Plastic Welding

the kid · Post by **the kid** » Tue May 09, 2006 7:38 am

Anyone done plastic welding on their fairings ?
Did some plastic welding during my apprenticeship and thinking about having a crack at repairing my fairing since it wasn't too difficult from memory .
What type of plastic do they use for the placcy bits . Thinking its ABS but not sure .
Thanks for any info

Smitty · Post by **Smitty** » Tue May 09, 2006 9:38 am

Bill

go buy a Plastex kit....its easy and it works
(get it at most bike shops)
http://www.plastex.net.au/

hth

bonester · Post by **bonester** » Tue May 09, 2006 9:52 am

I used a soldering iron to 'weld' the plastics on my Z440, both GN250s and CB400- worked well- some plastics can't be melted back together this way- they just burn rather than melt.

Rossi · Post by **Rossi** » Tue May 09, 2006 10:07 am

Billy,
I can get a loan of the plastic welding machine from work

mrmina · Post by **mrmina** » Tue May 09, 2006 11:17 am

u can pick up the plastex kit from VMW for about $50

Stereo · Post by **Stereo** » Tue May 09, 2006 12:48 pm

I tried it once and f*cked it up..... does that help? I can tell you how NOT to do it...

One thing I can say though.... A welded crack is never as strong as it was origionally, and it is really easy to re-snap considering the flexibility is gone... I would recommend attaching a strengthening layer UNDER the crack (behind the fairing) probably fibreglass, this will stop it from re-snapping...

mrmina · Post by **mrmina** » Tue May 09, 2006 12:52 pm

there is a fiberglass tape that u can use and its used instead of plastic welding.

i'll have a chat to my mate and get the details for u

Stereo · Post by **Stereo** » Tue May 09, 2006 12:54 pm

mrmina wrote:there is a fiberglass tape that u can use and its used instead of plastic welding.

i'll have a chat to my mate and get the details for u

Yeah, but if you do that the paint job will have a line in it... you need to plastic weld and back it up with the FG tape

photomike666 · Post by **photomike666** » Tue May 09, 2006 3:35 pm

go plastex, it's great

ZZRCHIKKY · Post by **ZZRCHIKKY** » Tue May 09, 2006 4:28 pm

get it profecionaly done , i had 4 large cracks in my fairing ( god only knows how it stayed on :S) and some large grazes on some fiberglass on the fairing ( one side was fiberglass and one plastic!)

and it cost me $200 that was at the ready to be painted stage

FrogZ · Post by **FrogZ** » Tue May 09, 2006 4:42 pm

I used Devcon Liquid Steel once as it was lying around.

It worked great
Reccomend it if you have a couple of half tubes left with no lid like I did

I'm even worse with a nearly empty aerosol tin

mike-s · Post by **mike-s** » Tue May 09, 2006 5:04 pm

plastex is the schnitz, fibreglass is good for reinforcement, which is something you should only consider doing *after* repairing the original area.

I have a cracked front fairing i should have plastexed up before glassing the inside of and bogging up the crack (i sanded it down to the bare plastic on the inside with 80 grit paper, so it grips very well to it). I'm super lucky that i did an excellent job of glssing with about 3-4 layers of glass as the plastic was split right through in a number of places.

I still cringe at the thought of it breaking and wish i had known how to use plastex at the time.

the kid · Post by **the kid** » Tue May 09, 2006 11:53 pm

Thanks for the tips people . Will let you know what I end up doing

Such a small crack , I hate the thought of touching it and damaging the paint that is perfect