Tag: diy

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Upcycle Plastic Repair

A year ago I saw a post on the Sector67 site that talked about upcycling the plastic from laundry jugs. After seeing the post I thought about how many of these jugs we end up tossing in the recycling bin, and if there were any ways I could make good use of them.

Laundry Jug
Empty Laundry Jug

Here’s a typical laundry jug, and as you can see I cut out a nice (mostly) flat piece from the side.

Plastic
Cutting the plastic with an X-ACTO blade

I wanted to cut a small piece into a rectangle to match a missing piece from a window blind, and using an X-ACTO knife and steel ruler are the perfect choice for such things.

(Somehow we’ve lost/misplaced these window blind parts, or they weren’t here when we moved in. I thought briefly about 3D printing a replacement, but cutting a piece from plastic I’ve already got seemed like a better option.)

Holder
New vs. Original

My replacement is not an exact match, but I’ve cut it a bit taller to provide some friction so it will stay in place. For the simple purpose it will serve, it should do just fine.

Holder in Place
Original and New

Here’s the original piece, and my replacement piece. Both are holding the blinds into the bracket reasonably well.

I’ll often just cut out the flat sides of laundry jugs and keep them in a stack and then recycle the rest of the jug. They’re handy to have around when you need one.

We’ve talked about building an injection molding machine at Milwaukee Makerspace (Mold-o-rama anyone?) so if that happens, I may have a few more uses for these plastic jugs.

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Holiday Make-A-Thon 2011

Make-A-Thon

Join us Friday, November 25th, 2011 at Bucketworks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the 2011 Holiday Make-A-Thon!

The event is family friendly, fun, and free. (Though donations towards materials will be accepted.)

The guys from Milwaukee Makerspace will be there… so should you!

Some of the activities include:

  • Learning to soldering
  • Gourd painting
  • Knitting
  • Hand-painting ornaments
  • Gift-wrapping station

See who else is coming (and RSVP) over on Facebook.

Those interested in helping out by volunteering, or who just want way more details, can check out this Atrium thread.

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Upcakes

Up Cupcakes

The latest creation from Emma, my eldest child/mini-maker. She made this for her half-brother’s birthday. I guess he likes the Pixar film Up.

My contributions were cutting the cardboard, attaching the house to the board with spray glue, and giving suggestions. So basically I served as a consultant, but she did all the hard of the work, including the baking, painting, decoration, and putting it all together. The size of the board is about 20″ by 32″.

Oh, and of course, I took the picture. :)

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Squeegee Making

Squeegee (in progress)

So two years ago I managed to acquire this long piece of rubber that would be perfect to make screen printing squeegees out of, but, you know, I’ve been busy making buttons and drawing on eggs, so I never got around to making the squeegees.

OK, the real reason I didn’t make the squeegees is because I couldn’t figure out a way to do it and actually have them look good and function well. That’s where Milwaukee Makerspace comes in…

I first started by asking some questions about cutting grooves into wood. That led to learning about dado blades (which are quite expensive!) and eventually about routers, and router tables, and how to use them (properly!) to cut grooves.

So last night I cut my first groove, slid the piece of rubber into it, and I’m this much closer to my first squeegee.

Squeegee (in progress)

I still need to drill some holes and get some t-bolts in place, but I’m on my way to having a collection of different sized squeegees.

When I worked at a screen printing shop, we had about 30 of them in various sizes. We’d pick one that matched the size of the artwork. It’s also handy to have a bunch of squeegees around, since there’s a 4-color screen printing machine at the Makerspace, and you’re gonna need one for each color.

(Oh, I also posted about this over at the newly launched Milwaukee Makerspace web site. I may post there from time to time as raster.)

Also worth noting, I celebrated this small victory by riding Mr. Overbeck’s scooter around the parking lot at high speeds, and then listening to the craziest noisebox I’ve ever heard courtesy of Mr. Bastyr.

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Kitten-Proof Wiring

Charlotte

This is Charlotte. Charlotte is a kitten. Kittens are cute. When Charlotte is good, she eats out of her food bowl. This is what a kitten should do.

Chewed USB Cable

Sometimes Charlotte is bad, and chews on things she should not chew on, like a USB cable. Bad Charlotte! I’m now out one USB cable.

Luckily, that was just a USB extension cable, and not the iPad cable that was plugged into it.

Since Apple is a little picky about who can manufacture iPad cables, I’d prefer not to have to buy replacements unless I really need them.

Tubing + X-Acto Knife

Luckily, my local hardware store has this great tubing that is just 23 cents per foot, and I’ve got an X-Acto knife.

My plan was to just slice the tubing open and then push the iPad cable into it. Simple enough, right?

In my first attempt I tried to use a steel ruler to get a nice straight line on the tubing, but that didn’t really work, and it was much easier to just freehand the cut. I will warn you that I have a BFA in Graphic Design, so I’ve been using X-Acto knives for well over 20 years. If you’re not as handy with them, be careful when you cut your tubing.

Kitten-Proofed

Here’s our new improved cable, with a protective covering. I showed it to Charlotte and she tried to chew on it, but either she didn’t like the taste, or figured out she was not going to chew through it. Either way, I win.

Kitten-Proofed

One tip: when you cut the tubing to the length you need, cut it just a bit longer, so you can cut it to the exact length after you’ve fed the cable into it. I managed to cut the first one I made just a little too short, though it was easy to fix with a very small piece of tubing added to the end, and then held in place with some clear tape.

I’m hoping once Charlotte is out of her “chewing” phase I can do away with the tubing, but for now, it works quite well.