Fairing repairs

[BigDonk]

finally got round to looking at repairing some of the plastics, and luckily I have cadged a sealey hot air plastic welding gun from a guy at work and a few sticks of ABS? ie they are black, problem is their is no manual with it and he said when he used it it was a disaster, had a look on youtube, its mainly head bangers with soldering irons, and just one with a guy showing you welding to small sheets from a fairing that he can tape to a bit of wood, has anybody on the forum had experience of using one of these guns or can recomend a link to a site that shows you how to, I will keep looking myself. I am going to try it out on a bit of gash fairing, to see how it goes , but my biggest worry will be using to much heat and end up distorting the fairing, when a wedge of bridging filler
and ally mesh would have been a safer bet

[BigDonk]

http://brandejs.ca/details.php?view=ninja_500

LEGO = ABS add acetone makes pliable abs ........GTF

Yep apparently it does, the silicone rubber looks messy though

[uber pikey]

Just youtube it, the repair procedure is on there mate.

[lizard821000]

iv heard great results with this liquid stuff over the oron mate....forget the name now, but it basicaly melts the plstic together. ill have a dig for the name and you tube vid!!!

i need to make a few repairs too and after asking the same sort of question, everyone pointed me in its direction OVER the solder iron.....

[lizard821000]

Q-bond

or plastex


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQYW5pXxj1k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xBIf_fx708


i have a million cracks to fix, will be trying these.

[Hadies]

on Plastex. Great stuff.

[lizard821000]

and this! looks awsome for lug repairs


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9DrfxHy ... re=related

[amorti]

Depending how bad the crack is, it's quite an easy thing to fix. Use a soldering iron to push material from outside the crack on both sides, into the crack. So it looks like this: ---\/\/---

Then run the iron back up along the crack, and smooth the join. You can use cable ties as welding rod. This is called plastic welding and it is literally welding, as you are remolding the plastic back into one piece.

Do this on the back of a painted panel and it'll be strong enough. Careful not to distort the front but equally don't be a fairy with the iron, or you'll get no penetration on your "weld". If it's about lugs on the backs of panels, do front and back, ensuring that no part of the plastic has not been melted. I have done this on various panels, always successfully. But never especially tidily

[BigDonk]

That plastex stuff look good I wonder if it is a available in blighty

Had a try of using the hot air welding gun, it does the job………. But
Not the result I was hoping for, then again it made a solid repair but it still needs filling and sanding

Being my first attempt on a gash bit of fairing, I encountered several problems

1-you need 3 hands or the job really needs to be done by 2 people
2-melting points of the fairing and the filler rod are different for the worst
possible scenario the fairing melting point is lower than the filler rod
3 – setting the heat and force of air is a lottery
4- possibly a smaller diameter nozzle might work better

Preparing the fairing is pretty straight forward, clear paint and form a v channel along the break (using a dremel )

Pre heat the filler rod until soft, a slight pre heat on the fairing, attach the softened filler rod to the fairing a feed in with heat , ferk the fairing is starting to distort (do you carry on) or push the fairing back into shape whilst still keeping heat on the filler rod? A friend or a third hand wanted here, (it’s a trial so carry on, reduce heat, keep applying filler rod
Fairing getting worryingly soft, break filled, heat off, try and remould fairing and spread the Bead out a bit, allow to cool
What can I say but “fuck that” defo a 2 man job extra hands and eyes, plus fingers in the eyes for the guy on youtube who uses 2 small bits of fairing taped to a block of wood, I know its only a demo but it does not help.

Looks like lego and acetone might not be a bad bet, or the soldering iron technique

I will give it some more practice and get a bit of help and see what happens

[BigDonk]

Had another go with the hot air gun, this time with a spare pair of hands, and a smaller nozzle tip,

Alas its still not that great, the softening of the fairing is far quicker than the filler rod.

so we tried Amorti soldering iron method, this does does work well Amorti we salute you,

firstly I glued the crack in place with just plain super glue, then applied the soldering iron and sealed the break

then we did another same method, but used the abs filler rod, ths also worked well, good solid repair

finally I used a lego block, which worked aswell as a filler rod, with the added bonus you do get a variety of colours lol
I am going to give the acetone and lego a go too, and see if it makes a good filler paste, and let you know how it goes