washing machine drum repair?

[Paul]

got in last night to find the kitchen flooded, short story is there was an underwire sticking through the drum. tipped the machine up today and found a small hole about 7mm punched in the drum casing. as the machine is 8 month's old i was going to ring the repair place but should i decide to repair it myself what would be the best adhesive for the job. i was thinking of jb-weld, i have used it in the passed with success. my plan is to glue a small plate of aluminium over the hole. any other suggestion's??

[BigWallop]

What material is the drum made from? If it's a new nylon drum, then glass fibre webbing and moulding paste usually does the trick. You don't need that much of it either. Or the other alternative is Araldite. Which can take a week or so to cure off properly though, before you can use the machine again.

[Ian_m]

Araldite is not the answer as it will soften and fail as soon as a hot wash (90°C) is performed. A friend tried Araliding a rack thing in a baby bottle steamer (100°C) but failed after not very long. I've undone Araldire repairs/bodges before (on ceramic items) by putting in a cold/warm (100-150°C) oven and usually just fall apart.

[Pete Cross]

how about drilling a bigger hole and then putting a blanking gromet in. The pump no doubt connects to the drum in a similar fashion.

[Andy Dingley]

Araldite will survive somewhat higher temperatures than that. _Rapid_ Araldite is the one that fails below boiling point. I'd not trust either in a washing machine though.

I don't use either of them though. A tenner's worth pack of West System will last you for ages and can always be thickened if you need it thick. However Araldite isn't so good and can't be thinned if you needed a thin epoxy.

[Ian Stirling]

Find a suitable bolt and nut, probably stainless. Drill hole out to circular. Bolt through hole, tighten nut quite a bit.

Or take a soldering iron, and weld the hole shut, using compatible plastic.

[bigcat]

Although it says on the pack it survives much higher temps, the reality is it goes soft, so as to be fairly useless once it gets to boiling. I know because I tried it on a steam chamber at about 100C, it was useless.

Rapid is much worse in more than one respect, and should be avoided for most use, just used when an inferior but fast set is needed.

whats that? Building epoxy resin tube?

NT

[Andy Dingley]

West System epoxy. Developed / sold by the Gougeon Brothers, boatbuilders of some note. They also sell a boatbuilding book under their name that's an excellent guide to serious use of epoxy.

Their epoxy is sold through boatbuilding and better woodworking suppliers. They sell it in huge packs with mixing pumps, or a convenient trial pack that lasts me two years in a busy workshop and costs a tenner. They also sell a wide range of filler materials - cheap and worth having around.

If you want a rapid cure with standard Araldite, just put some tinfoil or a jar lid onto an electric stove at the lowest setting and mix it hot. Hot enough to make it runny (no more!) and you can get a 5 minute cure, with practice.

[bigcat]

seems like Im always learning... thanks Andy

NT

[Paul]

In the end i got some stuff called chemical metal thats supposed to glue everything to everything (so i thought) , i put some fine aluminium mesh over the hole and put plenty of glue over it, let it dry overnight and tested it with a hot wash and it leaked a few drops. put some more glue where it was leaking from and tested it again but it still leaks. not sure that the glue has enough grab on the plastic drum. options i have now are -

1) add more glue untill it stops leaking hopefully 2) remove as much glue as possible and try something else?

at the moment option 2 sounds the best but what else can i try?

[Pete C]

Hi,

For a shorter term repair I'd tape over the hole with a few layers of aluminium tape, starting with a small piece and overlapping with bigger pieces.

For a longer term repair I'd use a patch of stainless steel sheet (maybe cannibalise some kitchenware) secured with small stainless machine screws, and seal the edges of the patch and under the screw heads with a sealant like Fernox LS-X or some other high temperature sealant, maybe a motor parts shop would have a good one (though clean off surplus well before SWMBO washes her whites ;) )

cheers, Pete.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ive used that on a plastic drum...and its just about possible to get it to stick but its never the best thing.

Its currently holding te concrete blocks on my plastic drum OK, and has done for a few years...but that machine is leaking now and I have suspicions.

In all honesty, fit a new drum. Chemical metal worked great on rusted up steel drums but the modern plastic ones - no. Not reliabley anyway.