Plastic Welding Revisited

Last time we talked about a video that purported to do plastic welding, we mentioned that the process wasn't really plastic welding as we understood it. Judging by the comments, many people agreed, but it was still an interesting technique. Now [Inventor 101] has a video about plastic repair that also talks about welding, although — again, we aren't sure all of the techniques qualify.

That's not to say there aren't some clever ideas, though. There are several variations on a theme, but the basic idea is to use a bolt or something similar in a soldering iron, metal reinforcement from things like wires and staples, and donor plastic from a zip tie. While we don't think the nylon in a typical zip tie is the best way to repair anything other than nylon, if you were repairing something 3D printed, you could easily swap out the tie for filament of the same material, which — we think — would bond better.

The custom soldering iron tips made from copper wire probably have a few uses, too. Every time we see one of these videos, we think less about repairing plastic and more about reinforcing 3D prints, but maybe that's just us.

If you want to grab the comments about the other post we saw someone using zip ties and a glue gun to "weld", you’ll have a bit of reading to do. We think of proper welding as having a compatible kind of plastic and some form of heat, even if it is from friction.