I broke the wand on a weed sprayer I really like. My 5 minute epoxy holds for a while until a side load is applied then zap. I've shopped Walmart and Home Depot so far and find nothing that claims to glue plastics. What ever happened to model airplane glues and the such?
Dave
It's possible your bug sprayer wand is made of PVC or CPVC, in which case CPVC pipe glue will work (works on PVC as well, but PVC glue won't work on CPVC). If the plastic dissolves when exposed to lacquer thinner, acetone, or carb/throttle body cleaner, then it's either CPVC, PVC, ABS, styrene, or polycarbonate. If such solvents do nothing (my expectation), then the plastic is likely polyethylene or polypropylene, which can't be glued, at least not well, but has to be melted together. Your best bet may be to put a sleeve of metal or rigid plastic over the break
Dave wrote in news:7a8e3c05-ae00-47a4-aaed- snipped-for-privacy@b25g2000prb.googlegroups.com:
Have you tried a hobby shop?
Plastics need the correct solvents for a proper weld, plus lots of bearing surface for a strong bond. And an uncontaminated surface. If any sort of substance has gotten on the fractured surfaces, a durable bond will likely be difficult.
Model airplane glues are (were?) made for fusing styrene. Your weed sprayer probably has an ABS body. ABS contains styrene, so you'd think model airplane glue would hold, but there may not be enough styrene in the polymer to make a proper weld.
Besides, even with the correct adhesive, the resulting butt joint will be forced to undergo very high bending loads relative to its surface area, very quickly leading to a new fracture.
I think you need either a new part from the manfacturer, or a new weed sprayer.
Glues went out in the seventies, when teenagers figured out they could kill themselves with a big smile, by inhaling the vapors. Leading to the warning now found on glue tubes. In the case of your sprayer. You may have better luck trying to find a slightly larger tube. Use that as a slip coupler, with the epoxy inside the tube.
I've got a sprayer I really like, but can't find another one. This one has brass wand and nozzle, and works well. Originally sold with a little bottle of Roundup. Have to see if I can find those again. Probably not. Sprayers are going plastic, now.
With the brass wand, I used a tubing bender to provide the angle I wanted.
I would wrap fiberglass cloth (soaked with epoxy like you use to repair automobiles ) around the break extending about 6" in each direction up and down the shaft. That should stick to almost anything.
on 9/16/2009 8:01 PM (ET) Dave wrote the following:
I also had had negative success with CA, plastic, and epoxy glues on things that may be roughly handled. This works. I have one. I used it to repair a plastic spotlight housing.
Be sure to get the rods too.
Best advice in thread but personally when my sprayer wand developed a leak I just bought a wand replacement kit. It was not expensive.
My takeaway from the "thistothat" site:
"There are so many kinds of plastic its hard to give advice here that applies to them all."
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