plastic welding

[muthey]

I purchased my plastic welder from harbor freight a few years back and have since then performed many welds. the best welds are the ones where there is a bead not a complete melt. I have tried it both ways where I have melted the rod completely back into the material and smoothed it, and they always seem to break that way but when there is a bead like with steel welding they hold up to quite a bit of torture before cracking. Here are some pics of the welding I have done in the last 6 months.

[muthey]

the biggest thing is having clean surfaces to weld and using the same type of plastic. if you do use a scrap fender to make rods out of make sure you scrape all of your rods to nice clean plastic first. then apply a little heat to the start of where you are going to weld , then heat up the first half inch all the way around on your rod. then lay the heated tip of the rod slightly past the start of your crack and weld towards the rod at a slow and even pace down the center of the crack. If possible bevel the edges of the crack, but don't make the material too thin. The rod will flow at it's own rate, try and cut your rod evenly if you can to prevent thin and thick spots and uneven welds. this is alot like gas welding . The harbor freight welder uses heated air that it produces all by itself if you buy the self contained model. I should make a video of doing plastic welding for my you tube channel one of these days. this is the welder I purchased. http://www.harborfreight.com/plastic...ent-96712.html I have read with this model you want to turn it on then let it run with no heat for about 5 min+, and then turn on the heat or it will burn up the element quickly, and the do the reversal when shutting it down and they will last a long time have had mine for 3 years now and still going.

[Dirtweed]

I just need to make tabs for the screws on the bottom of my '82 250R headlight. Wondering if the method that JD110 did would work?