Making a Toaster from Scratch

Thomas Twaites is a designer who has decided to build his own electric toaster, from scratch. Now, I don't mean that he went out and bought a plastic box and some wire and cut some holes and plugged it in. He is making his toaster FROM SCRATCH. That means he has to extract copper (for wires) and iron (for the springs and grill) from raw ore. And he has to process crude oil to make plastic. Below is a picture showing how he used a microwave to attempt to smelt iron (he was able to produce a coin-sized amount, not quite enough for a toaster. The project is ongoing.) The Toaster Project, via We Make Money Not Art