Plastic Welding

[The Dude Abides]

So before my brother sold his legacy gt he wanted the split front bumper fixed. He took it to a auto body friend of mine who told him about plastic welding. At first i thought he was full of it but he procedes to pull out a dowel rod picked up at almost any store. Grabes a sodering iron and heats up the plastic and melts it spots along this crack. This crack was about 3ft long. Then after he gets it to hold into place he just melts the plastic into the crack. When it cools down it becomes as hard as original plastic. Then he sands it down flush, alittle bondo and some paint. And you can barely tell anything was done. Has anyone else heard of this before i was just amazed.

[doc526]

Yep.

 

I work at a university and we have a lot of plastic fume hoods where chemical work is performed. Sometimes we have to modify the decks or tanks to accommodate the experiment that the professor or student is doing.

 

We use a hot air gun with a narrow nozzle to concentrate the heat and the welding rod is what ever flavor of plastic that we are welding. Most of the time it is polypropylene.

 

Most car bumpers are ABS which welds ok too.

[3eyedwagon]

I've seen modified TIG torches used in a production based setup. Due to the extremely low melting point of plastics (by welding standards) it doesn't take much amperage from the TIG machine to work. We played around with it a little in college. Kinda neat knowing that it is out there and possible. There's really multiple ways to do it since all you are doing is directing heat. Not something a guy will use every day around here, but amusing none the less.

[The Dude Abides]

LOL true but thats why i put it in the new gen area because lots of plastic bumper people in there.

[asis]

It is a common process and called "welding" for a reason. You need the same type of rod as the material you are joining.

It is used heavily in chemical baths, including acid etching baths done to silicon wafers which eventually become computer chips

[eulogious]

I was browsing around Harbor Freight the other day and they had a couple different types of plastic welding kits. I think that the cheapest one was about $45 or something like that. Seemed to come with everything you need to get the job done. First time I had seen anything like that before.

[Svengouli7]

I have seen the Harbor Freight kits... do you think you could weld up a dash board that had split with sun wear? What kinda plastic is that anyhow??