Crashed car, fixed car

[Nefarious]

I learned to plastic-weld yesterday. It's amazing, and I can't believe I've never done it before. It's really easy, and a million times more effective that using arudite.

Circumstances that led up to this:

I was in the stonemason's on Wednesday, and reversing out, I failed to notice a dirty great RSJ sticking 2' out of the ground. Into the wheel arch, and ripped the whole front end off the Merc . Irritatingly, instead of breaking the bumper, it broke just about everything the bumper attaches to, including the mountings for both the headlights, the washer bottle, and all the little plastic bushings where the bumper connects to metal brackets.

Bad enough, but we're going on holiday tomorrow, which involves driving to manchester, so I had no option to get it all fixed yesterday. So I went to Racebase and fully dismantled the front end. While I was scratching my head, wondering which bits were going to get glued/cable-tied/replaced, in came one of my neighbours (commonly buys and fixes damaged cars from Copart, owes me favours).

He gave me a lesson in identifying all the different types of plastic they use (PP, PVC, ABS, PC), fetched his plastic welding kit, and taught me how to use it.

As I said at the beginning - it's amazing. You get a variety of different shaped "staples" that one gun melts into/across the break to provide the strength, then a soldering iron-type thing to melt in filler rods, and smooth over the top. Not only are the repairs as strong as the original, but it's actually pretty easy to make the repairs invisible.

So, the car is all back together (reassembly was actually trickier than most of the repairs!) and, apart from one small paint scratch and one 2" bumper crack, is good as new. I'll definitely be putting one of those prastic welding kits on my Christmas list

[nuttinnew]

An unfortunate reason to learn, but
I could do with learning it also, the A2 still has a split front bumper from deer impact a few years ago

[Rich B]

I learned to plastic-weld yesterday. It's amazing, and I can't believe I've never done it before. It's really easy, and a million times more effective that using arudite.

This discussion about Araldite is certainly very erudite.

[Gavster]

I learned to plastic-weld yesterday. It's amazing, and I can't believe I've never done it before. It's really easy, and a million times more effective that using arudite.

This discussion about Araldite is certainly very erudite.

We could hold an erudite conversation about Araldatie over crudites

[Rich B]

I learned to plastic-weld yesterday. It's amazing, and I can't believe I've never done it before. It's really easy, and a million times more effective that using arudite.

This discussion about Araldite is certainly very erudite.

We could hold an erudite conversation about Araldatie over crudites

the luddites wouldn't like it, they'd expedite to indite a slight on it. Or some other rhyming shite.

[Jobbo]

<indict>

Hoist by your own petard

[Beany]

I remember hearing about this new-fangled technique....ooh, fifteen years ago in Car Mechanics.

IE for a crack you would
Drill out the end to prevent it from cracking further
Grind the edges of the crack down to a V-shape
Fill with hot plastic
Sand back
repaint in the usual way (filler, primer, paint blend etc).

Back then it was a hugely expensive thing to set up, but I guess things are more reasonable now

[Rich B]

<indict>

Hoist by your own petard

it was inevitable!

[mik]

My dad used to use his soldering iron to weld broken plastic shizzle. No supporting staples - sound like a good idea as some times it worked great - other times not.

[integrale_evo]

I have a little gas powered plastic welder. It’s just a variable temperature soldering iron with a hole in the top so you can feed a plastic rod into the crack as you work along. Soldering iron works fine but can be a bit too hot and burn the plastic rather than gently melting it.

Those hot staple things are ok, but not as quick / easy as they look on the vids. It’s very easy to pull them out if you don’t wait long enough for the plastic to cool, and the ends don’t always break very cleanly. Still handy. Think mine was about £20 off Amazon.

[Beany]

I have a little gas powered plastic welder. It’s just a variable temperature soldering iron with a hole in the top so you can feed a plastic rod into the crack as you work along. Soldering iron works fine but can be a bit too hot and burn the plastic rather than gently melting it.

Those hot staple things are ok, but not as quick / easy as they look on the vids. It’s very easy to pull them out if you don’t wait long enough for the plastic to cool, and the ends don’t always break very cleanly. Still handy. Think mine was about £20 off Amazon.

Christ, those are cheaper than I thought they'd be!

[integrale_evo]

I’m sure there are more ‘pro’ versions if it’s for everyday use, but I’m happy with a cheap one for occasionally repairing broken bits of undertray