DIY Came up with a good way to"weld" plastic together with extra strength

[2LateIWon]

Came up with a good way to"weld" plastic together with extra strength
Seems to be a pretty popular issue with the C3s. The wiper cover brakes. I didn't make it pretty just functional but i bet with a little body filler and plastic paint it'd be good as new.

 

I know they make plastic welders but if you used in in conjunction with the welder it would be that much stronger

 

 

 

This is after the repair and again you could make this almost seem less 

 

 

I first used Epoxy to basically glue the pieces together.  This gives extra hold inside the crack and hold it together so you can work on the back side of the piece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stercorarius]

Nice

[2LateIWon]

So here it is epoxied together

 

 

 

I cut a couple pieces of wire to the length I need

 

Spread out the wires over the crack

 

 

 

[2LateIWon]

(This picture got out of order this should be the second to last pic on this post)

Use a zip tie for extra plastic filler

 

Used a Soldering Iron to embed the wires.  The heat transfers into the wire and melts into the plastic

 

 

 

 

This is after the extra plastic is added.   If you wanted you could sand down as well 

 

 

 

[2LateIWon]

Then just sand use filler and paint

 

 

This was kind of a corner piece so it works on corners too

 

 

[comp56]

depending on what type of plastics/acrylics weldbond works well too. as it actually fuses the two together with a chemical reaction...

[2LateIWon]

11 minutes ago, comp56 said:

depending on what type of plastics/acrylics weldbond works well too. as it actually fuses the two together with a chemical reaction...

 

 

I need to check that out.  The key is mixing the new plastic with the old to get a good bond.   So that sounds like it should work great

[comp56]

 

[BMack37]

I've done that before minus the melting the plastic. It wasn't an outdoor part, it was actually an internal part to an indoor used product so I didn't have to make it as resilient as you did. I really want a plastic welder, those seem useful as hell but they're soo expensive.

 

Thanks for the comments Comp, I never really thought about fixing plastics like they bond new acrylic, don't know why that never crossed my mind...seems awfully obvious! Doh!

[JimboS1ice]

Pretty clever, plastic can be a pain to fix.

Jimbo

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[comp56]

truth be told my brother taught me about this, as he used to make custom aquariums with many different angled joints he once make a 400 gallon aquarium that was the shape of a guy's bar, almost like a curved hockey stick. very cool at night all lit up....

[Stercorarius]

It's almost like the mesh you use for fiberglass repairs. Cool beans man.

[2LateIWon]

11 minutes ago, Stercorarius said:

It's almost like the mesh you use for fiberglass repairs. Cool beans man.

 

That is actually what gave me the idea.  I was going to fiberglass it but didnt feel like getting all the stuff out for just this little area.

Thanks

[figureitout]

That's a good idea. Does essentially the same thing as this $175 unit I've been thinking about buying. It's supposed to work well but it seems too simple to spend that kind of money. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00F9YAR0A/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1457155496&sr=8-1&pi=SX200_QL40&keywords=ms-2500&dpPl=1&dpID=51Ed8sgwQ9L&ref=plSrch

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337Z using Tapatalk

[Logan]

Looks good 

[Eric - TIA]

Wow, never knew you could do that.  That is great to know.  Thanks for sharing.

[Conductor562]

On March 5, 2016 at 0:27 AM, figureitout said:

That's a good idea. Does essentially the same thing as this $175 unit I've been thinking about buying. It's supposed to work well but it seems too simple to spend that kind of money. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00F9YAR0A/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1457155496&sr=8-1&pi=SX200_QL40&keywords=ms-2500&dpPl=1&dpID=51Ed8sgwQ9L&ref=plSrch

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337Z using Tapatalk

 

I have 2 of these. An electric model from Eastwood and a cordless model from EZ Red. I keep the Eastwood in the shop and the EZ Red on the race trailer. 

 

They work well honestly. They've saved me hundreds of dollars worth of ATV plastic. If we bust a fender, it's a whole lot faster, easier, and cheaper, to hot staple it as opposed to trying to replace it trackside.

[BMack37]

9 hours ago, Conductor562 said:

 

I have 2 of these. An electric model from Eastwood and a cordless model from EZ Red. I keep the Eastwood in the shop and the EZ Red on the race trailer. 

 

They work well honestly. They've saved me hundreds of dollars worth of ATV plastic. If we bust a fender, it's a whole lot faster, easier, and cheaper, to hot staple it as opposed to trying to replace it trackside.

 

When you fix the ATV, do you paint or epoxy over the joining metal/entry groove or just leave it? I've only seen people just leave it, seems like it's begging for rust and/or failure but I don't have experience so I just don't know if that is the case.

 

I've been interested in one since I first saw it, genius idea.