Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Everyday uses for PVC water pipe

tomtilley.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 163 posts

Re: Everyday uses for PVC water pipe

#31

Post by userbinator »

elihu wrote: post #19

Making cool stuff out of cheap materials is great, but as I understand it, PVC itself is nasty stuff (even compared with other plastics) that we should probably be avoiding if we can. I'm not sure what would work as a good general-purpose replacement for PVC for making things out of though. I'm not sure if ABS is available in the narrow diameters that PVC is. Pex is more bendy. Bamboo is strong, but not uniform. Wood…

Burning PVC is very toxic, but ABS is no better in that regard, nor are most other plastics with the exception of pure alkanes.

AFAIK the health scare is mainly around the plasticisers used to make PVC (very) flexible, but rigid PVC pipe does not contain any plasticiser.

Re: Everyday uses for PVC water pipe

#32

Post by schemescape »

One more: PVC bike rack.

I bought a ratcheting PVC cutter and honestly am not sure if I would have been able to complete the project without it.

One note: most instructions suggested doing a “dry fit” but I found that the pipes slid into the connectors much farther once they had PVC glue on them. Not a big deal, but everything ended up smaller than planned as a result.

Re: Everyday uses for PVC water pipe

#33

Post by iancmceachern »

function_seven wrote: post #29
genter wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CPVC might be better than PVC, but it's still way worse than copper or pex. Both PVC and CPVC will shatter if stressed beyond it's yield strength. Go hit it with a hammer, and compare that to hitting a copper pipe or pex. This is also the reason why pvc is super dangerous for compressed air.

> This is also the reason why pvc is super dangerous for compressed air. Back in the day all us kids knew to get the ABS stuff when building our potato cannons. I was terrified of the combustion chamber shattering right next to my face.

We didn't know this and I'm realizing now were incredibly lucky!

Re: Everyday uses for PVC water pipe

#35

Post by datavirtue »

schemescape wrote: post #32

One more: PVC bike rack. I bought a ratcheting PVC cutter and honestly am not sure if I would have been able to complete the project without it. One note: most instructions suggested doing a “dry fit” but I found that the pipes slid into the connectors much farther once they had PVC glue on them. Not a big deal, but everything ended up smaller than planned as a result.

You can quickly sand the ends by grappling them with sandpaper in your hand and twisting/squeezing. This reduces the size and modifies the texture, allowing them to assemble and disassemble easier.

I like to be able to disassemble my creations so I dry fit and then bury a self tapping stainless screw through adjoining pieces instead of using glue.

Re: Everyday uses for PVC water pipe

#36

Post by datavirtue »

8ig8 wrote: post #30
userbinator wrote: post #26

TIL that PVC pipe is normally blue in Thailand. In North America it is almost always white, but also finds similar structural uses.

Schedule 40 is white. Schedule 80 (thicker walls) is a darker gray. (I think.)

Colors vary depending on application. You can get sch 40 and 80 in white.

Just realized that no one mentioned potato guns. I used sch 80 for those. That quickly leads to using iron pipe with a sparkplug and a propane fitting threaded in though.

Post reply on HN