Thursday 17 May 2012

PLA Scrap-ART

Just a quick one for fun-

Turn your worthless PLA scrap into unique works of art :)


You will need -

An oven
Baking tray
Aluminium foil
Scrap bits of PLA and any failed prints
Beer - (to help with artistic inspiration)

Lay the Aluminium foil on the tray and place your largest scrap parts onto it, don't space them too much apart as they will produce a smaller pool of plastic than you would think.

Optionally use some filament to make a round or shaped outer ring to keep all the plastic in if you want a nice shape. (PLA Pizza Anyone?)

Pop it in the oven, heat up to 210 Degrees C for about 15 mins

Then scatter on the smaller parts and heat at whatever temperature you like - 160 Degrees will make things go soft and still keep some shape of what they once were.

It's also quite interesting to throw in some ABS parts as that shrink, distort and go soft creating a more 3D sculpture.


Keep an eye on the cooking, and remove when you have the desired effect, leave to cool for a few mins and then you can trim the foil and PLA to size (wear oven gloves, if you handle it HOT!) you can form it around shapes, bottles, plates etc. or cut out butterfly shapes if you like. You should have about 5 mins cutting time, or pop it back in the oven to make it soft again.

I hope some of you try it, it's good fun and you may just make a masterpiece.

Before (Take it out of the bag!)


I'm calling my two first attempts -

After - Named 'April-12' as this was all my failed plastic in April of this year.



More very soon,

Rich.

7 comments:

  1. Very tasty indeed!

    ('April 12' reminds me of some yet-to-be-discovered poisonous tropical flat fish you'd see on the menu of an underworld sushi bar. Yum yum.)

    So, when's opening night at Tate Modern?

    Keep up the great works!

    Cheers,
    Hamish

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Hamish, I was going through my ABS phase during April, there's half a Printrbot in that lot - It does look a little fishy and tasty.

      Delete
  2. Hello I have a question! How many toxins and chemicals are released into your home from melting plastic on aluminum in your oven? - J http://www.coronavisions.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not aware of any toxins or (bad) chemicals in PLA, and they are melted at a temperature lower than in the 3D printers hot-end, so it's the same process.

      Glad you'r recycling electronics, good job, I'm in favour of that and it's the reason I didn't just delete this comment.

      Delete
    2. None. It's a corn based bioplastic. You can eat it.


      Delete
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  4. Wow...This is what i have been looking for and you have done a great job. Beautiful cards.
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    ReplyDelete

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