Finished!

Well I've finally finished and tested the raft! Everything was a great success, and you can see more pictures and how it was done at Instructables.

The instructable is entered into a contest for recycling bottles. If you'd like to register at instructables.com and vote for me, I'd really appreciate it!

Starting back up!

After all this time, I had given up on the rraft, but I still had those 1000 bottles tucked away. When instructables.com released their keep the bottle contest, I realized that I had to start it up again. The new design will require less recycled material (though I still want to recycle whatever I can) and will be smaller, using about half the bottles. Today I went to Home Depot and bought a 40" x 25' roll of garden fencing mesh. I also made two pontoons. Each one is a cylinder made of 78 in. of the fence, and filled with 162 bottles each. They were closed up with zip ties. I plan on adding two smaller pontoons for more support.

The frame will be made of PVC, and so far the platform will be fiberglass resin coated plywood. I'm still looking for other ideas to use instead of the plywood.

I'm just glad to finally be finishing this project!

Bottle Update

I sat down tonight and counted out 100 more bottles from my towering stacks of them. I am no long collecting bottles. My current count is 800, and i've got more than 200 waiting to be counted.

I have no idea how realistic it is, but I have set the goal of setting sail over my Spring break, which begins on March 28, 2008. Seeing as I should have all the bottles counted in the next two or three days, I just need to start finding all the supplies I need. Wish me luck!

Lack of Updates

Sorry for the lack of posts/update here...but don't worry, the raft is still being built! I estimate somewhere over 800 bottles, but haven't had a chance to process and count all of the bottles i've got piled up in my room/in the garage. I'll try to get it done ASAP!

Rethinking the Design

After seeing how much space 500 bottles takes up, just half of what I need, I've started thinking that two pontoons would be just too long. I'll most likely redesign the raft to have a base made completely of bottles. One plus of this would be less need for a 2x4 frame under the plywood deck; instead, the deck could be lain directly on top of the bottles.

Tutorial

Once the raft is completed, a tutorial on how to build it will be posted at instructables

It will be found under My Profile

Here's an example of an instructable: How to Make Candles

Hurrah!

We've collected 244 bottles, that's nearly 1/4 of our total goal!