Home made baler... Perhaps I got a bit carried away.

[Evan]

As you can guess from the name of the thread I made my own baler. I got the idea from this thread. If any one is interested in making their own a better copy of the planes can be found here. Here is a picture.



I didn't actually follow the instructions that closely. It's the same scale, but that's about it. It's made completely from scrap wood which I got for free. Mostly pallets. Over all it cost me $87 not counting gas and the screws and bolts I already owned. I'm not sure how much time it took. Here is my first bail.



My first bale is kind of a failure. The instructions say I should be able to make 50 bound bales, but this one only weighed 18 pounds. I need to try and make the next one much denser.

I've given some thought to how I'll make money from the thing. Because of Californian Redemption Value plastic drink bottles are worth $1.10 a pound here so I can make some money off that. They is also a recycling facility close buy that takes some types of plastic and paper. It's not worth that much, but I guess somethings better then nothing. What I'm shooting for long term is the the ability to process wood, paper and plastic. Even if they aren't worth very much being able to process them means less costly trips to the dump which means I can afford to take more unwanted items from people in order to also get the good stuff. At least that's how I'm hopping it will go. Also, I can use it as a trash compacter.

[LarryB]

Now that's a cool build right there Evan! Wish we had refundable plastic bottles here in Ontario, I'd be baling too. lb

[hobo finds]

I have wanted to make a few and sell them outside of the place that buys plastic bottles by me. And I would like to have one as well!

[Mechanic688]

Will they do refundable in a bale, I thought they had to see the barcode??

[hobo finds]

Will they do refundable in a bale, I thought they had to see the barcode??

By me, one place will pay more if it is bundled, not sure how much. They bale all there stuff that they get. Another place just puts it in large canvas / plastic bag thing

[hobo finds]

When you bale these how many are you putting in at a time? When you are waiting to add more do you keep the bale compacted? What about caps I think you would want them loose so the air can go out.

[Mechanic688]

When you bale these how many are you putting in at a time? When you are waiting to add more do you keep the bale compacted? What about caps I think you would want them loose so the air can go out.

Looks like the caps are off in the pic.

[Evan]

When you bale these how many are you putting in at a time? When you are waiting to add more do you keep the bale compacted? What about caps I think you would want them loose so the air can go out.

For this first bale I crushed a bunch of bottles by stepping on them then put them in the baler until it was full. I pressed down on them as far as it would go then brought the press head back up again and put some more bottles in until it was full then pressed it down again and made a bail. I took the caps of completely, but now that I think about it I should just loosen the caps. After I let up the pressure the bottle sprung back up a lot so I didn't get that much room to put more bottles in. If the caps were only loosed they wouldn't spring back up as quickly. Doing it that way should make it much easier to form dense bales.

[Evan]

Will they do refundable in a bale, I thought they had to see the barcode??

For this first one they weren't packed tightly enough so when I got to the scrap yard I just untied the string and stuck them in the barrels they have for loose bottles. Once I start making better bales I'll call around and see if people are willing to take them baled.

I don't think they have a bar code for CRV. Instead they have CRV five cents or CRV ten cent is written on the label, but I've turned in bottles where the label has fallen of and they didn't seem to care. Maybe if all the labels where like that or if they where obviously something other then drink bottles they would care more.

[hobo finds]

Another thing I would wonder / worry about is when I leave caps on slightly the bottles condense the left over liquid in them, I wonder how much moisture if making a bale they will allow...