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I'm posting this for anyone who may want to repair a canoe/scanoe/kayak made of High Density Poly ethylene (plastic).
I had my first attempt at plastic welding today in an effort to repair a crack in the bottom of my scanoe thanks to shell in upper west bay (and years of sun exposure). I rented a hot air tool and picked up some high density poly ethylene welding rods. Watching videos on You-tube made it look easy enough, but i was quickly corrected. In my first attempt to just melt a rod into the crack, I melted the plastic around the crack causing it to collapse to a point much wider than the welding rod. At this point, I had to do damage control since my 1/4x1 inch crack turned into a 1x3 inch gash of melted plastic. After using way to many rods, I ended up just doing a patch made of rods. It's not the most aesthetically pleasing repair, but It is air tight.
20/20 hindsight: I guess there are 1000 ways to do this, but next time I will just make a patch from the beginning. I would use a thick sheet of HDPE and then weld the edges on with rods (since this plastic isn't already compromised).
Hope this helps someone
James
I had my first attempt at plastic welding today in an effort to repair a crack in the bottom of my scanoe thanks to shell in upper west bay (and years of sun exposure). I rented a hot air tool and picked up some high density poly ethylene welding rods. Watching videos on You-tube made it look easy enough, but i was quickly corrected. In my first attempt to just melt a rod into the crack, I melted the plastic around the crack causing it to collapse to a point much wider than the welding rod. At this point, I had to do damage control since my 1/4x1 inch crack turned into a 1x3 inch gash of melted plastic. After using way to many rods, I ended up just doing a patch made of rods. It's not the most aesthetically pleasing repair, but It is air tight.
20/20 hindsight: I guess there are 1000 ways to do this, but next time I will just make a patch from the beginning. I would use a thick sheet of HDPE and then weld the edges on with rods (since this plastic isn't already compromised).
Hope this helps someone
James
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