111–120 of 163 posts
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PVC is quite toxic in a variety of ways. I would never heat, cut PVC voluntarily, especially without full breathing protection
I was wondering about that myself... It also gave me the willies when he was using the table saw cutting those tiny little strips with his fingers so close to the blade!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
PVC is quite toxic in a variety of ways. I would never heat, cut PVC voluntarily, especially without full breathing protection
We never see his face so I'm not sure where your assumptions are coming from, but I'm sure someone with enough PVC experience to make a working model excavator out of PVC is probably taking the necessary safety precautions..
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GP made multiple suggestions and personally I read their comment as “here are some ideas, does anyone else have any?” Not an indictment of people using this material or a statement that there must be something better and everyone must switch to it. Your comment comes across a bit off-tenor. Also keen to hear if folks on here have other ideas (before you ask: I don’t have any). > Generally, if there were a better solu…
I agree, improvement is important. There is a saying, "everyone is a mechanical engineer". As one, we consistently have to field this kind of question in design reviews, etc. The question, in general, is why don't you invent a new material to solve that problem, the answer generally is we don't have the budget on this $100k project to ask DOW chemical or 3M or BASF to spend 10 years designing a new plastic for us. So…
I think they were asking whether there’s an alternative that hobbyist could use for these types of projects.
For example, there might be a material that’s significantly greener and a bit more expensive — enough so that a large scale project couldn’t justify the economic costs (i.e. it wouldn’t be a general purpose replacement for PVC), but such that a small project hobbyist would prefer to have that melting in their garage shop instead of PVC.
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It's certainly not 'way worse'. CPVC/PVC has its advantages and disadvantages, just like every other piping method. CPVC can become less pliable over time, particularly for hot water, but properly (by code) supported/strapped and glued, it can last for decades. It, like PEX, should be run to a well-secured, copper stub out where it sticks out of the wall in an area where it could be damaged. Copper is not without its…
"it can last for decades" Just my personal opinion, that's the problem with US housing. We build stuff to last 20-30 years(if properly installed) , instead of 100s of years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
PVC is quite toxic in a variety of ways. I would never heat, cut PVC voluntarily, especially without full breathing protection
I was wondering about that myself... It also gave me the willies when he was using the table saw cutting those tiny little strips with his fingers so close to the blade!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh. In the US, HDPE outdoors is somewhat common in larger installations and for utilities, and PVC is used for almost all landscape irrigation. Galvanized steel is still surprisingly common indoors and outdoors despite its near complete lack of redeeming features. Indoors, fancy contractors seem to prefer copper and less fancy contractors seem to prefer PEX. Those fancy copper-using contractors seem to mostly mess u…
> (Commercial fire sprinkler pipes seem to be mostly steel (!). I don’t know why. It always seems like a dubious idea to me.) Because steel can withstand much higher temperatures than CPVC, PVC, or Pex, by at least an order of magnitude, not to mention withstand much higher water pressure too.
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If you go PEX, I highly recommend going the entire Uponor route and use the expansion tooling (get the powered one). No need to worry about incorrect crimps and it just works.
If only Uponor would flesh out their fitting portfolio for 3/8”. 3/8” PEX is a near-perfect material for hot water distribution to sinks and showers — jurisdictions seem to have settled on the 0-2gpm range for sinks and showers, and 3/8” PEX high velocity at moderate pressure loss at these flows, which is exactly what you want. [0] But Uponor has very limited 3/8” parts, and using their brass fittings in that small s…
Folks on YouTube cut, heat, and flatten PVC and then scratch build scale models out of it. This working excavator is rather extraordinary. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qam0DmWq_No&pp=ygUTcHZjIHBpcGU...
I would guess he would have used some CAD tool to design this excavator? It had to have been very carefully thought out to ensure proper access to put the pieces together and take them back apart all along the way. Does he say in other videos what he uses?