OT, sorta, has anyone here had experience "welding" plasic?

[katy]

I have a favorite plastic drain pan that has some holes in it from weld droppings and was thinking of patching it using a soldering iron and maybe some donor plastic from an oil bottle.
Any ideas and or comments welcome.
TIA, Ken

[Brianfrench65]

I have seen plastic welded. It uses a heated holder, that the filler rod goes through, and has a spoon like tip at the base (to flatten the bead). It has compressed air flowing through, and the hot air provided the melting, and the filler was softened to melt in. Harbor Freight ~$50.00

[2manycars]

Years ago I worked in a motorcycle/snowmobile shop, and I welded plastic body parts with a hot air torch and filler rod. It worked, but required some skill, and a learning curve, and was not always pretty.

[Tom Wesenberg]

There are many types of plastic, and I haven't had much luck trying to fuse some of them.

For the mess a leaky oil drain pan could make I'd just buy a new one.

[john in illinois]

Here is a really neat way to weld plastic. don't know if it would apply to your drain pan. Spin welding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crmnzfDZDPU

John

[Dollar Bill]

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I've had success patching cracks in a plastic Briggs & Stratton gas tank with a soldering iron. Just melt both sides of the crack back together. Has held for a good many years now.

[Domino]

Buy aniother as they are cheap.

[Aok]

Maybe a hot melt glue gun they have different types of glue sticks available

[bdave_mcc]

I have a plastic welder i bought for the purpose of repairing heater boxes and fan shrouds and things when i worked in the dealership...you could make it work but it was ugly and a pain. now i wonder why i ever bought it...seemed like a good idea at the time.
Id try a soldering iron and some scrap plastic. surely you could patch up a drain pan with it. Just melt it all together.

[mshmodela]

Ditto on trying a hot glue gun.... it's hot plastic...

[monto]

Plastic repair? Two part epoxy resin. Depending on the repair, use matting, roving or cloth and for filler, colloidal silica. Need to clean surfaces. Remarkable strength and inexpensive.

[Steve Wastler]

I had a plastic welder of sorts as a kid, experimented with many different plastics. So when my kubota plastic gas tank sprang a leak this past spring, I grabbed my soldering iron and a couple zip ties. Melted about half way thru the thickness of the tank, laid a strip of zip tie in the melted plastic and melted the zip tie and blended the two together. Did this a few times, took about 5 minutes and it looked pretty good. The split was close to the bottom on the side, been 7 months and no signs of moisture from leaking fuel. Worked great.....

[Gold Digger]

Got a friend that works at a salvage yard and can weld almost any plastic part together with a cigarette lighter and an old comb. Welded a power steering pump reservoir for me about 15 years ago and still holding.

[DennisR]

Sugru ?

[katy]

For the mess a leaky oil drain pan could make I'd just buy a new one

Buy aniother as they are cheap

I've got other drain pans so I don't need to buy another one, it's just that I prefer this one. It didn't start out in life as a drain pan. not sure what it's from, I picked it up at a self serve auto wrecking over 25 years ago. It's rectangular about 14" wide and about 24" long overall with one corner extended and sloped out so it pours real nice, not a big wide stream like from the round ones.

Besides that, I inherited thriftyness from my Scottish mother, hate to throw anything out that can be repaired and reused.

Like in the old jingle: Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, or do without.