Adventures with Home-Made Plastic

I have been experimenting (read: playing) with milk curds to produce a rudimentary casein plastic.

There's an instructable if you're interested in doing this yourself.

First attempt: a lump of pure casein took about a week to dry for me.  Before it fully dried, I was able to pierce it with a bradawl and screw a PC case screw into the resulting hole.  Maybe I'll use this for making my own stand-outs.

Second attempt: I thought I'd try to use it to reinforce some corrugated cardboard.  When I make cardboard PC cases, making the case stiff enough is always a design issue.

I followed the instructable, but re-dissolved the casein (using a little water and a teaspoon or two of bicarbonate of soda) and soaked it into the cardboard.  I also heated it in a 50° C oven for an hour in an attempt to accelerate the drying.

It was a failure: the cardboard warped and was not significantly strengthened.

Happy accident: While cleaning up with some paper towel, I decided to leave the paper towel on the wax paper to dry.  It made an incredibly stiff material after three or four days of drying.  So...

Third attempt: Making a rod of paper towel/casein composite.

I made a prism mould from cereal card and filled it with scrunched up paper towel soaked in casein paste.  It is beginning its drying process as I type, so I will update in a few days when it is done.  Early prediction: the paste has soaked into the card mould, so it will probably be quite warped by the time it has dried.

Only time will tell...


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