Plastic Welding

[tridentt150v]

Is anyone on here a plastic welder?

What welder do you use - hot air or contact?

What brand or breed?

I'm looking at getting into it for myself - I'm not interested in going commercial. Its just that when I bust shit its always on a weekend and you can't fix it till next week. And then you take it to a welder and have to wait for it to be done as well. So you mightn't get the part back till next week or something. So I thought hey I can oxy and arc weld so surely I can use that same steady hand for plastic welding?

What else do I need, primers and cleaners etc?

I've looked at youtube and its sort of helpful, but I can't just pop down to my local to pick up stuff.........I'd have to order it, I'm in country NSW so its not like a Macca's or Woolies.

[88cameron88]

ive done lots of plastic repairs on bumpers, bodykits, etc. actually did a nissan side skirt yesterday.

ive done a repair on a front lip off another car that was broken into 5 pieces, that was my biggest repair.

i use a soldering iron. hold your join together, use the soldering iron to fuse it together, if its thin get some scrap plastic off another bumper or something and use it as filler, comes up a treat.

then fibreglass on the inside to give it strength, dont need much glass, just 3 thin layers.

on a big repair like if the parts in a few pieces, i cut strips of 1mm steel about 3inches long by about 10mm wide.

i place it across the break like a bandaid and tech screw it on from the inside of the part. (the sharp point of the screw will stick out on the good side of the bumper/skirt)

now weld your joins with solder iron then glass over your steel strips.

once all dry get the grinder and cut the screws off where they stick out and run a small layer of filler over the repair and presto! stronger then it was when it left the factory!!!

[n/a_neo_r33]

Good idea with the solder iron, yesterday i just used a jet lighter an used scrap plastic as filler when i melted it. I would have used a solder iron i just don't have one.

one of the rear tail light bolts were siezed, an i snapped it by accident.

[dori34]

yeh alot of ppl use a soldering iron and it works a treat;

ie: www.sportbikes.net/forums/how-tos-section/338068-how-plastic-weld.html

[c72c]

I just did it for my first time a few days ago.

I used a soldering station at first, then a butane soldering iron. Both worked very well.

I'm modifying a pair of headlights for someone, so I used a piece of the light lens I previously cut off as filler and to attach the two pieces.

After smoothing it out, I went over the still rough areas with some glazing putty.

I posted some pictures of the process in the thread I just started.

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/topic/379405-r33-headlight-project/