A new source of HDPE?

[Rand alThor]

Yeah, and If I can find a way to recycle the milk jugs my family produces, then I'm set for life with a cheaper alternative to wood.

[paulstreats]

I sure that with a lot of effort that you can melt them. But a soldering iron etc.. wont be the thing that works... You need soehing temperature controlled that heats the entire carton up.

(There are some tutorials on www.insructables.com on how to ake plasic from polystyrene foam. Ive ried this with varying results soeties its good soetimes its bad, Im in the process of curing anoher batch now. There is also an instructable on how to make plastic fro ilk which I am sorely tepted to try at least just for the fun of it!)

[JonHylands]

Lots of people build robots from wood, and its a lot easier to work with than any plastic...

I totally disagree wood is better or easier to work with

Well, if you're asking if you can melt milk jugs using a soldering iron, then I think its pretty safe to say (for the original poster) wood would be much easier to work with.

If you've got a CNC milling machine, or a 3D printer, or other expensive tools like that, then of course plastic is easier to work with.

- Jon

[Cotowar]

To be honest, I would look into saving up for a dutch oven, and just cut your milk jugs up into small pieces, say using a blender, and then dump them into a dutch oven, and stack it with coals. Those puppies get super duper hot, and I think you would be able to melt it down sufficiently. enough to mould it. You could even experiment with making aluminum moulds and placing them inside the oven, and seeing what happens.

Hope it helps, if not, at least you can make some sweet cherry cobbler, and you can always just go with cutting boards.

I'd try the dutch oven though.

[Rand alThor]

YEAH!!! I found some info at last on this topic, a little more than I did at first, anyway! I think, acording to http://kingplastic.com/Pdf/MSDSHDPENatural.pdf this datasheet (really an MSDS), that HDPE "when burned" releases only CO and CO2. So, yeah, some poisonous gases, but not like some that other plastics (PVC, cough cough) can give off, like HCl, which, as I understand it, will really really kill you It's the same acid that is in your stomach (I think). Anyway, now that I've got a few sources on this, I think I might look into getting me a big magnifying glass (free, powerful, nigh unlimited power source, very abundant (I live in Southern California)), but I'm still going to research this some more first, I think.

Here are more sources:

http://www.titangroup.com/Products/MSDS/MSDS%20Titanex%20HDPE.pdf


This one is about melting plastics in general (very general):
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem00/chem00038.htm