I randomly tried with an old phone to make shrink a bottle around, i’ve been pleasantly surprised ! It is at least as much strong an transparent that a normal protection.
Then, I cut a piece of wood with the same width and thickness than my phone, but longer because as i experienced before the openings are very rough, i cut the length i need in a second time ( i kept 15mm on the top to cut a tab that i will fold onto the top of phone to protect its side. Next i drilled the holes for each button, the camera. It’s difficult to clean the border, after using my Dremel to drill the holes, i tried to sand it … the result was dirty. The best way to have clean opening is to work with sharp tools ( cutter, scissors… ).
Finally get it ! If you use a thin plastic bottle, you can keep the protection on your screen, the tactile still is working through it ! However it took me too much time to do only one protection, the finishes take a while and the result will never be as perfect as the cheap protection you buy on the market for a few coin . I still believe there must be better applications !
First results, I tried the « shrinking casting » on different shapes and materials.
My first conclusions are :
– The outside edges and the plane surfaces give a good result while the inside edges, the recesses are allmost impossible to get.
-The plastic shrinks very randomly around the openings I did in the bottle. The plastic wasn’t closing in on the model.
– About the materials, I tried with clay, plaster, wood and metal. I recommend wood, and metal, because plaster and clay are too weak, and you might break your mold when you try to take it off the bottle.
**3 – Shrinking power/strong>
I keep doing some tests with PET Bottles, I found this really interesting video made by Micaella Pedros, showing how to use bottles to make some kind of connectors to build any kind of thing !
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So, with the heat, the plastic is shrinking and can take a print. It reminds me the process of a thermoforming machine.
The process I want test is :
– to cut the bottom or / and the top of the bottle
– to put a mold into
– to use the heat gun to make the plastic shrink around the shape.
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I would like to make simple objects like mobile phone’s protections, boxes ( could be nice to use plastique bottle to make packaging), little toy cars … Have you got any ideas about simple objects in everyday life ?
I still believe there must be better applications !
