Custom
fabrication.
Describe the problem in the message field. A sketch or a photograph of something similar gets you a dimensioned drawing within three to five business days.
A fabrication shop inside a reclaim yard, which means the raw material is free and the ideas are cheap. Top-cuts on a heated jig, bulkhead fittings, manifolded tank banks, welded stands from reclaimed cage tube, spray bars, sight glasses, tri-clamp ports and passivation on stainless. $32 for a fitting to $520 for a double stand; one-offs welcome.
Fabrication is how the diversion rate gets to 93%
Washing and rebottling handle the units that can still be containers. Fabrication handles the ones that cannot. A bottle with stress crazing at the lower corners will not hold 2,400 lb of water, but it will hold sixty cubic feet of compost for a decade. A cage that is out of square for rebottling is still perfectly good tube for a stand.
Without the shop our reuse rate would sit somewhere in the low eighties and the rest would go to regrind. With it, roughly one in nine units that reach the scrap decision gets pulled back out and becomes something. That is the single biggest lever we have on the number, and it is the most interesting work in the building.
The two rules of cutting HDPE
Heat, not teeth. A sawn edge in HDPE is a stress raiser with a rough surface, and it will craze and crack from the cut line within a season. A heated-blade cut on a jig seals the edge as it goes. It is also safe to reach past, which matters on anything anyone has to work inside.
Keep the shoulder. Cut below the bottle's shoulder radius and you remove its hoop strength; the walls will bow outward under load. If a build needs to go below the shoulder we add a reinforcement band, which is why our top-cut price includes one when the geometry calls for it.
How a custom job runs
- You describe the problem. Not the product — the problem. Half our catalogue started this way.
- We draw it. Dimensioned drawing, material list and a price, three to five business days.
- You approve. Changes at this stage are free. Changes after cutting are not.
- We build and photograph. Progress shots on anything over a week.
- Water test. Anything that holds liquid gets filled and watched before it ships.
Finished standard builds are listed on the upcycled builds page if you would rather buy something already designed.
Lead times
- Single fitting
- 1 business day
- Top-cut
- 1 – 2 business days
- Stand or frame
- 5 – 7 business days
- Manifolded bank
- 7 – 10 business days
- One-off from sketch
- 3 – 5 days to drawing, then build
- Stainless work
- 7 – 14 business days
Things we have built
Fuel caddies, maple sap tanks, dunk tanks, calf feeders, chicken waterers, dust-suppression trailers, mobile brine stations, parade floats, a mushroom fruiting chamber, two bar counters, a mobile hand-wash bank for a county fair, and a tide-simulation tank for a university marine lab.
What things cost
Per-unit, excluding the tote. Setup charge on one-offs disappears above about six units.
| Operation | Price |
|---|---|
| Top-cut, jig and heated blade, edge finished | $65 |
| 2" bulkhead fitting, drilled and sealed | $45 |
| 3/4" bulkhead or spigot fitting | $32 |
| Manifold, two totes on a common header | $290 |
| Manifold, three totes, unionised | $420 |
| First-flush diverter, plumbed | $95 |
| Overflow standpipe and screen | $78 |
| Welded stand, 24 in, reclaimed cage steel | $180 |
| Welded stand, 30 in, double width | $520 |
| Forklift-pocket frame, fabricated | $240 |
| External sight tube with guard | $88 |
| Air inlet flange, 1 in, for aeration | $70 |
| Spray bar, drilled stainless, in-tank | $165 |
| Tri-clamp port into stainless, TIG, passivated | $185 |
| CIP spray ball fitted into stainless lid | $240 |
| Cage cut-down to height, re-welded | $55 |
| Geotextile liner, cut and fitted | $38 |
| Secondary containment frame, fabricated | $395 |
Fabrication questions
Will you build from a sketch on a napkin?
Yes, routinely — and it is usually better than a CAD file, because a sketch tells us what you are trying to achieve and a drawing only tells us what you think the answer is. Send the sketch plus a sentence about the problem. We come back with a dimensioned drawing for approval before anything is cut.
What is the minimum job?
A single fitting. Drilling and fitting one 2-inch bulkhead into a tote wall is $45 and takes a day. There is no minimum order for fabrication, although one-off work carries a setup charge that disappears above about six units.
Can you cut a tote top off cleanly?
Yes, on a jig with a heated blade so the edge is sealed and smooth rather than ragged. A bandsaw or a jigsaw leaves a sharp, stress-raised edge that cracks within a season and cuts the hands of whoever reaches into it. Top-cut is $65 and includes edge finishing and a reinforcement band if the cut goes below the shoulder.
Do you fabricate on stainless as well as poly?
Yes. Tri-clamp ports, spray balls, sight glasses, dip tubes, jacketed sections and stands. Stainless work is TIG welded and passivated after fabrication, which is a step a lot of shops skip and which is the difference between a tank that stays clean and one that pits at every weld.
The two rules of cutting HDPE, and why they are not negotiable
Rule one: heat, not teeth
Under any magnification a sawn edge in HDPE is a field of torn ridges and micro-notches, every one a stress concentration — in a material whose dominant failure mode is crack initiation at a stress concentration, the worst possible finish. Reciprocating cutting also leaves the band either side of the cut in residual tension, which is exactly the condition environmental stress cracking requires.
For the first eighteen months the shop was open we cut with a reciprocating saw and a straight edge. About one in six of those cuts came back, with crazing initiating at the cut line and propagating downward two to eight inches, usually within the first season. The pattern was unmistakable once we laid the returns out: cracks starting at the top edge and running down, which is the opposite of the normal hydrostatic failure direction.
A heated blade on a jig melts a path rather than cutting one. The polymer ahead softens and parts; behind the blade it re-fuses into a smooth rounded bead that is sealed, in compression rather than tension, and safe to reach past without deburring. Temperature control is the whole trick — too cool and it drags and tears, too hot and the edge degrades into a brittle brown line that is worse than a saw cut.
Rule two: keep the shoulder
A bottle's hoop strength lives in the curved transition between its vertical wall and its top. Cut below it and you remove the structure that keeps the walls vertical; a filled bottle will then bow outward between the cage bars. Where a build requires a cut below the shoulder — a media bed must be shallow, a brewer must be reachable — we fit a reinforcement band around the new rim, included in the $65 top-cut price when the geometry calls for it.
Every operation, priced
| Operation | Price | Lead time |
|---|---|---|
| Top-cut, jig and heated blade, edge finished | $65 | 1 – 2 days |
| Reinforcement band fitted | Included where geometry requires | — |
| 2 in bulkhead fitting, drilled and sealed | $45 | 1 day |
| 3/4 in bulkhead or spigot fitting | $32 | 1 day |
| Access hatch cut in the top face | $48 | 1 day |
| Manifold, two totes on a common header | $290 | 5 – 7 days |
| Manifold, three totes, unionised | $420 | 7 – 10 days |
| First-flush diverter, plumbed | $95 | 2 – 3 days |
| Overflow standpipe and screen | $78 | 2 days |
| Air inlet flange, 1 in, for aeration | $70 | 2 days |
| Spray bar, drilled stainless, in-tank | $165 | 3 – 5 days |
| Geotextile liner, cut and fitted | $38 | 1 day |
| External sight tube with guard | $88 | 1 day |
| Operation | Price | Lead time |
|---|---|---|
| Welded stand, 24 in, reclaimed cage tube | $180 | 5 – 7 days |
| Welded stand, 30 in double width | $520 | 5 – 7 days |
| Cage cut-down to height, re-welded | $55 | 2 – 3 days |
| Forklift-pocket frame, fabricated | $240 | 5 – 7 days |
| Stacking adapter frame | $95 | 3 days |
| Secondary containment frame | $395 | 7 – 10 days |
| Lockable panel fitted to a cage | $120 | 3 – 5 days |
| Operation | Price | Lead time |
|---|---|---|
| Tri-clamp port, TIG welded and passivated | $185 | 7 – 14 days |
| CIP spray ball fitted into the lid | $240 | 7 – 14 days |
| Dip tube fitted | $120 | 7 – 10 days |
| Outlet conversion, ball valve to tri-clamp | $165 | 7 – 14 days |
| Vent fitted | $95 | 7 – 10 days |
| Full re-passivation | $280 | 5 – 7 days |
| Stand fabricated to height | $520 – $740 | 10 – 14 days |
One-off work carries a setup charge that disappears above about six units. There is no minimum order — a single $32 bulkhead fitting is a perfectly normal job.
How a one-off runs, from napkin to water test
- You describe the problem. Not the product. A sketch plus one sentence about the nuisance is genuinely better than a CAD file, because a drawing tells us what you think the answer is and a problem statement tells us what you are trying to achieve. Half this catalogue started as somebody explaining an annoying problem.
- We draw it. Dimensioned drawing, material list and a price, three to five business days. This is where we catch the two most common customer-drawing errors: a cut below the shoulder with no reinforcement band, and an outlet positioned below the sediment line.
- You approve. Changes at this stage are free. Changes after cutting are not.
- We build and photograph. Progress shots on anything over a week.
- Water test. Anything that holds liquid gets filled and watched before it ships. This catches almost everything a warranty would.
- Ship assembled or as a kit. Under 96 inches assembled; above that as a numbered kit with the drawing, which is substantially cheaper to ship and survives the trip better.
Things we have built
Fuel caddies in fabricated steel, maple sap tanks, dunk tanks, calf feeders, chicken waterers, dust-suppression trailers, mobile brine stations, parade floats, a mushroom fruiting chamber, two bar counters, a mobile hand-wash bank for a county fair, and a tide-simulation tank for a university marine lab.
Grade matching for fabricated builds
| Build type | Grade | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Planter, raised bed, crib, trellis | Cage only | No bottle involved at all |
| Compost brewer, soil handling | Technical, top-cut | Atmospheric pressure only; crazing acceptable |
| Wash station, greywater | Grade A | Low head, but a leak is a nuisance |
| Rain catchment bank | Technical, sound bottle | 40 in head — crazed bottles excluded |
| Stock waterer, livestock | Grade A with documented benign history | Animals are valuable; provenance matters |
| Aquaponics, any stocked system | Documented food grade or rebottled | Non-negotiable. Surfactant residue kills stock |
| Anything a person drinks from | Food grade or rebottled | Non-negotiable |
Detailed questions
Will you build from a napkin sketch?
Yes, routinely, and it is usually better than a CAD file. Send the sketch plus a sentence about the problem and we come back with a dimensioned drawing for approval before anything is cut.
Can I supply my own totes?
Yes, and it is often cheaper — a three-tote manifolded bank on your own units is $420 plus $95 plus $78 rather than $1,180 complete. We will reject any unit unsuitable for the specific build and tell you why; the usual reason is crazing on a bottle destined for a 40-inch head.
Is there a warranty?
Ninety days on fabrication — welds, seals, bulkheads and plumbing. The tote carries whatever its grade implies. Everything that holds liquid is water-tested before it ships, which catches almost everything a warranty would.
Why not cut the cage down to match a top-cut bottle?
Because you lose the forklift pockets and the stacking geometry for a cosmetic gain. A top-cut tote full of wet media weighs around 1,100 lb and the only reason it is still a movable object is that the frame is intact. We will do it if there is a real reason and we will ask what it is.
Can you fabricate to a food-safety standard?
To a standard, yes: documented food-grade or rebottled bottle, sealed edges throughout with no exposed cut faces, food-grade gaskets and fittings, and bolted rather than clipped covers. What we cannot provide is a third-party certification of the finished assembly — that is a conformity assessment, not a fabrication service.
Do you do production runs or only one-offs?
Both. Setup charges disappear above about six units and per-unit prices improve meaningfully above twenty. The three-tote catchment bank and the cage planter set are effectively production items now, and both started as one-offs somebody asked for.
What will you refuse to build?
Anything that stores fuel in poly, which is a fire-code question before a compatibility one. Anything pressurised. Anything that puts a non-food-history bottle into contact with food or potable water. And anything where the drawing requires a cut that will fail — we will propose the fix rather than build the failure.
How much of the shop's input is reclaimed?
Nearly all the steel: stands, frames and pockets are fabricated from cage tube recovered off units whose bottles failed. The fittings, gaskets, blowers and pumps are bought in. So a welded stand is itself a reuse product, which is the part of the catalogue we are most pleased with.
Send a sketch
A napkin drawing and one sentence about the problem is genuinely enough to start.