The clips that hold the front (pull handle) onto the detergent dispenser tray have snapped off! There's sufficient overlap that I expect that I can glue the drawer front back on. Can anyone suggest what type of plastic is used and what glue(s) may be suitable? Superglue won't stand the humidity and contact adhesives won't work because the components need to be slid together.
On 28 Jul 2009 21:35:38 GMT, Jan Wysocki had this to say:
If anything will work for that, epoxy such as Araldite would be your best bet. Try to avoid the quick-setting version, and thoroughly clean the plastic surfaces of soap, grease and so on before you start.
Is there also a case for roughening the mating surfaces with sandpaper befor applying the glue?
The handle of my Dyson recently broke and rather doubtfully, I bought a tube of Ever Build Plasbond 65, Liquid plastic So far it seems to have worked in this high-stress situation, but I guess results very much depend on the plastic in question.
Andy C
I've found Evostick Serious glue sticks most flexible plastics pretty well. Takes about 24 hours to set fully, though.
If you can extract the bits there will be a triangular recycling mark somewhere that indicates the plastic it's moulded from. There will either be an acronym: "PP" is polypropylene, or a numeric code (Google it). Knowing this, you can find a solvent adhesive that will stick it. Polystyrene is easy, ABS is easy if you get the right solvent (MEK alone won't work), PVC is poor mechanically but workable for sealing. To be honest, these solvents are all awkward to get hold of, so you're likely to end up using the same adhesive for ABS solvent weld plumbing from a plumber's merchant, just because it's all you can get. Not Travis Perkins though, as they're four times the price of Toolstation!
Otherwise a good epoxy. Roughen the surface for a key first, try to add a mechanical brace with aluminium strip and self-tappers first.
Actually I have found the epoxies dot stick as well to plastic as :
CAR BODY FILLER
..which I used to repair a washing machine drim that sheraed its blocks off. I glued em back on !
I am not saying it is a perfect joiunt by any means, but its better than epoxy.
Almost nothing works well with polythenes.
Well of course - for some polymers at least. Anything that solvent welds easily and compatibly with polystyrene (so ABS too) is going to bond pretty easily with "GRP" and its polyester or styrene-based ilk. However if your base material is from that group, then you can probably just solvent weld it easily anyway.
Thanks to all for the suggestions, this post proved most useful.
I've just examined the two parts and found the recycling marks. I got excited when I found "ABS". Before this discussion, I hadn't realised that there were solvents for ABS, but now I see that my Marley plumbers cement is suitable for ABS and PVC. However, the other part is made of polypropylene:-( Now I understand why they used clips!
Evo Stik Serious Glue was mentioned, I've now looked at the data sheets for this and Sticks Like Sh*t (their asterisk), but both of these and Araldite specifically state that they won't bond to polypropylene.
I'm thinking of trying a combination of thorough scoring with wet or dry paper, meticulous degreasing, Dow Corning 744 and self tapping screws - provided I can find some made of stainless steel.
I'll try gluing a test piece to the underside first, before comitting myself.
I'll report back if it fails and I resort to replacement Zanussi spare parts.
Polypropylene is about as awkward as polyethylene. There are some specific adhesives for them, but even these aren't wonderful. I'd go with screws.
For some large pieces of PP, it's easier to hot weld it. This is quite easy if you have a hot-air welding gun - people who do car bodywork do.
Many years ago I had to construct a small plating line from PP - the tanks were about 75 cm cube, IIRC. I tried a hot-air gun but it slightly charred the PP; not sure if this would have caused a joint to fail, but with lots of chemicals and v. hot water involved... Got a cylindre of nitrogen and used that - perfect joints every time (after a bit of practice). Not really viable for home use though.
You need a real hot air welder. I don't know the differences of temperature and airflow in detail, but you can repair car bodywork (bumpers etc) with the real one in a way that just doesn't work when you try to hack it with a paint stripper or a heatshrink gun.
I have to join a polypropylene drawer to an ABS drawer front, so welding is out.
Three and a half things have worked for me with polyolefins
If its a large surface evostik old fashioned solvent based contact Car body filler Hot glue. Epoxy half works.
No longer available. There's something claiming to be it still around, but it has a different solvent, and doesn't work anything like as well as original evostick used to. Apparently EU banned the original solvent.
I had an unexpected success repairing a hinge pin which snapped off an internal freezer compartment door. I held the two broken ends over a small gas flame for a moment until the surface melted, and then pushed them together. Seems to be better than it was originally, having now lasted much longer than it did before it broke.
. I held the two broken
quick, patent it!
[g]528?
Any idea which solvents these were?
Toluene, although I don't know if the evostik solvent was only toluene or a mixture of things.
Oops, I LIED! I actually examined a previous version of the same washing machine assuming that the changes would just be the usual marketing inspired bollox, I've just examined the actual washing machine and find that they've actually changed the tray from polypropylene to "Euro Carboran". I've been Googling carboran/carborane but haven't found anything useful abooout glues or solvent welding. I've abraded the underside of the real item and applied a piece of scrap ABS to it with epoxy resin. I'll see how well it's stuck in the morning, If the joint fails, I'll pick up some Serious Glue from Robert Dyas and try that.
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