Melted PLA Scrap-ART
Description
Turn your worthless PLA scrap into unique works of art :)
Instructions
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.
I'm calling my two first attempts - Raspberry Pizza Pi (As a tribute to the Great RPi case by HansH) - thingiverse.com/thing:16104 ) and 'April-12' as this was all my failed plastic in April of this year.
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.
I'm calling my two first attempts - Raspberry Pizza Pi (As a tribute to the Great RPi case by HansH) - thingiverse.com/thing:16104 ) and 'April-12' as this was all my failed plastic in April of this year.
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Red_Wolf_2
on
May 18, 2012
said:
I made one of these at http://www.thingiverse.com/thi... but ended up with foil stuck to the PLA lump... Maybe it was the lack of beer?
I still think this could make some very interesting cast plastic objects (particularly with multicoloured PLA feedstock)... Anyone know what would make a good casting mold?
gunadai
on
May 17, 2012
said:
Ha, I was just thinking about doing this last night as I looked at my overflowing bin of PLA scraps!
License
Tried with ABS. Results were mixed. The pieces did melt a little and stick together. But they also turned brown pretty quick too. Large blocks did not melt into pools. I tried temperatures ranging from 150C to 220C, and probably left it in the oven too long. I'll try again at 240 for about 10 or 15 minutes.
MAKE SURE you have good ventilation when you do this. There is a little smoke and the smell of burning ABS gets fairly strong.
Cool, post a picture if you can.
PLA works best, but if you use ABS 'noodles' (the little bits of waste from the nozzle) mixed in with mainly PLA parts, it makes for a more 3D effect as they don't melt very much at 190 degrees.
The pink, yellow and blue bits in the middle on my first print are little noodles of ABS as I could no
t sort them out from the PLA.