Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I think I need one of these. If just for carrots.

Have been practicing plastic welding at Work so i took a gun home and put some handles on a couple of wicking half Barrels

I hope to need a plastic welder soon....

Those heat guns are great. I use one for making bulk head fittings for any size pipe that is needed.

How do you mean? What do you do? I'm interested!

So is it just like a big soldering iron? but with a lower temperature?

A lot hotter than a soldering iron as they can heat a larger area.

Home made bulk head fitting.


Double "T"


Odd angles

So does it just melt one surface to the other or do you melt a third material between the two like with metal stick welding?

tom77

It melts all the surfaces and the welding rod also melts into a small bead just a head of where you are welding. I use the free hand method with just a 5mm nozzle.

There is a nozzel that will guide the welding rod and press the molten material in harder. I just need to find some where in Australia to get it. But then again I have welded without it for the last 20 or so years just fine.

Tom if you would like to continue it might be an idea to move to my thread so as not to hijack this one of topic.

E bay has plastic welders talking of hi jack thread I thinkthis is BF thread but everyone put there ideas here on wicking beds

excellent work Rod, now I'm going to have to buy one of these myself.

Don't forget he who dies with the most tools wins

Hi BF hope you don't mind us coming here to discuss wicking beds rather than start up a thread of my own looks like everyone has put there ideas on here there is a bit to no for example the two plastics you are welding have to be the same and then use a special tip to tack it on first and before welding it with plastic rod you have to scrape the two surfaces so it will bond well i am now confident to do bulkheads and damaged tanks etc once you use the small welder they usually do another weld with a machine called an ex cruder it just means a bigger wider weld especially for cracked tanks etc the welder you see in the pic is worth 700 dollars but you can get a chinese made for 150 bucks it does the job for home use but we have tested them at work and you have to turn them up on the highest setting and when you have finished welding you turn the temperature control off and keep it running to let it cool down or you will blow up the element i hope i made some sense for people wanting to try

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.a ... &catid=477
US plastics are US made and IMO, better quality then the others. A few cents cheaper also. had them in for a year...no leaks, and you can reuse them.

Thanks coachchris that link will come in very handy

I do my plastic welding with a 300w soldering iron, "glue" strips cut from the same material that i am welding and lots of patience!

Not as fast as a commercial plastic welder but still makes a very strong bond.