This was a group project done in my first year of architecture school. The objective of the project was to create a plane (floor, wall, ceiling, partition, anything planar really) out of used objects(our group happens to choose 2 litre PET soda bottles.....1200++ of them). I am not sure people would actually see this and replicate the whole thing,nevertheless i hope you will enjoy it
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2 Litre PET soda bottles, a mixture of clear and green bottles.(we went dumpster diving for a few days to get all the bottles)
Hot wire for cutting foam (in this case used for cutting the bottles)
Some medite to make couple of jig
Hole saw drill bit that would make a hole just big enough for the mouth of the soda bottles
safety mask to protect yourself from the toxic fume when cutting the bottles with hot wire cutter
Hot wire for cutting foam (in this case used for cutting the bottles)
Some medite to make couple of jig
Hole saw drill bit that would make a hole just big enough for the mouth of the soda bottles
safety mask to protect yourself from the toxic fume when cutting the bottles with hot wire cutter
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But a dust mask isn't going to do anything even if there were byproducts. Ok so molten plastic does stink, but it's not nearly the equivalent of burning it wholesale. Use a carbon impregnated mask is the smell is bothersome.
You had a great idea, way cool, very green idea!! Let me tell you why.
I live in San Diego, but I do have a huge building in Revolution Avenue, Downtown Tijuana, In Baja California, Mexico.
Tijuana recycles just about everything that San Diego throws away, and I do mean everything. We do have concerts in our small venue, in which we sell a lot of sodas in plastic containers. We thought of a wall, as a decorative for the huge building, but your application of use to these plastic bottles, is uniquely original. We are going to apply your creativity, we will give you full credit as the designer, we will give credit to instructables, and further more, if you have any more ideas please pass them along to us.
I am almost on the final concept of creating a large cover up to what it is an old facade for the second floor, utilizing recycle materials, that will also served as ventilation for that second floor, out of the moderate to strong westerly breezes from the Pacific ocean.
I want to make this building as green as possible from everything recycle, to promote in Baja California, "GREEN: ideas, concepts, construction that will make the city of Tijuana, and the state of Baja greener.
Thanks a lot!
The caps-&-mouths as nuts-&-bolts is absolutely stark raving brilliant!
Admittedly, I'd try for a more aethetically pleasing layout if I went to reproduce this; but it's this work of yours that shows that it can be done at all.
Applications might include an outdoor garden screen, to provide privacy or help baffle wind. The conical "pouches" you used to make it free-standing have inpired me: if I used only green bottles and cut the middle sections into nicely tapered trapezoids; this could make a really cool artificial Christmas tree, nicely decorated with brightly-colored bottle caps. :)
As to whether you poisoned yourself using the hot knife on the PET bottles, allow me to plagarize and plunder Wikipedia :
When PET degrades due to heating or burning, the only chemical given off (other than hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen) is acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is an organic chemical compound with a fruity smell. It occurs naturally in ripe fruit, coffee, and fresh bread; and is produced by plants as part of their normal metabolism. When you drink an alcoholic beverage, your liver converts the ethanol into acetaldehyde, which is then further converted into harmless acetic acid. Acetaldehyde is extremely flammable, but toxic only when applied externally for prolonged periods.
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_terephthalate, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetaldehyde)
So, assuming you didn't capture the acetaldehyde gas, convert it to liquid form, and use it as hand lotion; you probably didn't do yourself any harm. OTOH, if wearing the (yes, otherwise pretty well useless) mask kept you from lighting up any cigarettes while you were working, that may have helped minimize any fire danger (which was probably already pretty low anyway).
I'd take you up on that offer of those bottle parts in your basement, if Seattle weren't so inconveniently far from Chicago... :)