Upcycling Home Made Lumber Into a Micro-House | Silly Sustainability

Is it possible to mass produce a lumber substitute at home? In our new series with Andy from ‪@htme‬, we’re exploring how to mass produce building materials from household recyclables.

[@Deadlyish]

The minimalist tinyhouse trend sure is getting out of hand.

[@noneofyourbusiness5134]

Would be interesting to try your original wood/plastic mixture (blended for the finer particle size) in your extruder and compare the properties of the materials.

[@CuriosityStreaming]

This is why we love hearing your ideas! Let us know if you have any for future Silly Sustainability projects too 🛠

[@velikdole9712]

@@CuriosityStreaming Please do it! :)

[@CrustyBiker]

@@CuriosityStreaming I have idea that this would strain the extruder too much as the wood parts would not become softer with the heating elements so essentially the machine would thing you are stuffing cooler plastic into it, but that is just my theory!?

[@CrustyBiker]

I used to love precious plastic videos and dreamed of making their equipment but after watching this, I see for a complete amateur like me, the problems would be frequent and stressful not to mention the cost of having parts made and the cost and the finishing of it to make it turn smoothly, just not worth it unless its done as a community and is made financially viable by making it become a business, but as they say, virgin plastic is often cheaper than the process of recycling it, so it has its problems..

[@thecube5810]

I like how it's "micro-house" and not bird house

[@CuriosityStreaming]

Hey, we get jokes. And sometimes we even make them 🙃

[@erntaku]

It feels like you over engineered and took a turn towards just recycling plastic and built an extruder. Wouldn't it be more simple to just grind, melt, mix, then form the materials? Make a crucible of sorts to heat the plastics to liquid form then mix in the wood and cardboard. Then pour the whole mixture into a form, maybe with some clamping force to drive out any voids. End result would be closer to glass reinforced nylon or chip board, depending on the ratio of plastic to wood. I know I'm a few months late to the party but ya got me thinking. I hope things with your home shop are sorted.

[@SeanBZA]

Thrust bearing will fail, you need to use a tapered roller bearing in a housing instead, which will handle the torque and force with no problem.

[@CuriosityStreaming]

You win "Most Specific Smart Comment" 🏆for sure. Let us know if you have any for future Silly Sustainability projects too 🛠

[@AS-ug2vq]

Any tapered roller bearing can be replaced with a set of radial ball bearing and thrust bearing. There's nothing magical about tapered roller bearing other than having radial and axial load bearing capacity in one package and ability to setup dynamic preload carefully.

[@SeanBZA]

@@AS-ug2vq Yes but here at least a taper bearing that fits the shaft will have better axial load bearing capacity than any small thrust bearing, simply due to having more surface area of roller to handle the load. That tiny bearing used will simply collapse or shatter the race after a short time, when you really need a bigger contact area, and at least some form of lubrication.
To scale up simple enough to find an old plastic injection moulder, and use it to extrude the plastic into a bar shape coming out, and cool it down in a water bath, then cut afterwards to length. Used to recycle PET bottles into plastic lumber, used to make robust outdoor furniture and other outdoor and marine use products, as the plastic does not rot like wood does.

[@alanhat5252]

@@SeanBZA in the application they're only interested in thrust in one direction so a thrust bearing suits perfectly though I agree that particular one looks small

[@nitfens6863]

It seems like a better use of the setup would be to extrude thinner filament that can be used in printing. Though extruding through that small of a hole might do too much strain on the motor the whole system will need to be redesigned to accommodate... However being able to make be filament from used plastic at a (relatively) home-scale seems like a really good idea. (The product probably already exists, doesn't it...)

[@CuriosityStreaming]

We always know viewers are going to bring the ideas, nice! Let us know if you have any for future Silly Sustainability projects too 🛠

[@ryanblystone5153]

Fun!

[@CuriosityStreaming]

Thanks! Let us know if you have any for future Silly Sustainability projects too 🛠

[@stevesmith4319]

# fun !

[@raam1666]

Eat the bugs! LIVE IN A POD!

[@CuriosityStreaming]

Can they deliver the bugs? We're a little tired from helping Andy with these videos 😏

[@minhducnguyen9276]

Joke on you, some bugs are delicacies in asia.

[@ramboturkey1926]

direct drive is scary

[@JasonLippett-bl9zb]

$8.47/hr??? Cost of living is cheap where you live. Min wage is $13/hr in Manitoba Canada

[@moryasigreec726]

🌹🌹🍉🍉

[@Lakillika]

you way over engineered that bird house!

[@hereforalaugh5474]

you need help in soooooooo many sectors before it has any chance of being viable