How to Recycle Your Old CDs Into Useful Craft

One great way of recycling your old and unusable CD or DVD discs is to turn it into useful craft. The finished craft can be a good gift idea to friends and relatives, or even turn it into small home business. If you have an art talent, you can add unique finishing touches, or put some accessories to make the finished craft more appealing to prospective customers. The instructions below were lifted from www.instructables.com site. Here’s how:

1. Materials Needed:

• 15 CDs
• 1 5mm threaded rob (usually sold in 1m lengths)
• 8 5mm hex nuts
• 5 5mm lock nuts
• 100 5mm rivet washers (usually sold in packets of 100)
• 1 20mm dowel stick
• Permanent marker

Procedure

• 2. Make a template. Take one CD and mark a dot on either side of the center hole, midway between the center hole and the edge of the CD. Make sure one dot is about 1cm above the other one (take a look at the image to see how to mark it out). With a 5mm drill-bit, drill two holes where you’ve put the marks. This is the template for the rest CDs.

• 3. Drill out the CDs. Take a stack of about three CDs at a time and, using the template, carefully drill out the holes. Make sure to set the drill on the slowest setting and drill very slowly.

• 4. Cut threaded rod. Once you’ve drilled all the holes, cut the threaded rod into two 25cm long pieces with a hacksaw. File the ends of the pieces smooth with a file or some rough sandpaper.

• 5. Assemble the rack. Now assemble the rack. Put the rods through once CD and put a hex nut on the one end. Now put 7 washers on each rod and then another CD. Every 5 CDs you can put a hex nut on and tighten the whole lot up, but be careful not to crack the CDs, like I did, twice. A hex nut is as wide as 2 washers, so you only need to put 5 washers and a hex nut on for every fifth CD. Once you’ve put all the CDs on, tighten it all up so that there’s no play in the CDs or threaded rod.

• 6. Give it legs. Now cut two 7cm and two 6cm pieces of dowel. Drill a 5mm hole 1cm from the top of each. These are the legs of the rack. You can paint them if you like. Now attach the longer legs to the rods higher above the centre hole, using lock nuts. Do the same with the shorter legs. Now just make sure the whole thing stands straight and tighten the lock nuts.

Finished Craft