The best way to melt plastic?
I want melt plastic to slop it into a mold. I don't know anything about melt things.
I can't just burn the plastic and drop the drops into the mould, right? this makes more hard the plastic, right?
Because I'm looking a way to melt the plastic but without change the softness of the plastic when this turn cool.
Burning usually changes chemical and physical structure of the plastic, the easy way is using a heat gun and being really cautious with the heat applied.
>>952662
if it's on fire, that's bad
you want to melt it, over moderate heat, definitely outside
>>952667
What about if a try metl the plastic like lead into a pan? can works? that change the softness of the plastic?
If I use Paint thinner to melt the plastic?
What plastic?
>>952662
You can do this with thermoplastics, but you can't do it with thermosetting plastics.
Get some Instamorph and put it in boiling water.
>>952681
This kind of plastic. I don't have idea the name of that kind of plastic very soft.
I would like know the name of that kind of plastic, to can buy the pellets https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Nurdles_01_gentlemanrook.jpg
instead work with that lids of cans.
>>952689
I think it's LDPE, my second guess would be PP. Does it have a recycling emblem on it? If so, what's the number in the middle? LDPE would be 4.
>>952662
Needs to be melted with radiant heat. You can't hold a flame to it, it heats too unevenly, burns, releases toxic fumes.
And it never gets viscous enough to pour into a mould - it has to be forced into there somehow.
Best way is Injection Moulding.
Other ways are either, chop up plastic, place it into mould, put mould in oven at required temperature, this is like a primitive form of compression moulding.
Or melt it using a double boiler type method, like how you'd melt chocolate. Get a pan, put oil in it (must be oil - water doesn't get hot enough), put plastic shred into another pan, put this pan into the oil, heat until plastic melts, then try and glob it into mould. This is the Ghetto method.
Other way is to dissolve plastic in a strong solvent then pour it into a porous mould, like plaster/cement/whatever. The mould sucks the solvent out of the plastic solution in contact with it, leaving plastic stuck to its surface and the remainder is then poured out, this is Absorption casting.
>>952662
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyP7YJ9O3TY&feature=youtu.be
Nitrogen is what you want if you're hand heating it. Other anon who said injection moulding is right, that is your vest option but I've done plastic repair for awhile and a nitrogen plastic welder will melt Polypropelene no problem.
The reason I say nitrogen is because its a fire retardent so you'll never char the plastic, just melt it.
>>952671
paint thinner might work, allthough if you makea thick piece it takes long for all the paint thinner to evaporate and you will need a mold that lets the thinner out, in other words need to make the mold from something like plaster
>>952726
>>952758
>>952831
But if I do that, the softness of the plastic can change when this turn cool? because I like the softness of the LDPE, is perfect to my project.
>>952749
>Nitrogen
That isn't a little dangeous?
>>953114
You realize nearly 80% of atmosphere is nitrogen, right?
>>953118
How about Terminator II? That shit is very dangerous.
>>953109
>But if I do that, the softness of the plastic can change when this turn cool?
It shouldn't, but it's worth noting that a lot of the apparent "softness" of these lids is an intentional result of their thin design (don't get me wrong, LDPE is a very soft plastic, but this is only part of the lid's pliability). A solid part made of LPDE will still be softer than most plastics but it probably won't have quite as much of that pliable feel that you might be going for.
You know what plastic jungle gym components feel like? Playground slides and such? That's what LDPE feels like when molded into thicker forms.
What you want is basically a long version of a glue gun OP. like a glue gun, combined with a caulk gun, combined with a hopper. and use some sort of heated electrical coils around the barrel, and when it starts getting soft, you have a nozzel, at one end, and a ramming rod at the other, and you squeeze the soft plastic into your mold.
just an slightly more advanced glue gun. some of the fishing bait guys recycle their old rubber lures this way.
>>953134
>plastic jungle gym
Yes, I'm looking that kind of softness.
>>953135
>a glue gun
You know, that isn't a bad idea. The softness of that kind of plastics, is just a little more soft like the softness I want.
>>953170
so Dildos?
>>953198
Special pellets to my air gun.
