Soldering Plastic

[mkr7734]

I try not to be a hack, that said, yeah, we all do. I did do the other area in the bed that had cracked 6 to 8 years ago. That fix was a hack. I had to remove what I had used but the way he said to do it was melt all the way through adding the plastic as you penetrate the thickness of the plastic and it will be good. MY second repair is much better with the iron hotter and the filling process better. I may get this yet. As for now I think my bed is fixed. :thumbsup:

 

[Ed of all trades]

Thanks MKR and others. I have heard of it but never tried it. Will keep it in mind, might need it one day. Ed

 

[STx]

I got one of these (Urethane Supply Company 5700HT Mini Weld Model 7 Airless Plastic Welder - - Amazon.com) last year to repair the plastic fenders on my TC40DA after tearing them up pretty badly. It did a fine job and was certainly better than the $1,200/ea that it would have cost for new fenders. The nice thing about this kit is you can set the temp based on the plastic type and it includes the filler material for different plastics. I found that preheating the area with a heat gun helped the job go much faster.

 

[Harlan B]

Look on You Tube. Lot of good videos on plastic welding

 

[David_Kb7uns]

Harbor Freight has 2 plastic welding gun kits, one using compressed air and the other with a built in blower motor. They also have a selection of different types of filler rod available.

Plastic Welding Kit

Plastic Welder & Welding Kit

50 Piece Plastic Welding Rods


David

 

[CalG]

As mentioned in one of the posts above, Drill and zip tie "stitches". But then use zip ties as filler rod while you do the plastic weld (it's not soldering, it's WELDING ;-)

Build up a healthy bead so the repair is at least as strong as the original, plus, you can file/sand/grind the bead down smooth if you want.

cheers

 

[Tractor Seabee]

If you are an O/A welder the hot air torches like HF has work good with little learning curve. I have even done overhead beads on RV tanks. You need to keep the filler rod ahead of the hot air stream and use it to keep the molten area fom sagging.

Ron

 

[Eric Salop]

If you want while away a few happy hours, I can recommend having a go at melting back to watertight a length of 2" mdpe pipe that was playing hide and seek in long grass and then found by a mower.

 

[alchemysa]

I posted on this subject a couple of years ago. Plastic soldering is an incredibly handy thing to know about. Most often I will also strengthen the soldered joint with hot glue. My only failure with the hot glue was when I used it to strengthen a soldered repair on a black poly wheelbarrow tub. In the sun, the black plastic absorbed so much heat the hot glue melted again.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/related-topics/292114-do-yourself-plastic-repairs.html

 

[Tractor Seabee]

One caveat: mixing different types of plastic filler into the joint will probably fail unless their composition is in the same family. For pipe we used to cut narrow rings off same type pipe and use that for filler rod.

Ron