PVC, it's not just for plumbing

[A.J. Holst]

Stumbled across this wasting time with googlefu

http://blueridgeprepper.com/25-super-awesome-pvc-projects-home/

[Grand Torino]

Some great project ideas there :up:

[MrsMonkeyMan2500]

You just planned all of Monkey's summer chores for me! Love the greenhouse idea!!

[runco]

Hmmm some ideas.

[TNWNGR]

You just planned all of Monkey's summer chores for me! Love the greenhouse idea!!

 

While he's at it you guys can make a kitchen knife rack and a grill tool rack that can be hand washed and sanitized. Use some good Krylon paint for plastics and it'll look good. Add some eye-bolts and you can suspend it from the ceiling and keep counter space open.    

[Ugly]

Some good ideas fer sure. You can add a sprinkler head to throw the water on that sprinkler idea.
Some other ideas: windshield and roof frame for a utv, and my favorite, rifle/tool racks for said utv.

[JAB]

I haven't tried it yet, myself, but apparently PVC can be heated with a heat gun, etc. until it is pliable and then molded like kydex.  I have heard that you have to be careful, though, because heated PVC can release some toxic fumes so plenty of ventilation is needed.  I am thinking of using a piece with a large diameter (like sewer pipe) to make a sheath for a machete as the thermoplastic sheets I have aren't large enough to make a machete sheath out of one piece.

 

The PVC project I am really most interested in right now, though, would be a lightweight, mobile, easily assembled and dis-assembled framework that would allow me to set up a tarp shelter (think 'tent', more or less) over the bed of my pickup.  You can buy a pickup bed tent but the ones I have seen go for a few hundred dollars and I figure I can probably make one for under $50, maybe even less (I already have a few, large tarps.)  I searched for such things on the 'Net and found a video on YouTube where a lady was showing how she had made exactly such a thing from PVC in pretty much the style I was thinking.  I just haven't gotten around to actually doing it, yet.

 

There are also some pretty cool ideas for hiking/walking/survival staffs and the like made from PVC that can be found on YouTube.  The cool thing about those is that the hollow interior can be used to store various, compact 'survival kit' type items.

 

Finally, there is a fellah who goes by the handle Backyard Bowyer on YouTube who has got to be one of the most creative people I have ever seen.  Among other things, he makes homemade bows, often out of PVC pipe.  Thing is, he has more than one method he uses for making them and more than one style he makes and the paint jobs he does on some of them are pretty amazing in themselves.  One of his simplest designs uses fiberglass rods bundled in a particular manner and then inserted into the PVC pipe so that the bow will have better stress distribution under draw than the PVC would have by itself.  He uses heat to flatten and shape the PVC for some of his bows in order to achieve that kind of distribution but the one with fiberglass rods is pretty simple and is not heated, etc.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmxn-nPNhY8

Edited January 15, 2016 by JAB

[Monkeybat]

I bet the grey PVC stuff would work well. Just cost more.


Sent from the Fortress of Solitude.