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05-05-2011, 05:53 AM | #1 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Riverside, calif
Posts: 130
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Harbor freight plastic welder?
It has a crack in the bottom. Its been repaired with epoxy and the kids have been using it for paddling round NPB just fine. I want to go fishing. Has anybody used the plastic welder from harbor freight? Would it securely weld up a crack? How strong are plastic welds anyway? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Wade |
05-05-2011, 07:10 AM | #2 |
Team Keine Zugehörigkeit
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Way out there
Posts: 2,854
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Your better off to go see Andy ( iceman) at the Sunset Beach OEX store.
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Não alimente os trolls------------Don't feed the trolls---------------インタネット荒らしを無視しろ |
06-13-2011, 08:47 PM | #3 |
Junior
Join Date: Jun 2011
Posts: 9
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The harbor freight plastic welders are kinda hit and miss. I like the idea of the little solder iron sized cheapy that they have but it sounds like the tip has a problem of breaking off. I also see that style of plastic welder from time to time that has a little plastic rod feeder port. This allow you to melt the object material, melt and inject plastic rod directly into the weld and also smooth the weld on one pass. Very cool. HF sells packages of various plastic rods for like $5. I think the rods are for pvc,abs and polypro and come like 50 to a pack.
My thought is to modify an old Weller style soldering gun to do this. I don't know much about these other than the tip heats up. Is it an actual heater element like a stove or can I just cut the tip off and build my own tip? Any help would be appreciated. What should the tip be made out of? Has this been tried already? I know Weller also has rope cutting tips that could be useful. I just didn't see a plastic welding tip. Help point me in the right direction. Thanks Eric. |
06-13-2011, 09:06 PM | #4 |
Administrator
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: 1-2 miles off the point
Posts: 6,948
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I charge $20 for most cracks.
Hobie sells the KC Welder for $60, it has been working really well for me. The rods work well to fill cracks. I use a heat gun on scrap to make a patch and finish the edges with this too.
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06-14-2011, 04:52 PM | #5 |
Junior
Join Date: Jun 2011
Posts: 9
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That looks just like what I spent the day building. It's fun to build things on your own. I bought a Weller HD solder iron that looks very much like that. It has a tip that is close to 3/8 inch wide. I drilled thru the head of the iron and installed a small brass tube to inject the plastic rod. Right now it has an interference fit that holds the tube in place but I dont like it. I think it might come apart. I'm thinking that I might be able to braze it.
The package said that the iron heats to 900F. I tested it after I had drilled the hole and found it only came up to 685F. I hope it will still do what I need it to do. I need to find a good chart that tells the melting point of different plastics. I know that some times it makes some plastics brittle to over heat them when welding. I will build a box with a dimmer to control the heat level. Thanks for posting the pic of your set-up. Eric |
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