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OT: Plastic Welder and identifying types of plastic

I routinely need to repair plastic on car parts, tools, etc. Thus, I just bought one of the Harbor Freight plastic welders as I heard it was no frills and basically did the job relative to the $179 name brand units. At any rate, here's my question:

The unit can weld PVC, Nylon and ABS plus I bought several packages of filler rod to do just that. How can one best identify which plastic to use? For example, if I have a part in front of me and it's colored black with the "swirly" look to it, I might conclude it is ABS and that might be wrong.

Any suggestions on how to best identify what kind of plastic confronts me?

Thank you as always,

--George

Reply to
George
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There is a plastics id "tree" here:

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Unfortunately, you have to register to use it.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Engelhardt

Most plastics can be identified by burning a small sample and noting the color of flame, odor given off, type of smoke, etc. Here is a table of burn characteristics of some plastics:

ff

Reply to
ff

I had a link saved to a good flow chart that helped ID mystery plastics. I think this it, but it appears you need to register to access it now...

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"Plastics Identification Chart" on the left side of the page.

Ned Simmons

Reply to
Ned Simmons

On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 14:38:03 GMT, ff wrote: Thank you.

Reply to
George

Thanks Ned.

--George

Reply to
George

The May/June 2004 issue of Home Shop Machinist has an article on this welder. The author recommends running it with a router speed controller (HF #43584), so you can get lower temperatures without having to turn the airflow up too high. It looks like it would have quite a few uses.

In addition to the "burn test", he says you can try to weld the end of various known plastic welding rods to your sample; only the right one will stick. Also, many plastic parts have a material code (number inside a triangle) molded into them.

Reply to
Ron Bean

Try

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They have a plastic ID chart in the form of a decision tree. I've used it in the past and found it very helpful.

Hmmm, just checked the site and apparently, you now have to "register" and login. Your choice, but the chart has been helpful to me in the past.

Reply to
skuke

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