Here’s a neat process video where Richard Liddle shows how he makes the RD Chair. It’s an excellent idea- after melting the used plastic, he extrudes it by hand onto a collapsible wooden form, and removes the form after everything cools down. Neat stuff! I don’t imagine that you can melt just any old plastic down in this way- anyone know how to do it? [via core77]
6 thoughts on “Making a chair out of recycled plastic”
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Polymers fall into one of 2 categories – Thermo Plastic and Thermoset plastics.
Any Thermo plastic, a group which comprises about 70% to 80% of all plastics, can be remelted and extruded.
Typically furniture tends to be made from more flexible plastics such as Polypropylene.
Thermoset plastics are once formed as their name suggests SET forever. GRP Glass reinforced plastic otherwise known as Fibre Glass is one example of a thermoset plastic.
All you need is to granulate up your plastic milk cartons and get an extruder.
Awesome, thanks for the information. Time to start collecting those jugs!
Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoplastic for a list of some thermoplastics. ABS is one famous example (and I think that’s what is used in the makerbot?)