Making cabinets by pouring molten plastic on something

[VvvvvV]

I've got quite a lot of plastic in the backyard, and I'm tempted to melt it in a kind of cauldron and pour it over a cardboard box covered with aluminium foil/ some similar mould. Insanity? The way forward? It should be easy to research plastic recycling and melting, the advantage would be 1 inch thick plastic cabinets

[Magura]

You can't just pour plastics, you need to inject it in a mold under relativly high pressure to make anything thats got any structural purpose. Depending what type of plastics it is you have, it might even explode if molten in an open bath.

Magura

[ralph-bway]

High presure, possibly explosive? Wow, sounds like the kind of fun that attracts us to DIY stuff, or maybe not.

[Mr Evil]

There are other techniques than injection moulding. If you can somehow form it into sheets then you could use compression moulding, i.e. heat it and squash it between two halves of a mould.

[Nuuk]

For moulding, you need to use casting resin but it will work out (very) expensive for items like loudspeaker cabinets!

There is also a 'coating' resin that you can pour over horizontal surfaces to produce a hard plastic finish.

But if you want to try something different, polystyrene sheet makes excellent loudspeaker housings!

[Cal Weldon]

Originally posted by Nuuk
But if you want to try something different, polystyrene sheet makes excellent loudspeaker housings!

I'm glad you've got a smile after that comment.

I tried it once. Couldn't hear a thing.
Too well insulated.
But easy to tote.

Cal

[Nuuk]

I'm glad you've got a smile after that comment.

I'm deadly serious! And I'm basing my statement on experience and lots of experimenting!

[Cal Weldon]

That must be some highly compressed polystyrene. Not the stuff used for roofing insulation. We use type I, type II, both of which are expanded bead and type IV which is extruded. None of which are suitable for enclosures, too porous. Not dense enough.

Cal

[Nuuk]

None of which are suitable for enclosures, too porous. Not dense enough.

If people use open baffles, how can anything be 'too porous'?

And you are also assuming that the polystyrene is the only material used.

[VvvvvV]

I thought molten plastic was like treacle, it may take several layers of pouring and sorting through only plastic that melts, but it should be possible to make a fair polystyrene product, the finished product would look wild like some molten magma or something.