welding plastic

[woodNfish]

I bought a plastic welder from Harbor Freight back in March and finally got the chance to use it. Welding plasticis very easy, the hard part was hauling my compressor up from my basement to my garage.

I replaced the original Humminbird 100sx fishfinder on my 17 Bass with a new color fishfinder/gps unit; it's beautiful. I had to seal up holes in my transom where I removed the old transducer and on the top of my console and the top of the bow gunwale where I remounted my other fishfinder on a new swivel base.

When you are meting the plastic and laying in new plastic to fill a hole, the center of the hole has a tendency to mound up like a swirled ice-cream cone. I found that if I ran the flat of my bench chisel across the weld while it was still wet, that i could make it nice and flat and then use the chisel blade to shave the weld down flat. That technique saved me from having to sand down the weld and they came our real nice. I even went back and touched up my first hole with real good results, and the plastic did not stick to my chisel at all.

You don't need a huge compressor for this - I just have one of those small Porter-Cable pancake compressors and it ran the whole time I had the welder going, but it was able to keep up. You run a constant 4 psi through the welder while it is on.

Anyway, if you've been thinking about doing some welding on your boat but have been a bit apprehensive, don't be - it really is easy.

BTW, I got my welding rod from Dick at Merrit Marine he was super helpful and a real nice guy. I also bought some Rule from him and he threw in a bag of polyethelene powder.

woodNfish

[MolarBoater]

I would prefer some large plastic rods....like used in a glue gun and just plug and squirt! Why can't that work for filling holes? I have the plastic welder and collect holes so I can fill a bunch at one time since it is a little cumbersom. Still better than the alternative.

[woodNfish]

Hi Molarboater,

Offhand I'd say that the glue stick idea doesn't work because you are combining the existing plastic with the new plastic. A glue gun doesn't heat the material it is being attached to. That said, I've wondered how a plain old heat gun would work. Harbor Freight sells a heatgun kit for $20. It includes the different nozzles for the gun.

woodNfish

[jergofish]

I bought the plastic welder from Harbor as well. It's so inexpensive I don't think it's worth it to experiment with anything else.

I think I paid $39 but it could even have been $29.

I wanted to have it handy just in case I fasten something on somewhere and then decide I've totally screwed up and want it some place else.

I haven't asked my dealer about rods. Does anyone know of a west coast supply?

[mark]

try joe at johnson marine in ontario ca.

[k9reno]

molar
Actually the weilder that the factory guy used on my boat was kinda like that, but larger.
it had a metal tip about 2 inches long rounded on the end that heated up to melt the existing plastic that you touch it agains. the compressor pushed the plastic rod through the weilder and it melted as it came through the tip so that it was forcing melted plastic into the melted existing plastic where you wanted to weild. it was pretty neat and fairly straight forward.

[woodNfish]

The instruction on the harbor freight welder say not to put the plastic rods into the tip, and you don't touch the plastic you are melting with the tip either, you hold it slightly away from the material and let the hot air do the work.

You can get polyethylene rod from Dick at Merrit Marine.

There is a very good with information about plastic welding at Urethane Supply Cmpany's website. They have an entire plastic welding manual that you can download for free - it's very useful. This is the link to their website:

http://www.urethanesupply.com

woodNfish

[pamarine]

An alternative to Using a hot-air welder is using an Airless Plastc Welder. i use the 5600HT with the 100Watt element and haven't found much I can't weld. I've used it to repair aircraft parts for years and with the HDPE rods that Urethane Supply sells (Or colored HDPE rods from my dealer) I don't see why it won't work on a Triumph. The advantage is no compressed air source to haul around. It works kind of like a soldering iron.

[cagrove]

Originally Posted by pamarine

It works kind of like a soldering iron.

I bought one of the plastic welders from Harbor Frieght and although it worked, I prefer using a regular electric soldering iron. It's much easier to control and there's no compressor to haul around.

[dscar4u]

I am new here and i just posted a question but i should have searched 1st. My boat has some deep scratches and i heated it with a heat gun and use my chisel to flaten them out. Now do i sand or what to get the finished look.