Boat made of plastic bottles. Making a boat from plastic bottles
Winter is not the best best time years to think about building boats. But to make this kayak, you need to prepare everything in advance required material, and this is at least 270 plastic bottles. Therefore, free up an extra room for them, because very soon you will have your own boat, reliable and strong. But still, you shouldn’t ride it down a mountain river to the sea during a storm. It is perfect for a quiet, shallow lake or pool.
1.
You will need:
2. Deck
The design of the boat will resemble an ordinary punt. The basic principle of operation is to make several flat layers and attach them to each other. It is necessary to glue the bottles together, side by side, to create neat sections. Optimal thickness glue – 5-6 mm.
As a result, you should have a deck of 12 horizontal sections of the following dimensions:
3. Body
After the deck is glued, let it dry thoroughly according to the instructions on the glue. Don't waste precious minutes, because it's time to work on the boat's hull. The hull will be slightly smaller than the deck, but the principle of creation remains the same. You should end up with 11 horizontal sections for the second layer of the following dimensions:
4. Base layer
After all the sections are ready and the glue has dried, you can proceed directly installation work. Glue the bottle according to the “end to end” principle (bottom to bottom, cap to cap). Connect the bottles as shown in the picture. Connect the two sections of the bottom until you reach the 6th section. Then connect the two halves, consisting of 6 sections each, with the bottoms of the bottles. The caps on the rear half will face aft, and the caps on the front half will face forward.
5. Further installation work
A “V”-shaped depression is formed between the base layer bottles. Once it's dry, start gluing the second one on top of the first one directly with these "V" depressions between the base layer bottles. Each bottle of the second layer should be offset so that it touches the two bottles of the base layer section as shown in the picture. This second layer acts as the bottom of a boat. Weight all sections together with heavy books, or objects, or stationary people until the glue dries.
6. Seat
Next we make the seat. Glue a separate bottle layer - 2 sections of 11 bottles each - and glue it all on top of the main frame. We warn you that it is very uncomfortable to sit on this, so it is better to lay down a towel or pillow.
7. The final touch
Now you need to make a gunwale, a side of the deck from bottles. Glue 2 rows of bottles side by side along the edges of the largest layer, and then add another one to further protect yourself from splashes.
8. Test time
The boat is ready for launch. Ideally, use kayak oars. If you weigh more than 75 kg, then you need to make the boat in three layers of the hull. A boat made from plastic bottles is perfect for fun by the pool or in shallow water. We do not recommend crossing the English Channel on it.
Spring is the traditional time for the beginning of the fishing season. What's fishing without a boat? You will learn how to make a boat from plastic bottles from this article.
Required materials
To start making your boat, collect all suitable material. It consists of approximately the following basic elements:
1. Plastic bottles. You need to collect as many of them as possible. It's good if they are large.
2. Scissors or a sharp knife.
3. Scotch tape for fastening bottles.
4. Thin wire.
5. Cross members made of wood or plywood.
Stages of work
We will tell you step by step how to make a boat yourself. Stage one involves preparing the bottles for use. Wash them, remove stickers and glue itself, using a solvent if necessary. Then fill the bottles with pressurized air to prevent them from deforming.
The bottles are placed in the freezer. After they are filled with cold air, you need to screw them on with the lids. When moving bottles from freezer air expands into heat. Thanks to this, the bottles are no longer subject to deformation. When all the procedures are done, place the bottle caps on the glue, and it is better if the glue is waterproof.
So, when describing the second stage, everything will become somewhat clearer. You will need to collect plastic bottles into so-called “logs”. The first two bottles are held together by their bottoms: the protrusions of one are connected to the depressions of the other. To connect them, a third bottle is used, the frame of which is stretched over the other two. The joints of the containers are connected with tape. At this stage, it already becomes clear to you how to make a boat. You see that it is simple and inexpensive.
To continue, you need to cut off the neck of two more bottles. Each of them is put on the already fastened bottles on its own side. The joints are connected and sealed with tape and glue. The result is a blank with bottoms at both ends. As in the first stage, we connect the recesses and protrusions. This way you can get whole “logs” from plastic bottles. Surely the question of how to make a boat yourself does not scare you now.
Stage three begins with connecting the “logs” into floats. There should be eight of them in one float. The “logs” are held together using tape, wire, or waterproof glue.
Now that the work is almost completed, you yourself can show off to your friends and tell them how to make a boat yourself. Only one step separates you from victory. All that remains is to assemble the boat itself from components. They are held together by crossbars. Assembly patterns and frames are very different. It depends on what model of swimming craft you are going to make. If desired, the boat can be upholstered with sheets of plywood, painted or painted.
Now you know how to make a boat from available materials. It doesn't cost much. Most often they make rafts or simple boats, but you can even make a yacht from plastic bottles. Show your imagination and make your boat unique, one that your friends and relatives will be delighted to see.
A 22-year-old student and his classmate, car mechanic Jakub Bures, built a 10-meter boat from 5,000 plastic bottles tied to wooden frame. They and two other men plan to ride a bicycle from their hometown Nymburk along the Elbe River to Hamburg in Germany to draw attention to the growing plastic pollution in Europe.
Huge sailboat made from plastic bottles
In one of our most interesting projects we teamed up with primary school Fourlanesend and local boatbuilder Andy Fox to build and launch sailboat from hundreds of plastic bottles, as part of our work with children to make them think more about plastic and what happens to it when we throw it away.
Andy Fox had previously built the famous Plastiki, which floated on Pacific Ocean in 2010. Made from recycled plastic and 12,500 reclaimed bottles, it traveled more than 8,000 miles from San Francisco to Australia to raise awareness of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a vast and growing area. "plastic soup" is estimated to contain six times more plastic waste than plankton.
Fourlanesend children named their six-metre Triamar Respect after one of their school values, as well as respect for environment. It was made from around 750 bottles that the children brought from home over just a few weeks, as well as other recycled materials such as discarded farm sacks and tents left behind from a local makers' festival.
The boat was launched on Cawsand Beach in July 2013 with six lucky guests receiving their first ride, accompanied by a local concert club's security boat. Later that day, more than 20 excited children were aboard a floating boat in shallow water. As Andy noted: “A 1 liter bottle will hold a kilo of weight!”
In 2014 Respect sailed again and took part in the Mt Edgcumbe Smugglers Weekend. He spent the summer on display in the main lobby of the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, with an interactive display that received more than 12,000 views.
After finishing the exhibition at the museum, Respect returned "home" to Fourlanesend School, where he now lives in the school playground where the children play.
We hope this project has helped people think more about plastic, waste and how we use and allocate resources.
By at least, 15 million single-use plastic bottles are thrown away in the UK every day, most of which have only been used for a few minutes. They will take hundreds of years or more to break down and, since no known natural process can digest them, will likely never completely disappear from the environment.
While recycling bottles is better than throwing away plastic, it still only delays the inevitable. Bottles can only be recycled a few times before their quality degrades to the point that the plastic must be recycled into items over low quality, such as fleece, bins or benches, which will almost certainly not be recycled at the end of their life.
Andy Fox would like to see closed-loop processes used in shipbuilding and surfboard manufacturing, where end-of-life recycling is still optional, as in the automotive and aviation industries.
He wants Project Respect to highlight the fact that boats (and many of our other everyday objects) can be easily made from recycled plastic - and completely recycled themselves at the end of their life, eliminating the need for constant and environmentally costly production of new materials.
He said: “People think that natural substances such as timber and jute are the most environmentally friendly products that you can use in boat building, but in fact, when you take into account factors such as transporting these products, the use pesticides, useful lifespan, anti-fouling, etc. you will find that – provided it is used correctly and 100% recycled – the greenest substance is actually the plastic produced in our country.”
Small boat made from PVC bottles
As previously announced, this video from the UHackShow channel is about how to make a boat out of bottles! So, friends, we are back in nature. Do you like such landscapes? And we are again at the reservoir, with a trunk filled to capacity, full of empty plastic bottles.
Those who buy water know that in a few months you can collect a bunch of eggplants. Coming closer to the water, this picture came as a shock to us. And also, I had to help the little haircut, who apparently fell out of the nest. Blue-green bacteria occupied the reservoir, turning its banks into a swamp. But the decision was made to continue the work begun.
To make a homemade boat, polyurethane foam and a 6-liter plastic bottle in the amount of 46 pieces will be used. This time, we couldn't do without adhesive tape. According to calculations, for a small bottle boat you need two rolls of tape. Although, in fact, one 300-meter skein would be enough, which is much less than other youtube manufacturers of homemade boats. Well, guys, of course, free time.
The boat will take twice as long to build as a raft made from plastic bottles. Initially, we wrap 4 cans with tape. We need one such detail. Then, three eggplants together. We need 4 of these. We roll the tape along the bottom and in the center, but don’t touch the top yet. This is important to remember and during final assembly there will not be any special problems. We wrap all the bottles in a circle about three times. The bottom should be exactly along the line and at the same level.
In prefabricated structures, the main thing is the blanks. Their quality and compliance with requirements affects absolutely everything. Wrapping cans is a bit of a boring task, but you will see for yourself how cool a boat will turn out from polyurethane foam, plastic bottles and adhesive tape in the end.
Now you need to glue two together, and attach a third to them in the center. This will be part of the bow of the bottle boat.
Also homemade boat must have two sides. First, twist four jars together. And then we’ll wind them along. It will be much easier to do this long blanks and don’t ruin your mood.
You won’t see it here, but in addition to all the blanks listed, you will need one more, 5 cans long. She will go to the very back of the boat. We shake the sides thoroughly. In three directions, in the center and on the sides. They will connect the front and back of the structure. Their rigidity determines whether our, as yet unnamed, homemade boat will break on the waves.
Next comes homemade preparations. Such fasteners I made it at home from caps from the same plastic bottles. Three pieces will be used to make the bottom of the boat. Using a well-heated tube with a diameter of about 9 millimeters, we make through holes in 6 covers. Then they will only need to be connected in pairs with an M8 bolt. From water leaking inside, the plastic bottle will be protected by a rubber gasket between the caps. For reliability, we tighten it well with oversized washers and threaded connection rubber between plastic. And so we make three such fasteners.
By the way, having made about five similar fasteners, you can make a raft from bottles; in any case, a swimming mattress will turn out quite well. We twist old corks from six bottles and connect the jars as shown on the screen. This must be done with force so that the plastic bottle is sealed and your homemade boat does not sink. These are dumbbell-like blanks for the lining of our bottle boat.
By the way, a boat is considered to be a floating device not exceeding 9 by 3 meters in size. Its load capacity should be up to 5 tons. Basically, boats are rowing vessels with oars. But there are also sailing ones, they are usually called yachts.
Now we try to pull the bottles together evenly and tightly. We don’t regret the adhesive tape, because this is the main detail. All other workpieces will be attached to it. And soon you will learn how to make a boat if you have a sufficient number of plastic bottles, polyurethane foam and tape. Typically, boats are made from aluminum, wood and polymers. That is, ours belongs to the latter.
Dinghies, boats and other watercraft weighing up to 200 kilograms are not subject to state regulations. Registration, and everyone else, just like cars, needs to be registered and receive license plates. The first boats were made by ancient people. From the trunks big trees. Our ancestors swam across entire seas on their canoes, canoes or kayaks. By the way, the grandfather of the author of the video lives in Naberezhnye Chelny. He participated in the development of Kamaz vehicles. And his second cousin came up with stealth technology. If you don't know what stealth is, it's a stealth aircraft. For example, the f-117 nighthawk or the b-2 bomber.
As we already understood, at the ends you need to wrap 2 pieces of 3 cans on one side. On the other hand, first one triple, and then 4 eggplants. In this case, the latter must be centered with an offset. In general, look and everything will become clear. The two openings in the center are an excellent place to securely connect the parts together. These holes are more functional than they seem at first glance. You can see this for yourself at the end of the video, during the test.
Now we are making the most complex unit, one of the elements of which will consist of our, I hope, reliable boat made of bottles. First time in my life, my own boat. Doing this alone will be problematic. It is necessary for at least someone to help hold it.
It's time to finally assemble the triangular nose. After wrapping it a little more, all the nodes are assembled. The main thing is not to sculpt it somehow. We do it according to a pre-planned project. Perhaps the first is the trickiest element. The rest are easy and simple to do.
We were a little tired and needed a little break. (Thorn) after some debate on how to proceed further, we came to general decision, you need to wind along the contour. At least it’s okay to grab everything in its place. Next, using the same openings in the center of the boat, we tighten the parts lengthwise and crosswise.
Now, basically, in the transverse plane, having fastened the sidewalls, we wrap the boat well with about a hundred meters of tape. This part of the assembly took a significant amount, more than 1/3 of a skein, and a lot of time. But avid fishing enthusiasts will be able to find about 5 hours of free time and they will have a homemade fishing boat that should last more than one season.
Let's have a little patience and soon the boat will be almost ready. Such a cute boat. The shape is very similar to a factory inflatable rubber boat. The test of strength, so far only on land, is impressive. But still, it would be worth a little more, to further strengthen top part vessel, since the bottom will be compressed by water, and the top will have free movement.
It wouldn't be nice if so much wasted common efforts it went to waste. It's better to play it safe once again. To do this, we use tape to unlace all the necks of the bottles, twice in opposite directions. In this case, the tape now serves as a rope. It's funny to look at this process from the outside. If you also liked it, please give it a like. Write your tips on how to improve this boat, maybe they will be useful to someone. If you haven't subscribed, subscribe!
And now all that's left is foam! In short, we blow out all sorts of holes and cracks between plastic bottles. As you know, you can even float on polyurethane foam, like on a raft. Accordingly, the foam will add buoyancy to the boat and, spreading the cans, will make the structure more monolithic. So, it definitely won't fall apart. I would like to do more from behind soft seat, but as luck would have it, everything ends at the wrong time. There is no more foam... Yes.
And how can our homemade boat manage without oars? Yes, no way! We don't have a sail, and the wind blows directly onto the shore. Let's take a carpet beater from grandma, which no one needs. Wrapping it, as usual, with tape to form a solid plane. We carefully tape it to the stick along the entire length. And the oar is ready, and we can start testing. True, it turned out more like a shovel. But that’s okay, we’re still more interested in the bottle boat itself and how it will behave on the water.
All that's left is to come up with a name. Without hesitation, the boat was named after youtube channel, which you are currently watching. Even the local horse became interested. This one comes up and asks: well, how to make a boat out of bottles? And we answered her: polyurethane foam, a bottle and tape! And when she sees her: well, well! This is a boat made of bottles. In short, the horse was in shock. Well, in the meantime, we guys will hurry to test our boat, because it’s already getting dark. The rising waves broke the greenery a little. Not to say that the water became clean, but better than it was.
As you can see, the boat called Yuhak Shaw sails quite well. Whatever you name the boat, that’s how it will float.
By the way, its weight is no more than 5 kilograms, and you can walk on the bottom of the reservoir with your feet. The children will find it interesting. You can also put a fishing tank inside the holes. Or even fish with a jig right in the boat. The child was delighted!
Of course, in addition to having your own homemade boat, you also need to be able to work with an oar, otherwise you won’t sail far, no matter how hard you try. To balance the load balance, pour a little water into the container into the front part of the vessel. Now we can safely say that such a homemade boat made from bottles can withstand more than 100 kilograms of load. For an adult, it is advisable to make it at least 2 jars wider. Otherwise, you will have to swim with your feet dangling in the water. Some strange feeling arises when you realize that an ordinary plastic bottle, polyurethane foam and tape can work wonders. This is a great DIY boat. Guys, if you liked it, give it a thumbs up.
Surely many craftsmen have wondered how to use the buoyancy of empty plastic bottles to make small boat or a fishing raft. In fact, putting this idea into practice is not so easy. Apparently, this is why there are not so many examples of such creativity, but they still exist.
Industrial engineer from Argentina Federico Blanc calculated and built a similar structure in the form of a narrow kayak. The boat can carry two adults with additional cargo.
The boat floats perfectly on the water and is often used for its intended purpose on the Argentine Parana River. The author did not immediately come to this design. He conducted several experiments with assembling a boat from standard bottles with closed lids. In the end, the ideal design of long cylinders was obtained.
The most important and complex element construction, is to glue oblong cylinders from several large bottles. The two outer bottles are taken with their entire necks closed with corks. For the rest, the bottom and neck of the bottles are cut off. The bottles are glued together with the walls overlapping each other. Of course, such work will require some time and ingenuity. But now the master has made his dream come true. In addition to two people and fishing gear, the boat also had room for a small refrigerator; indeed, it was a dream and not a vacation.
Another version of a boat made from plastic bottles was made by the owner and staff of a small hotel on the island of Viti Levu, Fiji. Here, when designing, we went what is called “head-on”. The bottles are simply glued together; to increase buoyancy, the bottom is made of a piece of thick foam.
Parts of the structure were filled with waterproof material from the inside for tightness. polyurethane foam, I’m really not sure that we have such foam in our stores. On the other hand, I know from my own experience that good foam sticks to any material and you can’t just tear it off. The outside of the product is covered with film, which increases the rigidity of the connection. Despite its rather strange appearance, the boat can support three adult men afloat.
The matter was not limited to one boat; square rafts were also collected. It is certainly easier to make a raft than a boat. It's enough to take something light sheet material, this could be a piece of foam reinforced on top with a piece of plywood of the same size. Then, under the foam, two or three rows of bottles are glued from below.
A few years ago I was inspired by a very short video. In which a man makes a small boat out of recycled bottles.
No matter where I looked, I couldn't come up with any instructions on how to make one for myself, so I had to make my own raft without much direction. I decided that I would make a big raft.
This is really interesting way reuse and recycle those pesky plastic drink bottles that are always littering the sidewalks and city streets.
As an added bonus, it is somehow recycled!
Boat. I made a boat resembling a kayak (kayak) with an open top. Its dimensions are approximately 1.5 x 3.5 meters and weighs about 50 kg. Because the bottle caps are tightly screwed on, they keep me afloat perfectly even if they are flooded. It's ideal for calm waters and it's surprisingly durable, but I wouldn't advise anyone to even try to swim with it in small rapids.
Materials for making a boat from plastic bottles
You only need 3 things:
- Plastic bottles with caps, tightly twisted (about 270). I used single drink bottles because they have great texture and size, and the end result is a durable construction.
- Glue. I used liquid nails (polyurethane glue). Perhaps there are better options.
- Glue gun.
Perhaps some of you will use this option for making a boat from plastic bottles, or it will give you a better idea when implementing your plan!