Plastic Smithing: How To Make your own HDPE Plastic Anything (DIY plastic lumber)

Step 4 Get Moldy

Now, while it's still pliable, put it into the form you want!

Since I'm just experimenting, I grabbed a salsa container that looked about the right shape for a wheel mold, and a wine bottle to make the hole in the middle.

I don't know any special techniques for molding and casting, but matt, rachel, bilal, paul, freemanmfg and smooth-on do!

If you were a molding ninja, you could make a plastic positive of your own face!

Comments

[tenpcrisps]

so it didnt melt the plastic container? you just put it in there and it was fine?

[urbanwoodswalker]

I am wondering this too. Should the plastic "mold" be ice cold or coated with more oil as a release agent?

[guatsamosa]

just wondering how hot the plastic is when you can mold it and about how long it stays like that... very cool instructable btw! me gusta.

[Ma Barley]

Please keep working on this and let me know when it can be liquid enough to "pour" into a lumber length mold for my shanty town el swampo living friends so they can use/make it into LUMBER that can give them an advantage against the hurricanes! God Bless you...........mon!

[J@50n]

i think if you were to just put them in a pan over an open fire it would liquefy them. or you can buy some typw of liquid plastic in bottles at the hardware store....

[stasterisk]

fire would burn them, hence the temperature modulation via use of chemistry. read the instructable.

[nutsandbolts_64]

Try plastic bricks that has holes that run right through the thing. to set, get a stick and stick it through the hole and put a brick on top of that, put stick, insert brick and repeat process and you get a wall, maybe the first sticks should be driven 5 meters into the ground to give it a grip. Or maybe just make small panels that are attached together using a quick pass of an electric iron to melt them together. Pre-fabricated sheets of recycled plastic :)

[Mathias Re'eh]

i think i might try that except with real bricks and use it for a airsoft field:)