General > General Technical Chat
New use for my hot air rework station
Rick Law:
This was just an experiment.
I had this cat food lid that cracked so I had some fun with it: I did an experiment. I cut a piece of plastic from another snack food cover lid, use it as a patch. I use my hot air rework station and "welded" the patch on the crack.
It was just an experiment for fun. It was poorly done. Poor even for a first-try "figuring out as I go". But it actually held up much better than I expected. I put it back in use (for a month now), I treated it rough to see if the patch can withstand the use and rough treatment. The patch held. I was planning to dispose of it after the experiment. Now I am going to use it - see if this patch is as strong as the rest of the lid and for how long.
Next time when I have a piece of cracked plastic that I wanted fix, I know this would work and I may do this again - more carefully next time.
Thought you may find it amusing how "multi-functional" a hot air rework station can be...
Nominal Animal:
Perhaps there is a similar effect at play when welding polypropylene webbing (seat belt material) with hot melt glue?
Many hot melt glue sticks are chemically similar enough to polypropylene, causing the two to truly bond when one is molten. Depending on the plastics, it is something between brazing and welding.
So, if you have some sort of plastic that needs repairing, and you happen to find a similar enough thermoplastic, this kind of repair is certainly something to try.
Ground_Loop:
My hot air station gets more use as a heat shrink tool than as a soldering tool. It's also handy for reflowing hot melt glue.
gamalot:
I don’t know if only the Chinese are doing this, or if the Chinese are still doing this. When I was studying in the college about 35 years ago, I saw that on a construction site, workers used hot air gun to melt PVC filament (about AWG 8 ) to weld PVC toilet pipes.
Brumby:
Heat shrink - absolutely. I also use it for drying stuff and warming up stickers so they release more easily.
The most bizarre use was when I had a virus (not Covid) and set it up to provide warm air which made breathing more comfortable....
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