Where do ideas like this come from? It can’t have been Athena-like, springing from his brow fully formed.
My first guess would be that someone wanted cheap material to use in a 3D printer.
I would pay money for the following thing: an EMP hardened device containing a small screen, and software to search an every DIY video on Youtube downloaded to a drive. I have no interest in doing this, but after a Carrington event, this stuff would be enormously helpful.
OK intarwebs, now come up with something useful to do with this string… garden uses? weaving? jewelry? nesting material for GMO dinosaurs? Trump hair replacement DIY kits?
Weed wacker string was my first thought.
Dont’ know if it’s too weak for that use, or if it’s a good idea to spread pieces of that stuff around in the garden.
You could use it to knit (or crochet or weave) some strong reusable grocery bags.
Wonder if you could braid it into a stronger rope. Inclined to say it’d be too slippery to hold well.
Useful? I dunno, seems kinda subjective. These folk seem to make nifty stuff though. One useful (to me anyway) thing to do with PET plastic string is to wrap it around things and hit it with a heat gun to make tough handles on just about anything.
So, twenty yards of string walks into a bar…
The next step is to make a quick crank out of some dowels, a longer screw, a nut and a chunk of 2x4. Attach it underneath the cutter, and start winding the string onto it; instant production line, if you need a lot of it.
And something to wind it onto automatically in the process, so that it doesn’t turn into a massive tangle.
MASSIVE 'fraid not.
Maybe they were a Boing Boing reader and remembered the post about the “crazy russians” making string from plastic bottles post a while back.
(sorry can’t find the BB post in the BB search, but I did find the youtube video)
In the above video they show how to heat shrink it after tying/wrapping things.
Their cutter has slots for different widths of string/ribbon, which seems like the way to go.
I’ve built a similar screw-and-blade contraption to remove insulation from copper wiring.
My take at the scrap yard was still disappointing.
PET bottles are less maintenance, but they are also less interesting and personable than pet tigers, monkeys, and bears.
I do not recommend getting drunk with a PET bear. Unless you are a crazy Russian. In which case of course you did.
the video “how to turn a pet bear into string” is gruesome and cruel.
Well… how about trying to mod a gameboy? They seem like the kind of clunky device you could fit a lot of shielding and epoxy into. Instead of using cartridges in the slot at the top, you could probably get rid of a lot of stuff and fit a 2.5" laptop HDD in there. GB already has a screen. Just spitballing.
After the apocalypse? Snares is my first thought.
