Reclaiming ABS Pipe

[MrWhoopee]

I had some old ABS drain tees with short stubs of pipe to go to the trash, when I realized they had potential. I cut a couple of the stubs off, about 3 in. long, and split them once lengthwise. Then I put them on a s/s plate in the toaster oven at about 225° F. When they started to soften, I spread them out and put them back in to flatten completely. Once fully softened I pulled them out with the plate and pressed them with a heavy piece of steel, allowing them to cool. The 3" pipe unrolls to a little over 10" flat, and the thickness is about .260 in.


ABS is an excellent material to work with, good strength, impact resistance and rigidity. Most importantly, it can be glued. I can see gluing these up to make thicker stock.

 

[DavidR8]

That is sheer genius!

 

[woodchucker]

A little acetone or MEK will glue them nicely.

 

[francist]

As David said, pure genius! I’ve used ABS that I purchased in sheet form but never thought to unroll a piece of pipe to get it. Brilliant

-frank

 

[C-Bag]

As David said, pure genius! I’ve used ABS that I purchased in sheet form but never thought to unroll a piece of pipe to get it. Brilliant

-frank

Just out of curiosity what did you use the ABS sheet for? I’ve used Delrin and UHMW bushings and slide bearings,but not ABS.

 

[Asm109]

examine it real close, you might find that the inside of the material is foamed, not solid. Outside would be marked cellular core.

 

[rwm]

examine it real close, you might find that the inside of the material is foamed, not solid. Outside would be marked cellular core.

That has been my issue with this technique. Do they make pipe that is solid?

 

[francist]

Just out of curiosity what did you use the ABS sheet for

We had a sign to build for for a local pub, my part was the lettering. They wanted black in a particular thickness that acrylic was not going to fulfill, so ABS got the nod. As I recall it had a pebble-finish on one side — interesting stuff but a little soft for a lot of things.

 

[MrWhoopee]

examine it real close, you might find that the inside of the material is foamed, not solid. Outside would be marked cellular core.

I am aware that foam core exists, but this stuff does not appear to be that. It is quite old, probably back when ABS first came into use. The stubs are short, so markings are minimal.

edit: Looking at the picture, I see "llular core", so apparently it is foam core. Will be interesting to see how it behaves.

 

[MrWhoopee]

That has been my issue with this technique. Do they make pipe that is solid?

Did you try this with foam core? What happened?