plastic wielding

[cargo]

I'm sure I read a thread on here somewhere about doing a bit of home plastic wielding with a hot air gun and using a cable tie as a wielding rod.................I'm not going crazy am I?
Anyone else remember it?

[Jamz]

Dunno about a hairdryer - but I've done it with a soldering iron and cable ties!

CONCLUSION: Just use the cable ties normally and duct tape anything still lose. It works better.

[rene]

you can buy proper rods of plastic weld as well...a bloke i used to know used a bungy rope and a lighter to bodge his panels back togeather to get home

[jake]

aye, ive heard of people using zip ties and a soldering iron, or one of them mini blow torches you use on cable nipples..
I got meself a load of fibre glass repair kits from halfords with me blagged trade card!

[cargo]

Soldering iron that's was what I was missing

Reason is I have a headlight for sale and this morning I've discovered one of the little plastic mounting points is broken..................time to give this soldering iron and cable tie trick a try.
More later

[Northern ANdy]

you can usually make a damn good job with no filler rod. Just 'scoop' some plastic into the joint from the surrounding areas.

[superman]

or just buy some plastex and make a new fixing with it.... i swear by the stuff

[cargo]

I've tried this wielding using a soldering iron and a cable tie and I'm surprised at how well it's worked.
It's hard to get any penatration (oo errrrrrrr matron) but it's holding and should be ok
It's doesn't look very neat but hey who looks at headlight mountings once it's on a bike.

[Xphyral]

it's all about the kind of break you have in the plastic, a peice thats been snapped off completly can be a pain to weld back on and not just snap again.

To get the weld to go right through the breaks i usually try to get both ends in a V shap so if you put them together they would look like this ==><==
to do it you can cut the sides down with a knife or melt away the sides with the soldering iron, Once you've done that put the bits together and either use a small bit of tape to hold them in place or if their flat put them on a work surface and hold them together and lightly try to tack the inside of the V's together. once their joined get your cable tie and use it to fill in either side making sure your melting the cable tie plastic and the side of the part.

If you only have access to one side of the part try cut a small V shape into it but only go about half way, then use a small pointed soldering bit and almost punch holes through the inside of the V while moving it along the line of the break. After that go in with the cable tie again and fill up the holes.

If your doing this on a cosmetically important peice add extra plastic outside and around the break line so you can sand it off and get it flush. A good weld will be almost as strong as the original but if you overcook the plastic it'll end up brittle and break easily.

I use Sealey ABS plastic welding rods but zip ties are ok to use aswell.