We bought four of these storage boxes at Asda
We need to cut them up and glue various pieces together for a bit of a project, so my question is, does anyone know what plastic these are made from so that we can get the correct glue for the job?
Does it have a recycling number/symbol on it? That will tell you what its made from.
You didn't ask the person at the checkout? :-)
I have bought many of these in the past, I have never thought about glue, but the waxy feel to the thing suggests there may be problems.
A glue gun might be the best bet.
One thing that works extremely well on those boxes is duct tape. It may not lend itself to complex construction techniques, but for repairs I have found it outstanding.
Incidentally I bought a very large number of these over the years for a shed and garage storage system. Not sure if you find the info useful, but in the long term these boxes get quite brittle and are easily broken.
The coloured ones outlast the clear ones, why I'm not sure because there is no light in the shed or garage on a day to day basis.
AB
They're generally polypropylene (look for a "PP" or a recycling triangle with a "5" inside) if so, that's a difficult "low surface energy" plastic to glue, search for e.g. 3M DP8010NS
Brilliant Andy, thanks, there is indeed a PP with a 5 inside the triangle, so cheers.
... and take Andy's comment about gluing it seriously. It's very difficult stuff to glue. You can get glue to do it in fairly small quantities, they tend to have an 'activator' that you have to paint the surface with before gluing.
Cannot see them, but try nail varnish remover, if it melts them its probably acetate or polystyrene. Many are phenolic and hence almost impossible to use solvent glue on. Brian
Dow Corning used to do a range of plastic adhesives with catchy names like polyweld and other pointlessly vague ones. Brian
Loctite sell a "super plastics" adhesive, they do mention polypropylene, it's just a thick superglue with an activator, I've had variable results from it, but it is cheaper than the dedicated LSE adhesives. I don't think there's anything special about the Loctite version compared to CA mitre adhesive and activator which tend to come in larger pack sizes e.g.
I think they might be polythene, so I'll simply wish you good luck with that.
I've used hot glue for unstressed joints in those - if it needs to be stronger then welding might be worth a go. As someone said up-thread, they do seem to go brittle after a couple of years, even if kept out of direct sunlight.
Plastics like this are hard to glue. At a minimum, roughen up the surface and degrease before gluing. Better is to flash a flame over it too.
The effective way to join such plastic is to melt it together. You can use molten offcuts like glue as long as you melt the surfaces to be joined when applying it.
NT
Something that might work well is the black double sided tape that is used for fastening objects to windscreens. I don't know where you buy it but I got a large reel about 2" wide for arbout a fiver from a tool stall at a steam traction rally several years ago and it is wonderful stuff!
Alternatively try one of the special glues mentioned or duct tape - I got a reel of it designed for outside use in Lidl a few weeks ago - its dark green instead of the usual grey or black and sticks like the prervial sh!t to a blanket!
Whatever you use, you can reinforce it with staples - in fact, they might work on their own, depending on what you are doing and particularly if you want to preserve the translucent nature of the plastic.
Take a heavy duty stapler and lay the plastic to be joined on an old piece of carpet or a thick layer of cardboard - anything which won't grip the staple(s) - and staple the two layers together.
Then remove thehe joined plastic and use a pair of miniature long nosed pliers to turn the ends of the staple(s) over so that the ends are pressing firmly on the surface.
Hot glue is not a bad way to start
I have repaired a snapped motorbike mudguard with stainless steel mesh and a soldering iron, the mesh gets pressed into the plastic.
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