Drain pipes

[trevoratxtal]

I was drawn to a news item today.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-21764558
 
Not only should the doctor be a member here (hero)
 but it got me thinking what else can be made with remolded plastic.
 
Members projects useing plastics may have to be on a different topic please redirect if so.
Trev

[micktoon]

Good idea but he is not the first to use drain pipe to fix a broken leg  , I had a black Labrador that jumped over a small wall that had a 20 foot drop the other side, he landed front legs first and broke the small paw and wrist bones also damaged ligaments around that joint in one leg. The vets tried a split from some heat mouldable plastic mesh that was not up to the job and flexed like mad. The bottom line was they were on about either removing the dogs front leg or putting the dog down, so me and my brother who were about 15 and 13 at the time got some plastic drain pipe and with a black and decker heat gun moulded it to the dogs leg so it was a bit longer so once bandaged on the weight would be transfered through the splint and not the leg . He had to keep it on for six months so the wrist joint fused together and was more or less not bendable, I made a leather boot for it and he was back on the move going to the beach swimming etc until healed then lived out the rest of his life still chasing rabbits with one stiff leg  .
  During the six months we made several replacement splints as the bottom would wear away and weight would go through the leg unless the splint was a bit longer.

 P.S the vet was well impressed when he saw the home made splint 

 Cheers Mick

[vtsteam]

I haven't done anything nearly as impressive as either of these two stories, just re-moulded 4" PVC pipe into flat 1/4" sheets in a small electric oven (not household type). PVC sheet can be rather expensive, while drain pipe is cheap in comparison. So that was the reason. I have an old style Harbor Freight plastic welder that I used with a compressed air line, and a router speed controller to control both heat and airflow. I built a simple slit and grate spectrometer with that flattened plastic, some intact pipe and a couple of razor blades and a CD.

I've also built a dairy whey digester to produce methane with PVC pipe, but it required no molding of the plastic -- just conventional plumbing, so it doesn't count here.