Plastic welder

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Mike69cuda

Mike69cuda

Mopar Moron
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Has anyone used one of these? One of the coolest tools I have bought in awhile. Works great for repairing cracked plastic

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Yup. Got a couple of the competitors versii
 
I'd like to get one of those. For stuff that doesn't matter, like a 5-gallon bucket with a cracked bottom, I just use my soldering iron and do the dime stack thing down the crack.
 
I got the cheap-o Harbor Freight one. I have used it to fix a refrigerator drawer, a Kawasaki side cover, and a handful of other small things. For the price, it's been a great tool.
 
I've looked at them but figured they were snake oil.
 
The key is using compatible plastic. There's, like 3000 kinds of plastics!!! (I learned this from my I-CAR classes.). If you don't, it's like mixing oil and water. In the case of my Kawasaki cover, I trimmed a little plastic of the inside cover and used it as a donor to weld the broken tab. Came out as a strong repair.
 
I used one so much on bike plastics I got to where I could if it was cracked just by holding it in my hands and feeling how it wiggled. My was just a heater with a tube and compressed air source. You had to fiddle with it because more air was more pressure to penetrate the plastic but with less temperature. I enjoyed using it.
 
The one I bought uses pieces of wire od different shapes that heat up and embed in plastic to fix cracks or bond two pieces together. The pieces of wire heat up like a solder iron tip. You clip off the remnants of wire that stick up out of the plastic when you are done.

It is really not a welder. It works really well.
 
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