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Post by silverdragon on Jul 1, 2014 8:29:44 GMT
This one bears investigation.
AI got to wondering, f you tape enough empty plastic pop bottles to the side of a car it will "Float".
Preferably top down to keep the air in.
So I taped two bottles to a small house brick to test this, and that worked, so, that reasons that with enough pop bottles, you could float a car.
I gotta admit, sounds a kind of neat idea?....
Am I willing to sacrifice my own vehicle?... nope. I kind of need it at the moment.....
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Post by mrfatso on Jul 1, 2014 12:25:07 GMT
Just a quick numbers crunch but assuming 1 Litre of air lift about 1 kg of weight in water, you would need about 400-500 2 litre bottles for say a Mark 1 Ford Escort.
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 2, 2014 9:30:05 GMT
This isnt, I suppose, about if it can be done, its more about how many pop bottles can you stick on the side of one car?....
200 to 300 per side, you are maybe looking at two rows or more.
Or maybe connecting them in bundles.
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Post by mrfatso on Jul 2, 2014 10:11:02 GMT
I think bundles would be the way to go, though I would keep the caps to seal them.
As for how many along side the car, well it's length is , if we take the Mark 1, is 13 ft, the width is 5.2.
The diameter of a drinks bottle is about 4 inches, so we can get about 39 down that side, along the width that's about 15, so all around the car if we made a single layer that's 108 bottles, if my maths are right. We would need 4 layers deep of bottles I think.
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 2, 2014 12:03:36 GMT
I am thinking "Top Down", and no cap....
Of course, more at the engine end to balance the car right, you would have to do a weight of each wheel to work out where most buoyancy is required.
Top on or off, I suspect top off maybe better with top down, then if any should leak, if you have to get the car out, any water that gets inside will drain away?....
But if you test them all before and are sure of no leeks, or leaks even, I suppose you could go sealed bottle?...
Small visual Joke, may get a laugh on the show, Jamie from inside the car, Adam, we have a seriously large leak in here, then shows Adam a Large leak vegetable from under the back seat?...
I suspect you would have to do a passenger in the vehicle at some point, I mean, why would a car go in the water anyway?...
Also, how much duck tape are you going to need to secure one bottle.
I have another idea, if you got a long stretch of tape as a "rope", with a bottle (or two) at either end, would that work as a sling to hold the car?...
Further discussion, from the club last night, if you removed the engine and filled the engine bay and boot with bottles, would that be enough to stop the car from sinking.
But again, what would a car filled with plastic bottles and no engine be doing in the water?....
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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Jul 2, 2014 14:10:25 GMT
I am in the sideways/cap on camp for orientation of the bottles.
Create 5x5 (25) bottle bundles using duct tape and then attach the bundles to the car using rope or some other form of attachment.
Removing the engine and only filling the boot with bottles? Wouldn't that result in the front end of the car sticking out of the water while the rest sank? Unless you filled the boot & the trunk with bottles (of course, this only works if you cut the floor out of the trunk), which should allow for the car to float on an even keel.
Hey, if you can raise a sunken ship with ping pong balls, why not float a car with soda bottles...
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Post by the light works on Jul 2, 2014 14:16:25 GMT
in my town we had a fellow who had the bright business idea of making an amphibious Jeep by surrounding it with dock floats, and then charging people for amphibious Jeep tours of the lake. his assembled vehicle was still narrow enough to fit in a standard traffic lane, but of course, once the marine board found he was operating an unregistered boat, and that he had done absolutely none of the steps required before you can carry paying customers on your boat - he was placed out of business.
addendum: point being that enough buoyancy can be had without having a huge mass of floatation.
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Post by mrfatso on Jul 2, 2014 23:21:08 GMT
I am in the sideways/cap on camp for orientation of the bottles. Create 5x5 (25) bottle bundles using duct tape and then attach the bundles to the car using rope or some other form of attachment. Removing the engine and only filling the boot with bottles? Wouldn't that result in the front end of the car sticking out of the water while the rest sank? Unless you filled the boot & the trunk with bottles (of course, this only works if you cut the floor out of the trunk), which should allow for the car to float on an even keel. Hey, if you can raise a sunken ship with ping pong balls, why not float a car with soda bottles... The Boot is what we call the Trunk, but I think the concept you have would be right. You would need buoyancy at both ends of the car, which is what Silverdragon was describing too. LTW any idea of the total,cubic volume of those dock floats? |
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Post by the light works on Jul 3, 2014 2:47:55 GMT
I am in the sideways/cap on camp for orientation of the bottles. Create 5x5 (25) bottle bundles using duct tape and then attach the bundles to the car using rope or some other form of attachment. Removing the engine and only filling the boot with bottles? Wouldn't that result in the front end of the car sticking out of the water while the rest sank? Unless you filled the boot & the trunk with bottles (of course, this only works if you cut the floor out of the trunk), which should allow for the car to float on an even keel. Hey, if you can raise a sunken ship with ping pong balls, why not float a car with soda bottles... The Boot is what we call the Trunk, but I think the concept you have would be right. You would need buoyancy at both ends of the car, which is what Silverdragon was describing too. LTW any idea of the total,cubic volume of those dock floats? strictly off memory, I think they were probably around 1' square - so around 40 cubic feet. |
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 3, 2014 6:42:20 GMT
Tum, did you read that wrong?... Engine bay at the front, boot at the back. Unless you are that stupid German VW firm that has spent many years not redesigning their 911 with the engine slung behind the rear wheels. So fopr a laugh, did anyone see the Top Gear team do the amphibious hover transit van.....  Full video, The side floats are there to stop it sinking if the engine stalls. |
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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Jul 3, 2014 12:40:48 GMT
My British is a little rusty. Sorry for any confusion. So, the concept would be fillg the engine bay & boot with bottles to provide even keeled bouyancy.
Dock floats come in various sizes. I've seen them 2'x2'x1' (4 c.f.) and 3'x3'x1' (9 c.f.) used for holding boat slip docks - 3 of the 9 c.f. can hold about 900 lbs (wooden dock + people) before losing any bouyancy.
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Post by the light works on Jul 3, 2014 14:06:54 GMT
Tum, did you read that wrong?... Engine bay at the front, boot at the back. Unless you are that stupid German VW firm that has spent many years not redesigning their 911 with the engine slung behind the rear wheels. So fopr a laugh, did anyone see the Top Gear team do the amphibious hover transit van..... The side floats are there to stop it sinking if the engine stalls. once they got it sorted, it took clarkson quite a long time to destroy it. |
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Post by mrfatso on Jul 3, 2014 15:43:56 GMT
The Boot is what we call the Trunk, but I think the concept you have would be right. You would need buoyancy at both ends of the car, which is what Silverdragon was describing too. LTW any idea of the total,cubic volume of those dock floats? strictly off memory, I think they were probably around 1' square - so around 40 cubic feet. 40 cubic ft is equivalent to, according to some googling, 1132.63 litres, so within the ballpark of what I suggested I would say myself. |
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Post by the light works on Jul 3, 2014 16:48:51 GMT
strictly off memory, I think they were probably around 1' square - so around 40 cubic feet. 40 cubic ft is equivalent to, according to some googling, 1132.63 litres, so within the ballpark of what I suggested I would say myself. other than the question of whether plastic water bottles full of air are more or less bouyant than dock floats - and I don't know the answer to that. |
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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Jul 3, 2014 19:50:29 GMT
40 cubic ft is equivalent to, according to some googling, 1132.63 litres, so within the ballpark of what I suggested I would say myself. other than the question of whether plastic water bottles full of air are more or less bouyant than dock floats - and I don't know the answer to that. Of course, dock floats are made from much thicker plastic than soda bottles... |
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Post by Cybermortis on Jul 3, 2014 20:53:00 GMT
'Scrapheap challenge; Scrappy Races' (Junkyard Wars in the US) had teams taking old vehicles and converting them to finish several challenges over the course of a week or so. One team, called 'The Barley Pickers' (they were farmers) took an old flatbed truck and turned it into this;  They actually managed to get this monster to float for one challenge, by welding oil drums onto the sides. So yes, you should be able to float a car using soda bottles if you can find a way to attach enough of them. I'd suspect that you might have problems if you were only using duct tape, as it probably wouldn't hold the bottles rigid enough to prevent the vehicle from sinking. |
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Post by OziRiS on Jul 16, 2014 0:01:53 GMT
Are we only going for the "can it be done?" aspect of this or should there also be some sort of functionality criteria in order for this to be considered a success?
The reason I'm asking is that you could make the damn thing float by just bundling it up in bubble wrap, if you had enough of the stuff. You wouldn't be able to tell it was a car anymore once you were done and you certainly wouldn't be able to get inside it, but you could do it.
Then again, if its only possible use when you're done is as a bath toy for a T-Rex, what's the point?
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