[TheForge] Follow-up to: How to carry coal ...

[Bruce .]

I finally got around to trying an experiment:  Using a hot iron to seal new
seams in plastic contractor bags.  It worked like a charm and I was able to
make large (42 gal) sacks into smaller ones.  I used an electric sad iron
set to "linen", and put the sack between papers so melted plastic wouldn't
stick to the iron or the ironing board.

The sacks I used were Husky Contractor Clean-Up Bags, 42 gal x 3 mil, ~2'8"
x 3'9".  I cut them in half lengthwise and sealed the two resulting seams,
giving me two sacks roughly 16" x 3'9", but didn't like sacks so deep and
narrow, so cut those down to give four sacks roughly 16" x 22" -- which
struck me as a bit on the small side for coal sacks.  So I took another
sack and split it across it's length, opening the new ends and sealing the
new edges, to give two sacks roughly 22" x 2'8".  Those seem good to me.

I couldn't find any information as to the composition of the plastic of
these bags.

I haven't tested these reduced-size sacks with coal, but the original sacks
worked fine with coal and the new seams seem at least as strong as the
bottom seam in the original sacks.  My seams are at least 1/2" wide, simply
because I was working a bit blind with the plastic between papers.  These
wide seams should be stronger, if anything, than the machine-made seams of
the original bags.

Bruce
NJ

On Sun, Aug 9, 2015 at 9:16 AM, Bruce . <freemab222 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Okay, so the one significant problem I encountered going to the Fair,
> recently, was how best to carry coal, steel stock, and tools.
>
> COAL:  The coal was in bags -- some in woven plastic grain bags (no good!
> -- they leak powder and break down in sunlight), some in "contractor bags"
> (too big), and some in contractor bags inside gunny sacks (awkward, but the
> best of the three).  Where possible, I put the sacks inside the 10-gal
> slack tubs, and that worked well until the slack tubs were needed.
>
> My best idea is to use canvas sacks -- maybe one square yard of fabric
> folded and seamed on two sides, perhaps with a drawstring closure.  Problem
> is, if I don't make those myself (possible, but one more chore), I don't
> know where to get them.  By "canvas" I mean cotton duck -- really heavy
> stuff.
>
> An alternative would be metal or stout plastic containers, but I need to
> pack everything into a small stowage space, and rigid containers are more
> difficult to stow.
>
> Any better ideas?
>