Plastic welders

jackfb13 · Post by **jackfb13** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 2:47 am

recently I bought this. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/d ... mber=96464 and was wondering if anyone had used one for a case before.

Kyo · Post by **Kyo** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 2:57 am

jackfb13 wrote:recently I bought this. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/d ... mber=96464 and was wondering if anyone had used one for a case before.

I don't think so. We usually just heat plastic in the oven and use a vacuum former. I imagine it could be hard to get all places of the plastic equally "melty"

Unless you're using a mold, of course.

jackfb13 · Post by **jackfb13** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 3:37 am

Kyo wrote:
jackfb13 wrote:recently I bought this. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/d ... mber=96464 and was wondering if anyone had used one for a case before.
I don't think so. We usually just heat plastic in the oven and use a vacuum former. I imagine it could be hard to get all places of the plastic equally "melty"

Unless you're using a mold, of course.

What do you mean by melty. its like a wire welder you have the rod http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/d ... mber=41602 and the hot air melts and bonds the two pices together. I was going to try and weld things instead of bondo them and worry about cracking.

also I have a vac former so I know how to do it.

hailrazer · Post by **hailrazer** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 5:25 am

I've looked into it.

It would be really hard to use in our projects because of the small size of the bonding. When trying to bond small controller sticks/buttons, or screens it would be nearly impossible to use the welder in the small spaces.

Kyo · Post by **Kyo** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 6:32 am

Oh, I thought you were going to use it to bend plastic in shape.

Sorry, my bad.

Well, as hailrazer said, it should work but you might get problems with the size. Since you bought it already anyway, I suggest just practicing/checking on old crap

jackfb13 · Post by **jackfb13** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 12:28 am

I figured it would be good for attaching larger pieces for frankenasing or sides of a case.

Kyo · Post by **Kyo** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 3:55 am

Putty/bondo sounds easier...

jackfb13 · Post by **jackfb13** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 4:19 am

Kyo wrote:Putty/bondo sounds easier...

Putty is great for fixing imperfections and bondo is "okay" for some things but I want somthing with more structure this and Liquid abs are my preferd methods

hailrazer · Post by **hailrazer** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 6:39 am

Kyo wrote:Putty/bondo sounds easier...

That actually is only one step up from hot glue.

Abs cement is a lot better because it melts the plastic together. And a plastic welder would be great if you could get it to bond in the small crevices, but that would be difficult with most of them.

jackfb13 · Post by **jackfb13** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 11:02 am

I wonder if i can modify it so the air stream is more concentrated and can weld smaller things.

Kyo · Post by **Kyo** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 12:52 pm

Well that shouldn't be too hard. You'd just need some kind of covering. Then again, you could just use a heat gun to do the same thing...

jackfb13 · Post by **jackfb13** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 1:34 am

Kyo wrote:Well that shouldn't be too hard. You'd just need some kind of covering. Then again, you could just use a heat gun to do the same thing...

a heat gun just emits heat. a Plastic welder emits a consentraded stream of hot air set to the temp you chouse.

Plus a heat gut is as big as a hair dryer and I want to have it about as small as a pencil eraser.

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