Making a Plastic Press

In another post I showed how to use a tortilla press to compress melted HDPE plastic in flat disks to use for making things. I made a bit more elaborate press to get bigger pieces while keeping them flat and as thin as possible, between 1/8 - 1/4 inch. The key ingredient is a bottle jack.

Melt HDPE Plastic For Projects

I wrote about this a couple years back and I have significantly refined this process so I figured I would provide an update. I still find melted and flattened HDPE plastic to be a useful building material for projects as long as the project specs require something simple like a box, backing, or frame. I've developed a pretty simple workflow that anyone can do with limited tools.