recycling plastic bottles-lot of pictures
I put this together as a tutorial post on BCUK and just thought some of you on here might be interested.
This, is a minnow bottle or if you prefer; a tree sap collector, either way it takes about 30 minutes or less to make and is a great way to recycle plastic drinks bottles.
The raw materials: 2x 2litres drinks bottles.
You need a pair of sharp scissors, in this case the one's on my 15 year old Gerber multi-tool.
Some cordage,
Something to make holes with, that doesn't mind being heated up and something to make the heat, in this case, a mini trangia burner.
I started by cutting the top of one bottle,
ending up with this:
and the bottom off the other bottle:
Then,after removing the cap from the cut off top, fit this inside the other bottle. It should look something like This:
Next, you need to heat up what ever your going to use to make the holes. I used a home made awl, normally used for bark container making etc so not going to be ruined by heating.
I have used a mini trangia in this tutorial as thats what i had handy, but you could use anything including the cooker if you wish.
It's very difficult to see, but it's alight here!
Once you have the awl or w.h.y. hot, start melting holes around the rim, about 15mm from the cut edge of the outer bottle.It pays to do one hole one side, then do the next one opposite. The holes being melted through, welds the plastic, helping to give the whole thing a bit of strength.
Continue around the bottle, alternating as you go, till you have about 15-20mm between the holes.Then put your burner out! Your bottle should now look like this:
Trim off the edges till you have about 15mm from the edge to the holes.:
It's just a matter of "sewing" the two parts together now. You can use any cordage you have available:
Here; we have spruce root on the left and Wych elm bark on the right:
I decided to strip down some old terylene rope, just to give the job a totally "recycled" flavour
Simply thread the cord through the first hole and tie it off-in this case; a round turn and two half hitches:
then, just keep threading the cord through the holes;
Until you get back to where you started:
Then form a loop and attach a length of cord, long enough to allow you to cast the bottle to where your minnows are and...well......Robert's your mothers brother
To use it; fill the bottle with water, add a few small bits of bread and then cast it into the area where your minnows are swimming. It also helps to chuck a few extra bits of bread around the bottle to attract the minnows to the area.
You need to keep an eye on it as it can fill rapidly with minnows and once in, they can't get out! When you want a minnow for bait, simply unscrew the cap and let one out. You can refill the bottle with fresh water every half hour or so and you can also carry the bottle if your moving around.If your static; just leave the bottle in the water and If your boat fishing, you can simply hang it over the side of the boat, either way, the minnows get a constant supply of fresh water.
So; there you go, if you need live bait for fishing, have a go at this.
You can also use the same device for collecting tree sap; simply hang it on the spile and place a piece of cloth in the neck to filter out muck and insects etc.
Even if you don't fish or collect tree sap, it make's a handy "pee bottle" for chaps in hammocks!
Have fun and mind your fingers
Steve
If you don't do Anything!, You'll never make mistakes!
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Originally Posted by Blutack
I like that idea, although my style of barbecuing, generally leads to enough smoke to require wasps, flies and low flying aircraft to engage either radar or telepathy to see where they're going
