Upcycling

There are plenty of waste material that can be had from construction but often they
show up in a form close to "raw" and wouldn't qualify as an actual upcylcling
project. I went over to the storage side of our workshop and found a couple of
interesting items that might make for a good example, one of which was an old
wooden jalousie window. With the proper configuration, the jalousie would've easily
made for shelving units - a popular upcycling output that often ends up with a can
of paint to finish it off and give it a "new" feel. At the back of my head I felt
that it was a good enough fallback and so I proceeded to look at some more
discarded items to look for better potential.

One of the bigger items in the heap was a water closet that had broken down - it
was not shattered or anything but examples of its repurposing still made it look
like a water closet which, while it meets the upcycling criteria, isn't really
palatable to most. The idea of using one also seems to not belong to any of the
styles that have been talked about - and so the idea was scrapped.

This was when I found a couple of black, circular plastic "woven" trays
vernacularly referred to as "bilao" which came from a shop selling take home sushi.
It is a material that is not as common as the PET bottles but could definitely be
used in an upcycling project, thence the visualization began.

It is through one of the stories that my wife had told me about that I found the
inspiration for this project. Sometime ago, she had mentioned a self-rotating
christmas tree that was powered by nothing but light - you basically turn it on and
then the tree would slowly turn around somewhat magically. Research led me to learn
that his phenomenon was something called a convection spiral which is an amazing
science experiment wherein the user would be able to make paper spin using a small
candle positioned at the bottom - or in the case of the story previously, an
incandescent light source - one that generates enough heat energy.

A simple enough application that is created by cutting a spiral through a thin

material and suspending it so that it is able to rotate with sufficient heat
underneath - it was the most perfect and least wasteful utilization for the tray.
And so I had proceeded to generate the pattern that would fit the tray making
certain that enough revolutions were created that would maintain the look and
integrity of the original material. It was not until the cutting started that the
weight would become an issue. Turns out, there is a significant thickness to this
material that I had not anticipated, so much so that scissors as a tool to trim it
was not sufficient at all and we had to use a router to achieve the archimedian
spiral.

Regardless, I had it cut down to the pattern, sanded the sides so that it was
smooth and devoid of shavings, and mounted to the gravity-assisted final form.
Without the independent motion that was afforded by heat, the resultant object
could still be used as a lampshade or as a decorative piece that is pseudo conical
in outline. With enough revolutions, it could be expected to act as a "christmas
tree" if so deemed... assisted with a can of paint of course.

References

<https://www.fizzicseducation.com.au/150-science-experiments/force-movement-
experiments/convection-spiral/>
<http://www.monstersciences.com/energy/energy-science-experiment-heat-spirals/>
<http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ArchimedeanSpiral.html>