What do you do with nylatron chips?

Parkerbender · Jan 31, 2017

I am amassing a small mountain of nylatron chips, and just got a big order that will probably double my pile...

What do you do with this stuff? at like $87,000,000/lb I hate to throw it all out in the trash, does someone recycle it? Obviously money would be nice, but even if there wasn't much money in it, just so it doesn't end up in a landfill, a whole darn truckload of plastic...

Thoughts?

Milland · Jan 31, 2017

These guys say they will take any form of nylon, filled or unfilled: Phoenix Recycling Inc - plastic scrap recycling. polyethylene polypropylene polystyrene polycarbonate acrylic nylon

But you need to find someone close, as shipping these is a pain. Search for "recycling nylon scrap" (no quotes), and start making some calls. Even if company A says they can't take it, they may know a company B in your area that will, so be sure to ask for leads.

Milland · Jan 31, 2017

Oh, and buy yourself a cheap all metal shed that you can put up inside (or outside) the building to store the chips a little more safely. You don't want a random spark or flame setting that pile alight, your insurance company won't be impressed...

Parkerbender · Jan 31, 2017

Funny enough, I had an on-site audit in December and they didn't say anything!

But... I am in an industrial strip-mall or whatever, and I would get some pretty funny looks if I put up a shed in the parking lot. :-S

Ron Hofer · Jan 31, 2017

What do you do with nylatron chips?

Stock up on salsa and melted cheese?

Milland · Jan 31, 2017

Parkerbender said:
Funny enough, I had an on-site audit in December and they didn't say anything!

Heh - did they know what was in the bags?

TDegenhart · Jan 31, 2017

Make some phone calls to mold shops in the area and find out if you can rent some time on a pelletizer or find out what they do if they don't recycle the scrap. Molders often have large amounts of scrap resin when thet purge the barrel, gates and runners, sprues, and so forth.

Tom

Larry Dickman · Jan 31, 2017

check with your regular scrap metal guys. Their bread and butter is metal chips, but my guys deal in just about anything they can make a buck on.

Davis In SC · Jan 31, 2017

I doubt there is much market for Nylatron chips, unless you had a huge ongoing supply of them. As a rule, just a slight amount of contamination will render chips/regrind almost worthless.

Limy Sami · Jan 31, 2017

I've never been able to sell anything other than PTFE & PEEK. ......I had over a ton of waste from one black Nylatron job ....all from one batch number full certs etc etc etc and no-one, not even the original manufacturers wanted to know.

IIRC with the hire of the skip and landfill fees it cost me in the region of £130 to dispose of.

DDoug · Jan 31, 2017

Mix it in with the mulch around the flowerbeds ?

Rinse them off, fill a feed bag with them, and sew shut....bedding for Fido.

Parkerbender · Jan 31, 2017

Ha! These guys suck so bad in this town that they don't even take steel chips "that wont go through our shredder" "you mean the thing you have to cut cars into little pieces like these?" "yep"

ugh.

Another in my long list of reasons why I am getting the hell out of this town! But anyway, doubt they will take them. ;-)

If there was a few bucks in these things, I would wash them and run them through my dryer! (as to the contamination thing)

Chip Chester · Jan 31, 2017

Step 1. Buy a concrete block
Step 2. 3-D scan block face, create dxf
Step 3. Cut mold of concrete block face, 1" thick
Step 4. Melt Nylatron, pour in mold, allow to cool, decant, repeat
Step 5. Sell lightweight, glue-on block-face panels to Milicron by the pallet
Step 6. Profit.

Chip

Parkerbender · Jan 31, 2017

I have just been literally researching almost that. Any idea if a guy can remelt it? I threw some in a aluminum crucible-ish thing I have, and put it on the grill, not sure if I just didn't get it hot enough, or if it doesn't melt, or if you have to do it under argon, or what... :-/

Milland · Feb 1, 2017

Parkerbender said:
I have just been literally researching almost that. Any idea if a guy can remelt it? I threw some in a aluminum crucible-ish thing I have, and put it on the grill, not sure if I just didn't get it hot enough, or if it doesn't melt, or if you have to do it under argon, or what... :-/

From Wikipedia: Nylon 6 has a melting point of 428 degrees Fahrenheit, or 220 degrees Celcius. Nylon 66 has a melting point of 509 degrees Fahrenheit, or 265 degrees Celsius.

I don't think the filler would change the melt point too much, so maybe you didn't get it hot enough.

Jim Williams · Feb 1, 2017

I met a person who was manufacturing a product out of HDPE, and had a lot of chips from the machining. The chips were white, and when piled up, looked remarkably like drifted snow. He ended up having a side business selling chips to department stores decorating their windows with Winter scenes. Of course you can not use you chips for this, but the chip utilization shows the advantage of "thinking outside the box". Hopefully the forum members will come up with some ideas.

Jim

DDoug · Feb 1, 2017

There is a recycling place downstate that makes plastic fence post's....very crude by modern plastic standards,
but they are recycling plastic with it.

As described to me (by a non-technical person seeing the operation) they have an extruder, they swing a fence
post mold (by jib crane) up to the extruder, fill the mold, then cool with water, then unbolt the mold with an
impact wrench.

Very crude, and of course, water in the plastic (absorbed beforehand, not the cooling water) causes bubbles, so the center core of said post is quite ugly.

This is about the only product I can think of that has such low quality requirement: The outside is smooth,
and it will hold a fencing staple when driven into it.

HGR and McKean Machinery both sell used small extruders, as well as plastic dryers and scrap choppers pretty cheaply.

Mtndew · Feb 1, 2017

Parkerbender said:
I am amassing a small mountain of nylatron chips, and just got a big order that will probably double my pile...

What do you do with this stuff? at like $87,000,000/lb I hate to throw it all out in the trash, does someone recycle it? Obviously money would be nice, but even if there wasn't much money in it, just so it doesn't end up in a landfill, a whole darn truckload of plastic...

Thoughts?View attachment 190047

We just toss ours into the trash. Is Nylatron really that expensive? I never would have guessed. :confused:

Glug · Feb 1, 2017

What size are the chips? Maybe they could have some use in media blasting or tumbling.

I have a job that produces long thin ribbons of acetal. Miles of it. I collect them continuously in a vacuum, and the ribbon is quite strong. I have thought it might be interesting to rig up a reel with vanes driven by the flow of the vacuum. It would automatically wind up that ribbon for some other use. But it's just one of those thoughts you have when you're monitoring a job, wondering what use could be made of the waste.

Parkerbender · Feb 1, 2017

I have a drier, a grinder, and a press... but I only have one mold, and am not very bright when it comes to the whole injecty moldie thing, so I don't really think I will be playing with the stuff that way, but if I could melt it so I could pour it, or eve draw a vacuum on it, I could make some simple pour molds for something or other and use it that way... or even just make blocks to cut up again for this or that purpose maybe.

I will have to throw more heat to some chips and see if they melt at a little over 500... I just feel by the time you get up there that the line between melty melty and burny burny is a blonde one.

We shall see!

What do you do with nylatron chips?

Stainless

Diamond

Diamond

Stainless

Hot Rolled

Diamond

Diamond

Titanium

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Stainless

Diamond

Stainless

Diamond

Stainless

Diamond

Diamond

Hot Rolled

Stainless

Similar threads