Okay, so, aluminum beverage bottles, right? I got this idea stuck in my head, figured I’d give it a shot. See if I could actually, you know, do something cool with ’em.
First things first, I started hoarding. Seriously, every time I finished a drink in one of those aluminum bottles, I’d stash it away. Took a while, but I ended up with a decent little collection – maybe like, twenty or so? Needed enough to actually make something worthwhile.
Then came the cleaning. This was probably the most boring part. I rinsed each bottle out really well with hot, soapy water. Made sure to get all the gunk out. After that, I let ’em air dry completely. Didn’t want any moisture messing things up later.
Next up, I started thinking about what I actually wanted to make. I tossed around a few ideas – a lamp base, maybe some weird art piece. Eventually, I settled on trying to make a kinda modular shelving unit. Figured I could cut the bottles and stack ’em.
Cutting the bottles was tricky. I tried a few different things. Snips were too messy, left jagged edges. Eventually, I found that a pipe cutter worked pretty well. You gotta go slow, tighten it a little bit at a time, and rotate it around. Still leaves a bit of a burr, but you can file that down.
So, I’m cutting all these bottles into sections. Tops, bottoms, middles. I even tried cutting some lengthwise to make flat pieces. Messy work, aluminum shards everywhere, gotta wear gloves.
Once I had a bunch of these cut pieces, I started playing around with different arrangements. Stacked ’em, nested ’em, tried gluing ’em together with epoxy. The epoxy worked okay, but it was kinda messy and took forever to dry.
Finally, I found that pop rivets worked the best for joining the aluminum pieces. Drilled small holes, popped ’em in, bam! Solid connection. Stronger than I expected, actually.
The shelving unit idea didn’t quite work out. It was too wobbly, not stable enough for actual books or anything. But I did manage to create a sort of abstract sculpture thing. Kinda weird, kinda cool. I ended up hanging it on the wall in my garage.
It wasn’t a huge success, but hey, I learned a bunch. Aluminum’s tougher to work with than I thought. And pop rivets are your friend. Might try something different next time. Maybe a bird feeder? Or some weird garden art. Who knows?
Anyway, that’s my aluminum beverage bottle adventure. Not perfect, but a fun little project to kill some time.
