Plastic Fanatics

If you’re really serious about bending plastic

Mr. Plastic — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 01:03:10 +0000

This goes well beyond the average hobbiest, but if you’re someone who regularly needs to bend and form things like PVC pipe, you know you need a large heat source. This HotBend hand-held propane heater will get the job done!

Whether you’re an artist trying to bend plastic pipes into cool shapes or a construction contractor trying to bend PVC conduit for a job, the HotBend will get the job done - and quickly! It burns 5.7 pounds of propane per hour while producing 125,000 BTU of plastic-softening heat. With 1200 degrees of heat, it’s rated to bend 1/2″ through 8″ pipe! It’s lightweight and easily portable so you can use it where it’s needed rather than hauling the pipes back to your shop.

What’s the downside? It’s going to cost you a wallet incinerating $823, not including propane tanks. There is a 15 day trial period so you can try the HotBend first-hand and decide whether it’s what you need for your task or not.

Conductive plastic formed by injet style printing

Mr. Plastic — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 04:22:08 +0000

This new plastic technology made with inkjet style printing will allow devices to communicate with lower power than today’s wireless signals.

Here’s a great example of the futuristic things you can do with plastics and a bit of ingenuity! A researcher has used an inkjet style printing technique to deposit various electronic components on a plastic sheet. These components, ranging from MEMs, switches, transistors, and coils can create a conductive communication mesh which will allow devices placed on the surface to communicate. By using what’s effectively a wired connection instead of wireless technologies, much less power is used thus allowing the devices to communicate long-term and as-needed.

Read more about the communicating plastic at Technology Review (a great magazine, BTW!) and then get to thinking what you can do with plastic to make your projects more efficient and unique!

Liquid silicone rubber is perfect for Halloween and more

Mr. Plastic — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:12:26 +0000

With the approach of Halloween, many people will be interested in making some custom costumes, masks, or props and plastics are the perfect solution. Here’s some info on using liquid silicone rubber to make scary masks!

Smooth-On is a company that produces a fairly extensive line of liquid silicone rubber products. You mix two components together to start the curing process, much like you’d do with a standard epoxy resin. The resulting product can be flexible or stretchy depending on the formulation you choose, and can be painted, carved, or colored using a variety of techniques. They have a quick tutorial on creating masks that has plenty of photos.

Products like this are used extensively for movie special effects but you can also cast custom parts from the silicone rubber, make molds to create other parts, and coat architectural pieces for restoration. Read more about the applications for liquid silicone rubber on Smooth-On’s site.

Tutorial videos on working with plastics

Mr. Plastic — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:14:15 +0000

Here’s a ton of videos that show you how make various molds, bend plastics, glue plastics, polish plastics, and much, much more!

These videos are sponsored by TAP Plastics and demonstrate a bunch of techniques using their myriad of products. Obviously, the videos are to promote their own products, but the concepts and knowledge are applicable to whatever similar products you might have.

The videos are available in Quicktime or WMV and include:

Introduction to TAP Mold Making Products
How to build a Mold Box
How to make a Latex Mold
How to make a Urethane Mold
How to make a simple Silicone Mold Part 1
How to make a simple Silicone Mold Part 2
How to build a Plastic Heat Bender
How to bend Plastic
How to apply Window Film
How to select Window Film
How to apply Vinyl Graphics
How to cut Plastic Sheet
How to use Ultra-Glo and Ultra-Seal
How to glue Acrylic
Cast embedments in Clear Resin
How to make a two-part mold
How to repair scratched CDs, DVDs, iPods and more
How to repair Gelcoat Part 1
How to repair Gelcoat Part 2

Head over to the TAP Plastics video tutorials and get learning!

First-hand tips on working with fiberglass

Mr. Plastic — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 23:56:40 +0000

Using a resin and woven threads of glass, also known as fiberglassing, is a very useful and relatively easy way to build larger structures. Fiberglassing is used when making boat hulls, water slides, and many other everyday items.

This Instructable features some ideas from a guy who builds stuff from fiberglass on how you can more easily work with the materials and achieve better results. He recommends things such as mixing the epoxy resin in small batches and using vacuum bagging to remove air pockets, which can kill the strength of the finished product.

Read his comments on fiberglassing tools and tips and if you have any of your own, please share them on our forums here and help get the discussions rolling!

How to make a cheap and easy vacuum forming table

Mr. Plastic — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 23:26:43 +0000

Here’s a cheap and easy to build vacuum forming table that you can easily put-away when you’re not using it!

There are plenty of plans out there for vacuum forming tables, but most of them are built assuming that you have room in your shop to store it. Of course, a stable, non-storable table will probably give better results, but what if you live in a small house and don’t have room to dedicate to a vacuum table?

You can build something like this vacuum forming table described on Instructables. It’s made out of inexpensive easy-to-obtain materials like window screen frames and uses a normal household vacuum cleaner to draw the plastic around the mold. Actually, I have a Shark vacuum just like he’s using in the photos, and I can tell you that the thing is definitely more powerful than it looks! It’s all motor in there and will lift a bowling ball with the suction.

Anyway, besides the low cost and ease of assembly, the vacuum forming table can be broken-down and stored easily which is perfect for anyone with limited space or who just needs to form something once in a while.

Home built heater for plastic folding

Mr. Plastic — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 22:32:57 +0000

Here is a home-built heating strip that allowed the creation of bent acrylic panels for a custom panel in a computer.

Plastic folding is pretty useful and often the only way that a hobbyist can create custom, clear, strong items from things like Plexiglas or other sheet acrylic without creating weak joints with glue.

In order to “fold” the plastic, you use a long heating element to create a softened area in the plastic sheet and then bend the plastic, thus forming a fold or bend. A professionally made heating element for plastic bending will generally cost you $200 or more, yet they are very simple to make.

In his post at AustinPCMods, the owner documents how he made a custom heater so that he could bend acrylic sheets to form a custom tray to use in a computer.

As you can see in his photos, the device is very simple and the results are quite nice if you take your time.

Make your own plastic action figures

Mr. Plastic — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 19:13:56 +0000

How to make your own custom action figures using Sculpey III polymer clay.

Sculpey III is a polymer clay that hardens into a hard plastic when placed into an oven. Using the Sculpey and a bit of forming wire, you can form custom action figures in any pose, size, or shape you desire.

You start with bending the armature wire into the basic form of the creature you’re trying to model. You then press the Sculpey clay onto the frame creating the various muscles, joints, claws, hands, head(s), and all of that. Once that’s done, you bake it!

The Instructable even goes as far as making a package for your figure so that it appears to have come from a retail store.

Make custom tools with Friendly Plastic / Shapelock

Mr. Plastic — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:44:46 +0000

Here’s a good how-to showing how you can use the low temperature plastics called Shapelock or Friendly Plastic to make custom tools.

Once in a while, you need to make a custom tool. It might be a one-use wrench or perhaps something you just think will be handy for whatever you make on a regular basis.

Before the advent of low-temperature moldable plastics like Friendly Plastic or Shapelock, you would have had to try to cast or form the tool with a liquid resin. That can be messy and involves making molds and all sorts of hassles you don’t want when you’re in a hurry to do something.

So, grab your Shapelock or Friendly Plastic and heat some water because you can easily make custom tools with it and here’s how!

PlasticFanatics.com is going live!

Mr. Plastic — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:18:14 +0000

Welcome to the humble beginnings of PlasticFanatics.com! This site will help bring the complex world of plastics to hobbyists so that everyone can enjoy the functionality, durability, and other benefits of working with plastic.

Plastics are amazing things. You can use them to mold containers, doll’s heads, nosecones for rockets, or even make custom tools. Normally, though, the world of plastics has been constrained to companies with big workspaces for big machines and even deeper pockets. With recent innovations in low-temperature plastics as well as the creativity boost provided by the Internet, plastics are now becoming useful for the “little guy” working on his or her hobbies in their garage or basement.

Eventually, I hope that everyone will join the forums (once I set them up completely) where I plan to let people share their projects, tips, techniques, and knowledge about working with hobby plastics. Be sure to keep coming-back and if you use RSS, add our feed to your reader!