Thread: Machinable Wax Experiments

Originally Posted by jhovel

Now there is an idea! Ray, I think you should get Josh to start writing the G-code for a Brasilian....
I think your machine should henceforth be called "Ray's CNC waxing machine"

And of course it just happens to be called G-code......

Originally Posted by Ueee

And of course it just happens to be called G-code......

Can you take it as read, that, I replied with a suitably witty response, without me having to actually type anything..... The ones I'm thinking of are the most obvious...


Regards
Ray

On the subject of Machinable wax, I have been doing some research on plastics, for other reasons as well. Polythene is also known as Polyethylene (PE) –" Wide range of inexpensive uses including supermarket bags, plastic bottles." Then there is LDPE and HDPE. Both forms of Polyethylene.

I have been wondering about other sources for polythene. We shop in South Australia and don't have many shopping bags any more. I wondered if a supply of plastic from some other bulkier source such as containers, chopped fine would also work. I guess the deciding factor would be the melting point.

Poly tanks are made from polyethylene. I have lots of stuff such as 25 litre containers, 200 litre containers, 3 tonne grape bin liners and various bits of all of these lying around. May be yet another thing for me to do. Test some out.

The other day I found a local souce of HDPE offcuts of various sizes. Make an offer. I got a piece 16mm X 145mm X 600mm for $5.00. This souce gets it sent in batches as they run out and we saw it near the end with not much left. There was some 25mm diam about 300mm long and some bigger diam but only very short. I hope to catch them with a better choice in the future. This was the other reason for plastics research. So I know a bit more about it.

Dean

Some more information on PE
PE is a member of the Polyolefin group of plastics. The other main member is Polypropylene (PP). Both float in water, are made up of Hydrogen, Oxygen and Carbon and are related to candle wax. To tell the difference use the following rule of thumb: take your thumb nail and try and put a permanent mark in the sample plastic. If you can mark the sample it is PE. Low Density PE, for example most OTTO bins will mark easily, High Density PE will be harder to mark. If you cannot mark the sample it is probably PP. Most plastic kettles are PP as an example.
Hope this helps.
Mm.