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Stardate: 20210513.0142 | |
Location: xiled rumination concentrator | |
Input Device: Fujitsu P1610 | |
Audio: Everything But The Girl - Tempermental | |
Visual: Flashing LEDs of the xrc, mamono | |
Emotional: Meh. Do not want to sleep. | |
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Fujitsu LifeBook P1610 (UMPC) | |
I decided to make one last entry on this version of Debian before I | |
blow it away. The laptop battery is crap and doesn't really last | |
long enough to get any real work done when mobile, but I do have an | |
external battery that I can tether to. It is currently running | |
Debian 7.11 (wheezy.) I will be installing AntiX. No real concerns | |
with updates since I do not attach this machine to the network. | |
Perhaps I will with AntiX. I still have Windows XP Tablet Edition on | |
its own partition and will keep it there since I use it for old | |
hardware that is not compatible with linux or newer versions of | |
Windows. | |
Repurposed Styrofoam Skull | |
The other night I melted down some dissolved polystyrene into a cast | |
of a skull. I cut up one of the sheets of dissolved polystyrene | |
that I had drying out from months earlier. I cut the sheet into | |
tiny pieces with scissors and put them in a silicon skull mold for | |
ice cubes. Then I put it in the toaster oven I got from a church | |
rummage sale and let it cook for over an hour at 300F. Afterwards, | |
I let it cool for a few hours before I broke the mold. | |
The skull turned out ok. The hardened skull appeared to have | |
discolored and had a tan color to it. There were a bunch of pock | |
marks, probably from trapped air. The skull it pretty solid and has | |
some weight to it, especially compared to expanded styro. It is | |
brittle where the molding flash is and is not squishy/rubbery like | |
traditional hot-melt adhesive/hot glue. Maybe next time, I will | |
try a lower temperature and see if it keeps its original off-white | |
color. Also, the back part of the skull is hollow, which I will | |
probably fill with hot glue or something. | |
It just amazes me how much space polystyrene takes up and how you | |
can dissolve it into a small puddle of maker goop. The goop can be | |
used as glue or you can cast with it. I think it's better to cast | |
it into something else instead of it taking up space in a landfill. | |
The goop is non-toxic since I used D-Limonene to dissolve the styro. | |
Next time I will probably try making new "feet" for my hiking poles | |
so they're not so noisy on pavement. I also need to find a better | |
way of shredding the sheets since cutting them isn't the best and | |
is time consuming. I saw online that people have been using paper | |
shredders for cutting up plastics. Maybe I'll look into that. It | |
would be even better if I could grind the sheets into a powder so | |
it would be easier to fill the mold. | |
I wonder if there is an easy way to do injection molding with the | |
goop. Maybe with an improvised caulking gun or something. I've | |
casted skulls with hot glue before, which was easier to work | |
with since the glue isn't as thick and comes out of a glue gun. | |
I thought about trying to make polystyrene hot glue sticks, but I | |
don't think it would work as well as regular hot glue. Well maybe | |
I should try it sometime. | |
If you are interested in repurposing styro, this Instructable page | |
by killbox is a great place to learn.[1] | |
Here are some pics. These were taken at different times, but shows | |
the basic process: | |
Putting polystyrene in bucket with D-Limonene. | |
Styro dissolving. | |
Pouring dissolved styro/maker goop into foil-lined baking pan. | |
Dried and hardened goop after >1 month. | |
Goop cleanup in repurposed toaster oven. | |
Goop was not as runny as I thought it would be. | |
Temp set at 300F for 30 minutes. | |
Sheets of dried goop. | |
Cutting goop sheet into smaller pieces. | |
Pieces are in a can on a repurposed coffee burner. | |
This did not work well with goop and works better with hot glue. | |
Putting goop chips in silcone skull mold. | |
Stuffing hole in the back of the mold with goop chips. | |
Mold after cooking for over an hour @ 300F. | |
Looks like there was a bubble that puked out the hole. | |
Skull unmasked! | |
Skull front | |
Skull side | |
Skull back with pour hole. | |
The skull is a little hollow in the back. | |
Skull side view with penny for size reference. | |
Skull front view with penny for size reference. | |
[1] Recycling Styrofoam (EPS) Into Useable Castable Styrene Plastic at Home | |
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