'shielding', my dog when excited runs in front of my bike. He's shaved his leg in a few places. It would be nice if I could cover those parts that rub on him.
Try heating the plastic and pouring into the mold for better results.
Is ur cooker reusable for cooking food safely then ?
It's genius
Awesome ! Great info !
cooling it down as slowly as possible aided in air gap pockets prevention
HDPE bar stock is about £6/m for 25mm bar, this seems like a lot of work and probably not very energy efficient!
+Jon Massey but scrap plastic costs 0, and you can mould it to whatever diameter you need in 10 minutes
It only costs 0 if you get free electricity/gas and you value your time at nothing
Jon Massey
you are right; if you can glibly talk of spending six quid and then worry about a few pence of power, you are wasting your time even watching this clip.
There is also the added value of recycling; less plastic in the ground/ water. Then there is the DIY advantage of cooking at a mere 350 degrees F. Large scale recycling facilities use a much higher temps which produce toxic gases.(Let's leave out the "cleaning" chemicals, for now.) Then there is the choice of color; liquid laundry detergent bottles come in a variety of bright colors and can usually be got from the local laundromat. (One of my local places separates the detergent bottles from regular trash, but still has to pay to "dump" it. He loves to see me coming. Most of the other laundries will allow you to take them from the trash bins without hassle if you ask politely and have gloves. .. Wear gloves for this....Trust Me.) If you think you will do more than a few projects a year, invest in a guillotine. You may find it useful for many other projects as well.
This would be very useful for quick repairs or rapid prototyping. Waiting for plastic stock to arrive in the mail is tedious, especially if you only need a minor part to get a machine operating again, or some cheap parts for remote field repairs. In the past I've made a bunch of plastic blocks for setting the gaps between panels in solar arrays, rather than measuring each gap individually.
I have some white Delrin 5/8 in dia rods that are warped. How should I straighten them ?
johnnyq90, please, tell me what music plays in that video. Thank you.
I wouldn't use an oven that I was going to bake food in afterwards, perhaps a old toaster oven dedicated to hobbies such as
baking clay would be a healthier option, nice video though.
Dave Spiller he's mentioned several times that this oven is only used for projects and never for food.
I have a lot of rustoleum paint can lids, they are plastic but does not have markings on it to tell me what kind of plastic they are, could you tell me how to find out?
I wonder what would happen if you thoroughly mixed titanium or maybe just aluminum powder to it...
If you add aluminium powder it will turn out ugly because even if the hdpe is molten it still isn't dense enough for it to mix in
+Will6804 you could knead the powder in like dough with oven proof gloves when the hdpe is melted which would give a nice metallic effect but in order to see the effect you would need to use milk jugs which are translucent just realize that powdered metals are flammable
Titanium powder is highly flammable....
Great. Thanks.
Not very productive, profitable not efficient....but hopefully by now you've learned more
What lathe do you have? I am looking for a good home unit that isnt balls out massive, requiring two New Zealand Prop Forwards to carry the thing in and out for you whilst consuming the equivalent kw/h of Chicago.
It's an Optimum tu2004v and I have to say it does the job pretty nice!
I think I might invest in plastic
You could build a 3D printer that used that plastic and print a box for your dremmel tool.
I thought you were going to pull a vacuum on it when I first saw the wooden piece with the hole in the center. So there isn't a problem with air pockets in the center? very cool idea
+tom adams The way I did it was not the best. Since I don't have a powerful vacuum system for this, next time I will poke some holes in the can to help air escape. I hope it will work.
+johnnyq90 let it melt a bit longer, the runnier it gets, the easier it is for the air to rise to the surface during melting
+johnnyq90 I think holes would just make a mess. How about after the 2nd addition of plastic placing a heavy weight weight on it while in the oven.
I think you could do it with a hand vacuum pump at this scale and it would work better than anything else. I've used a mason jar as vacuum reserve before. It will give you a good quick pull, and it's easy to make. Two holes in the jar lid, and a couple of hose barbs.
+tom adams what i would do is preheat the mold in the oven this would make sure the hdpe doesnt rapidly harden and become unworkable while trying to clamp it down and using a vacuum wouldnt work because hdpe is very thick when melted which a vacuum would be able to fix. the best thing to do is clamp it down really tight and keep tightening the clamp every 5 - 10 minutes since hdpe shrinks when it cools down
Dean Walcott A long time ago I had a toy they would never allow now. It made injection molded toy soldiers. It was like a big syringe mounted on a stand. It came with several metal molds that slide in the base. To make a soldier, slide a mold in under the heated cylinder. Plug it in and wait for it to get dangerously hot. Then measure out a scoop of plastic granules and pour them in the cylinder put the plunger in and wait for the plastic to melt. Then quickly press the plunger down until plastic came out of the molds air vent. There were no indicators, temperature gauges, or lights. We learned by experience when it was ready. It was the most dangerous toy I and my brother ever got, even more than the pellet rifle.
Awesome
When you melt the plastic in the oven, does it produce any smoke or anything which may be harmful?
+Ilan Avramov So this will give you cancer without a fume extraction system?
+SlocketSeven It won't, but you definetly do not want to eat anything that comes out of the oven afterwards.
+seac777 if you melt it below 350 from my experience it hardly smells at all just make sure you keep your eye on it and remove it from the oven as soon as its melted
what's the msds on that plastic for melting it at 350 in your house? doesn't seem very safe.
Cost of tin can, chainsaw, lathe and electricity for the oven its lower than going to the corner store and buy something similar to the final piece?
i like this idea. how about extrude those pieces? the extrudate can become filament for 3d printing or you can chop it. so it will become HDPE pellets. by extruding, you can also minimize the amount of gaps. it will be a lot of effort, but i'm sure it will be better than using lathe... ^-^
Now I need to figure out how to make a mold to make a seat pan for a motorcycle.
How can you identify HDPE if you have no info about the plastic? I know it doesn't shatter. By the way you wasted a good dremel case :D The yellow pipes used in gas installations in Greece are HDPE.
If there is a '2' in the recycling sign it's hdpe
A thermal test using an adjustable soldering iron would work
you can with a comparison if you can a sample of know HPDE, there are several tests, like burn,smell, smoke and so on, but its easier to just not use plastic which has no marking on it. 95% of the plastic has a marking so its not worth the hassle to identify unmarked plastic.
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THANK YOU!!!!
Useful
I tried this and thought it would be cool, but it got patched in the real life 1736.14 update
''IF'' I had a lathe I wouldn't need to recycle , I would make new shit.
Μπράβο πολύ καλό....
Liked, subscribed, already, shared!
I cut my HDPE on the bandsaw it is very much faster than with grinder.
I tried this and not all HDPE plastics are going to melt equally fast.on 180 c so before doing this do some experiments for better results later :) Also you can use baking paper to prevent plastic from sticking on baking plate or whatever you are using for melting in oven ...
+Ivan Boskovic yep, it also depends on additives but PEHD or HDPE rather melt around 105°C. Just consider the variations of temperature inside your hoven, and adjust for the best melting without burning. Btw,in the industry we usually don't add more than a few percent of recycled material to new batches 'cause it influences a lot the strength of resulting parts.
+Okto Putsch Tell me if you know what kind of fumes HDPE releases when melting on 105/180°C ? Are they toxic ? I know for sure that burning will release some nasty stuff but i am not sure if melting does the same thing.
Ivan Boskovic Yeah, fumes and sometimes smokes too, but on the overall every kind of emanations from various compounds and byproducts, 'cause you must take in account the amount of additives (colorants, plastifiers, etc) which interact altogether at these temperatures. All of this can contribute to an hypersensitivity, so be careful with your lungs... Depending on work conditions, any absence of ventilations, subtle reactions with other chemicals around (trichlorethylen, greases, etc), and so on can harm you on a longterm, or enable your sensitivity. Unless you really want to develop an hepatitis, think twice and be careful...
At least, try to avoid mixing same materials from different origins with different colors, and please, turn the air extractor ON.
I'm french and our jargon file isn't exactly the same, so i can only recommand you to check for the related english based litterature on health and safety in the plastics industry and the following respiratory hazards.
Take care !
Liked this video. I'm wondering what can we do with the plastic. Gears?
Pulleys, rollers, knobs, handles, whatever. That for round stock on the lathe, but you can also make flat blocks and sheets and you can use those for a lot of stuff.
+MrBiky anything that doesn't require a high strength, or submited to big efforts. Consider plastic injection to enhance your parts, for a better ratio material/volume.
Great video!
What lathe is it and how much did it cost you?
+Derpy Herpy Thank you. It's an Optimum TU2004V, costed €1650.
you forgot the part where you have to buy a $1000 lathe
What if you want to inject it into a mold instead of what you did? Can you homogenize it maybe if you shred it finer as in through a paper shredder?
is it possible to weld this hdpe with a soldering iron for repair jobs or as a filler on other plastic parts?
+Delvin Goh Haven't tried it, but I believe it can be done if heated correctly with the soldering iron.
anyone tried welding this before? wld b really neat if this can be used as an economical alternAtive for bumper repairs
wish I had a lathe!!!!!
Would you be so kind as to TELL me what SONG is playing in this video? Really liked it as well as your job. Thank you so much!
Mr KnowAll whats the song?
Does this method produce any toxic fumes? I prefer my oven-cooked chickenwings cancer-free... :P