I just would like to bring my stone concerning repairs to do on plastic with a nice tip I learned when my girlfriend broke our brand new car roof case in a parking...
When and only when the plastic is ABS (I hope this is the same name in English than in French, please correct me if not), you can use Lego bricks instead of epoxy...
Lego is ABS. The idea is to reconstruct the broken piece, adding the exact same material, to give it again its original strength. Easy:
- Take a brick of lego of the same color than your broken piece
- Place it in a glass jar with a lid and add a bit of acetone. Not too much, but you should at least fill the brick itself, and have just a bit around
- Close the jar and let few hours
- The lego will solve and create a paste. If it´s too hard, add some acetone. Too liquid, just let the jar open and acetone will evaporate.
When you have a creamy paste, you will need to prepare the piece to weld.
- Cut or send the edges of the broken part, just to create a small empty area for the paste. - Use a brush to apply acetone where you will weld, in order to start solving the plastic and prepare it to fuse with the paste
- then insert some of your lego paste in this empty area with a wood tip, a match or any other small tool your are ready to sacrify. Try to smooth it as much as you can to optimize the aspect, to limit the sanding.
Let it dry at least 24 hours (can be more following the quantity of paste used and its dilution) to let the acetone fuse the piece together with the paste, then sand, finish with painting if necessary.
Your piece should have become as hard and solid than the original.
I repaired this way my roof case, wich was cracked and cut in various way. I even reconstructed a part of few centîeters that was missing.
I used the case a lot after that, filled it too much, pushed hard on it to close it... Never cracked again, and this was 4 years ago. So this works. But ONLY on ABS plastics.
If this can help...
Last edited by zessy; July 2nd, 2014 at 14:51..
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