This project is about making plastic sheets out of recycling flakes.
Flakes from shredded recycling material are filled in a spring powered mold and then placed in a kitchen oven. During the baking process, the plastic melts and gets pressed into the sheet shape by spring-power. After cooling down a nice plastic sheet can removed from the mold
Gen1: Basic prototype and evaluating the process itself
Gen2: Making the mold simpler, test several materials
Gen3: Cheaper und even more simpler in usage, ability to make severals sheets in parallel,
Our experience so far:
- It is possible to make good looking, flat sheet out of recycling flakes with a spring powered mold and a kitchen oven.
- solid baking of the plastic on the mold can be completely avoided by using silicone spray and a flat mold surface like glavanized steel or V4A
- PLA seems to tend to crack aftercooling
- complete cooling of the mold before opening works best
- smaller flakes work better than bigger ones