Has any of our members had any experience with "plastic weld" to repair cracks etc. in hard plastic such as dash repair. There are guys advertising "plastic weld" and I would like some feed back from someone who has used their service.
I have a plastic welder. I have only ever used it for medium density polyethylene. It's tough to make a "pretty" weld so I don't know if it would be that great for a dash. The trick is to make sure your rod is of the same material as the part you are repairing. Poly won't work on ABS etc. Sometimes it's tough to identify what kind of material you are dealing with.
i have a buddy who did a lot of snow machine cowls in the day. he worked miracles as far as i am concerned. outward side looked new and the inward side you could see the welds. no problem just put a new foam covering over the inside and it was all new. he always said he could fix any of them no matter how bad but you had to have all the pieces. that was the hard part sometimes, finding all the pieces in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere with a full jag on. the good ole days. lol what have you got in mind and i will ask him if its doable and if he is interested. he's a gearhead also.
I had a car in a body shop for some paint repair. They broke one of the interior plastic panels removing it. Typical '90's GM textured plastic panel, ruby red in colour. They gave me the option of replacing the panel or repairing it with the plastic weld guy. I went for the repair, and if you did not know where it was you would have a hard time finding it.
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first off why wouldn't you take a new one. second off i can see textured being a challenge. there are some pretty talented people out there and then there's the one's who think they are.
Had the plastic hood on the riding mower repaired. It looks like it on the inside, but the outside after sanding, body prep and paint you would never know. Has stood up to the constant vibration that broke it in the first place. (4 years so far) Like most things, it has it's place, works great in some instances and not so well in others.
i have a buddy who did a lot of snow machine cowls in the day. he worked miracles as far as i am concerned. outward side looked new and the inward side you could see the welds. no problem just put a new foam covering over the inside and it was all new. he always said he could fix any of them no matter how bad but you had to have all the pieces. that was the hard part sometimes, finding all the pieces in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere with a full jag on. the good ole days. lol what have you got in mind and i will ask him if its doable and if he is interested. he's a gearhead also.
Thanks Rick
I am doing a Maverick (no fair laughing) that came from Arizona and the lower two piece dash is plastic. This piece holds the heater / AC controls, the AC vents, the glove box etc. etc. There are a number of cracks in this piece.
All that being said, I was told of a guy close to home that does plastic welding. After talking with a couple of others, this fellow comes highly recommended. I will take my problem piece to him and see what he says.
I posted my question on the forum just to see if other members had used this service on any of their builds. So far there has been no negative replies.
