Repairing a split in plastic water butt

I have in the past 'welded' the crack from the outside with a soldering iron, but included in the weld a bit of stainless steel mesh to provide reinforcement. I trimmed small pieces of plastic off the inner rim of the butt to provide extra material and act as a welding rod. On the inside, I applied some black Unibond gutter sealing goo (after the butt has been well dried). Water pressure will push the goo further into the crack, assisting the seal. That was several years ago and the repair is still good, although I see another crack is appearing nearby (both are near the tap; obviously a point of stress). Be aware when using a soldering iron that the plastic melts very easily, and it's quite easy to make a narrow crack into a great big hole.

Chris Hogg wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Thanks, Chriss; just the kind of guidance I needed! Where did you get the stainless mesh from?

Al

Replace is easiest.

To fix it, you 3mm stop drill the ends of the crack to stop it spreading further. Then you place a patch over it. I usually use a patch of old water butt, from one that has split badly. Attach with big pop rivets and washers. You could also use aluminium, even double- layer beercan. For beercan I'd patch both sides. Goop under the patch with a polysulphide mastic ("roof repair" that can be applied wet - works much better than silicone and cheaper than PU).

Also fix why it cracked. If it was permanently stressed from sitting heavily loaded on tooo narrow a support, then you have to fix that or it will only happen again.

i found that too, when i popped my first GF's cherry :)

Ah! I thought you might ask. From the waste skip at my former place of work, where scrap ends of such things were regularly disposed of. I'm not sure where you'd find it otherwise. It was mesh used in big industrial screens for removing oversize material from slurries; approximately 1 mm aperture, although many sizes were available. Phosphor-bronze was also used, and I imagine copper would do also if you can find it. A quick search on eBay for stainless steel mesh throws up all sorts, as always, but there are some cheap tea strainers that might be strippable.

Chris Hogg wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Yes indeed - the tea strainer idea is a good one! Anyway, I think I have accomplished the repair effectively, thanks to your excellent idea of using shavings as welding rods. I reckon that if the thing springs another leak, it won't be in the same place!

Thanks again..

Al

I trust you weren't using a soldering iron!

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Gazz" saying something like:

It's a common problem.

That's why they call her "Liberty Bell" :-)

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replying to AL_n, pete wrote: used the gutter sealant a couple of times. Lasts 8 months or so then seems to get brittle and fail again.

One solution that works reasonably well is a patch of butyl rubber pond liner attached to the inside after careful cleaning and drying with a good layer of the most aggressive high tack rubber glue you can find.

Needs some overlap onto sound material to stop the crack from propagating.

What's the thinking about drilling a hole at each end of the crack to stop propagation? Works with bronze cymbals!

Nick

It reduces the stress intensity at the tip of the crack, which under normal circumstances can be very high. Bear in mind that the crack tip can have a diameter that may only be few nanometres (0.000000001 m). Perhaps not quite so relevant in plastics as it is for brittle materials such as ceramics and glass, but probably still significant.

I've never had much luck. The problem occurs if the butt freezes during the winter and the weak point pops again. Best chuck it and get a new one. Brian

Most of the plastics used for water buts can be welded, research plastic welding.

Eight years isn't too bad a life for a repaired water butt...

(See date of AL's post.)

Have a look at this guy's video for an alternative: He uses an empty milk carton and a hot air gun (the kind used for stripping paint):

Now that's odd. The original homeowners page does not show the youtube link. It just has a rotating arrow with "formatting link" where the link should be. It happens with Pale Moon and Firefox.

Any idea why the webpage isn't showing the link, but it shows in the NG post?

Well it is a crap website seems to be generally agreed by all here, so yet another bug to add to the date delete one and the fact that using it with a screenreader is difficult. Brian