Plastic Welders

[brendodendo]

Norm uses 2 different products on ski / board repairs. for small scratches, he uses ptex. On larger holes, he uses a base weld plastic. Not positive, but I do believe that they are 2 separate products.

If he does not have the correct wire, I'm sure he could source it...

[KSC]

I'll share my recent experience. My first attempt as a total neophyte welder:

Christian hooked me up with some plastic and gave me a little tutorial on what he and his buddies do. I had a very large displaced crack under my seat right at the pressure point, so it was a challenging place to begin with. I used a heat gun to heat up the hull and new plastic. One snag I ran into was that my hull plastic started melting faster than the new plastic (both by the same manufacturer, but obviously not totally the same). We adjusted after this initial mistake, but we did have a quarter sized piece of the hull that started sinking and required a quick stop and boat flip. The rest of the job seemed to go better and I smoothed it out as best I could. Probably around a 1 hr job.

I got 2 runs down black rock, and half way through Big South before it re-cracked, almost as large as the original one. It looked like it started in the original crack, but propagated somewhat crooked on a new line.

Before I did the weld I put bituthene under the seat and I think the weld tore a hole through it. I didn't go through the trouble of removing the outfitting to check, but once it re-cracked it leaked like a sieve. I actually wonder if I would have been better just sticking with the bituthene and not messing with the weld. I had done 1 run on it like that and there was no change.

Anyway, I guess the point is my home job with no experience didn't work too well, but maybe it would have worked better with a smaller crack in a less susceptible position.

[oarbender]

I look forward to "the fix" anybody buttsurfing, or kneesurfing.
I call it a broken boat, deal with it..........

anyone whanna buy a boat? pre-80 glass down river boat, looks great, leaks like hell, and lived in alaska.

hmmm.......I knew i should have been a preacher

[oarbender]

im sorry, that was terrible. NEED WATTA.

[jennifer]

Kevin, I've been paddling my cracked micro with a half-ass bituthene repair for 5 years. Still holding strong, and leaks less than any of my other boats.

[b dash rian]

Originally Posted by brendodendo

Norm uses 2 different products on ski / board repairs. for small scratches, he uses ptex. On larger holes, he uses a base weld plastic. Not positive, but I do believe that they are 2 separate products.

If he does not have the correct wire, I'm sure he could source it...

base weld is still a p-tex material, just a slightly different density of it. Its a little bit harder than, say, candle p-tex or other p-tex wire. These are not the same as HDPE though.

I would say the best bet is to talk to the manufacturer and either have them send a small sample of plastic, or find out exactly what type of plastic they use, and go through a plastics supplier