What did you do to your shop today?

[Hurricane77]

Same here, it would make sense that it should work fairly well. By melting the staples into the plastic, they become one with the panel and put the necessary strength back into it. I’ll report back once I have a chance to play around with it a bit.



Correct. Each type of plastic has its own unique properties, and you have to be sure of what it is you’re working with beforehand. ABS plastic for example, can be welded back together with solvent, I have some of that already. But polypropylene and polyethylene cannot. PP and PE have relatively low melting points however, so they can be fused back together with heat pretty easily.

The panel I have to repair is polypropylene, so my only option is plastic welding. The staple method I plan on trying will work better than trying to infuse new plastic filler rod, but that is the other option. A simple pencil style soldering iron and the appropriate plastic filler rods is all that’s needed for that type of repair.

Yet another job for zip ties 🙂

 

[Zeus785]

They say 160W , 16000LM. The seem pretty good, way better than bulbs.

 

[Wageslave]

About 3 weeks ago when all the severe storms blew through, a big maple tree beside the garage split right at the base and has been giving all the signs that it is about to flatten my garage at any moment. It has one limb that is hanging over the garage and another one that would help counterweight the tree towards the garage in the event that it fell.

Well, it stopped being windy long enough to at least cut those two branches down.

I managed to clear the garage by about 6 inches and hopefully the rest of the tree will hold up until I can get a tree service in to bring it down safely.

I'm just glad I didn't have to file a homeowners insurance claim for me dropping a tree branch on my garage.

 

[Streetbu]

Currently cutting stringers for the stairs off my deck, and covering the car in sawdust. It's ok. I hadn't washed it yet and it desperately needs one anyways.

 

[Streetbu]

Same here, it would make sense that it should work fairly well. By melting the staples into the plastic, they become one with the panel and put the necessary strength back into it. I’ll report back once I have a chance to play around with it a bit.



Correct. Each type of plastic has its own unique properties, and you have to be sure of what it is you’re working with beforehand. ABS plastic for example, can be welded back together with solvent, I have some of that already. But polypropylene and polyethylene cannot. PP and PE have relatively low melting points however, so they can be fused back together with heat pretty easily.

The panel I have to repair is polypropylene, so my only option is plastic welding. The staple method I plan on trying will work better than trying to infuse new plastic filler rod, but that is the other option. A simple pencil style soldering iron and the appropriate plastic filler rods is all that’s needed for that type of repair.

I weld plastic at work all the time. If you need some small pieces of polypropylene or polyethylene welding rod, I can snag some for you...

 

[Rktpwrd]

I weld plastic at work all the time. If you need some small pieces of polypropylene or polyethylene welding rod, I can snag some for you...

Thanks for the offer Shawn, I appreciate your generosity. I can get polypropylene rods from a store not too far from me for fairly cheap, but I’ll certainly keep you in mind.

 

[airboatgreg]

Hung up some stuff

 

[Rktpwrd]

I’ll report back once I have a chance to play around with it a bit.

So I finally got a chance to use the new plastic welding stapler tool thingy tonight, on the panel I bought it for.

I have a set of rare one year only factory black upper rear sail panels for The Juggernaut, but the drivers side had the tab that holds the only upper fastening clip in break off a couple years ago. I had cut a tab off a tan coloured panel and tried to glue it on with some 3M Rigid Parts Repair compound, and while that worked for a bit, it too eventually started to separate.

So tonight I utilized the inside corner staples, and melted a bunch into the two pieces. I might’ve gone a little overboard, but I’d rather have too many than too few. This tab sees quite a bit of stress when pulling the panel off, which is how I suspect it broke in the first place.

Note how you can clearly see the “PP” stamped in the photos. That stands for polypropylene, and how you can identify what type of plastic you have.

Looks pretty ugly, but who cares. It’s on the backside. Just as long as it’s strong. Which it seems to be, I pried on it pretty good, and it didn’t give. Once all the staples were melted in and had cooled, I trimmed off the excess stubs. That’s why it looks a little odd. But I didn’t melt any of them through to the front side, so that’s a win.

Overall pretty happy with it. I can see it getting used a fair bit in the future on other similar repairs.

 

[Misfitmike63]

Started swapping all my T12 8’ lights over to LED’s. So far, love the brightness!

Please ignore the mess, bench doesn’t usually look that bad!

 

[86LK]

Started swapping all my T12 8’ lights over to LED’s. So far, love the brightness!

Please ignore the mess, bench doesn’t usually look that bad!
View attachment 220653

what are you hiding up under the upper deck?