Lately I have been a little obsessed with melting HDPE plastic. You know all those bottles that have a number 2 recycling logo. Some folks have made some pretty interesting projects from the stuff.  Since it is so sturdy and hard it can be cut and carved like wood.

But I was looking for a simpler project, one that wouldn’t take a lot of cutting and sanding. I also don’t have a wooden form to compress the plastic in so I had to improvise.

For my first experiment I used a green shampoo bottle, a blue milk bottle cap and a tuna can.

I melted the cut up pieces of the bottle right in the can in the oven at 350 F and then put the lid back in the can and pressed the can into the plastic using some clamps.

When it had cooled it looked like this.

And I couldn’t get it out of the can without cutting up the can.

So I had this sort of interesting plastic thing that was totally useless.

But it gave me an idea.

Happy Upcycling,