Plastic welding/repairs(yamaha R1 fix up....project #1000000056 :D)

[ylwgtr2]

Due to being ask a number of times on how to repair plastic parts i have decided to post yet another educational DIY thread...rule number 1 is bikes have 2 wheels and fall over quite often ....Ok so i have recently bought a Yamaha R1 that has been damaged and the previous owner has tried a DIY job and turned it into a shamozzle,so the first thing we do is remove all the fibreglass/filler and glue that he has applied....we do this by waving a heat gun over it and pry it away with a screwdriver....this as you can see in the pics uncovers holes and cracks all over the place,its really important that we get all the foreign matter out of the way on both inside and outside of the panel to ensure a good clean surface so the weld is nice and strong...today i just cleaned off the rubbish quickly and tomorrow i will blast it over with an orbital to flatten it off to prepare the surface for welding....Before welding we must determine what type of material it is,some straight materials have a marking such as ABS,PP,GF stamped or moulded into them on the underneath side,some are composites such as PA6+PPE ect ect some are even more elaborate and have 3 or 4 composites....and then theres times when there no marking at all this is when we use the "melt it and smell"test or melt it and "feel/vision"test through a soldering iron ....using these 2 test's to verify the material require experience....nylon is very smooth and shiny melting material and is quite stringy its also quite heavy...where as PP(poly propolene)is light,smooth melting with a dull appearance....ABS feels crackly and dry and GF(glass filled)is even more dry and crumbly and smell bakalite-ish.....You would be amazed at what can be resurrected from death......More on the actual welding tomorrow

[SS8_Gohan]

ahh, shall i be watching this with interest Troy? this going to be relating to the bumper project?

[Ronin 09]

Nice... aside - what happened to the DIY carbon fibre layup tutorial

[adznight]

Nice... aside - what happened to the DIY carbon fibre layup tutorial

Got stuck somewhere between my car and the 50 other things Troys probably fixing