Gluing Plastics 

Recently used it on a broken Microwave door handle, worked very well! Impressed and saved a lot!

U can enhance bonding by decreasing surface energy with a flash of blue flame (propane) prior to bonding. Also think 5200 will outperform any of these thermoset resins.

J-B Weld is amazing product ❤

You could also buy a vacuum sealer, they are usually for food, but should work with Adhesives very well too.

You can use fiberglass mesh , wire and hose clamps in combination with epoxies. Also maximum adhesion may take a week on some. There are also industrial adhesives you cannot buy off the shelf at home Depot.

Kept my interest till the end, well done!

Doug, I just modeled up a pex fitting to connect to a tank because I couldn't find one anywhere (3D printing in petg). It think it will work perfectly for what you are doing here. You drill a 3/4 hole in the tank and it has an o-ring seal on the inside with a threaded shank and wing nut on the outside. Let me know if you are interested.

JB Weld is decent for an adhesive you can easily get at any hardware store but if you want the best adhesive for you application 3M is the only brand you need to look at.

Hey Doug, I had a similar problem 10years ago where I wanted a acrylic window added to the side of one those Polyethylene jugs, nothing wanted to stick to them. I found that Marine 5200 was the best, been 10 years and the bond is still strong and seals great.

Different plastics have different characteristics and cannot be bonded in the same fashion. What you were bonding, the plastic two also makes a huge difference in what products to use. You need to use the proper adhesive for the type of plastic you are bonding. Most "plastic" adhesives don't work well for HDPE, LDPE. Certain polyethylene's can almost be impossible to bond. Many plastic adhesives don't work well for metals. When bonding plastic to metal, try using a combination of the proper plastic adhesive for the plastic side and CA glue for the metal side.

The two plastic container are probably made of HDPE (High Density PolyEthylene). I have used an electric paint striper to weld prices together. They make also make a “welder” which blow hot air on to the HDPE to melt/weld it together.

Have you tried hot glue? Stuck several glue bottles down to foam anti tip bases to test. I was able to peal it off the mystery plastic superglue bottle (#7 Code) and Acrylonitrile-chlorinated polyethylene-styrene (#10 Code) Tacky glue bottle. Glass worked better with a little sanding on the bottom.

Soldering gun and compatable strip of base material

When putting it in the freezer put it in a zip lock bag.

Plastic type 4 from a broken appliance part, what glue? I.e. a fridge water dispenser lever.

I fix a lot of different types of plastics you can buy a adhesion promoter or you can pass a profane flame over substrate just about one second to 6inches not enough to introduce any heat

Would a food saver do the trick in keeping the air out?

What about that new glue that is somewhat similar to the bonding agent dentists use & which is activated by ultraviolet light?

I tried the JB plastic "weld" and the shelf life was miserable - about a few months! By the time I got to use it, it turned to stone. never did try it.

If you use acetone on plastic, it can it brittle.

7:50 Put the plastic wrapped epoxy/adhesive in a Ziploc bag along with the original packaging/instructions and you're good to go!

I use gorilla glue construction adhesive on my kayak works grate on plastic

If those tanks are Polyethylene, they don't take well to Resins, Adhesives or Glues. That's why Polyethylene works so well resisting Petroleum and Chemical Products. The best way to seal fittings and the like is with a compression fitting using an O-Ring or Gasket, or by welding with an Iron as Polyethylene is a thermo plastic and can be welded. How well the fittings would take if welded, to the PE if they're not PE would have to be an experiment...

doug , fyi the Vietnam boat channel has a short translation in the description.

Informative helpful instructive 👍💯

Polyethelene (LDPE, HDPE, PEX, etc) is impossible to glue... period. Most successfully glued plastics are dissolved or softened by select solvents. Think about it, HDPE is used to make gas cans. If gasoline won't even start to affect polyethelene over months or years, how would any solvent glue begin to touch it? However, I did find a 2-part glue that claimed to do the trick, but very expensive, a lot of steps to get it right, and takes 24 hours to set up. Fortunately, there is an easy solution. Weld it. There is specialized equipment for welding polyethelene--mostly using hot temperature-controlled air instead of flame, and there's even a "wire welder" especially for polyethelene. In fact some trade schools offer certificates for polyethelene welding. Companies make huge custom tanks welded up from slabs of HDPE, and the corners look great! No hardware, no strapping, and no blobs of plastic. looks like the welded corners of a steel tank. Years ago I needed to join the mitered corners of several HDPE frames, and when done I wanted it to look decent. Once I gave up on the idea of glue and did a little Googling, I found the answer. I ended up melting the cut faces in a dry frying pan then quickly pushing the cut ends together. barely any squeeze out and within a minute I could not break the joint. If not joining flat faces, a temperature-controlled soldering iron might work if set low enough. I'd have to Google to check, but my guess is set it to 400°F. At this moment my suggested video list shows "Best Plastic Welder? Weld Repair Stronger Than New?" by Project Farm. They kinda look like soldering irons in the thumbnail. Think I'll watch that next. The real lesson is to know what kind of plastic you're dealing with, then figure out what the big boys use and copy them. For example HDPE and PVC both melt, but do they co-mingle and would the joint be strong?

Have you thought about PVC glue

Just a thought, but home plumbing you need a cleaner. Why wouldn't you need a cleaner on yours? And I always clean and roughen up the surfaces. You don't expect glue to stick to glass. Why do you expect to adhere to smooth unclean plastic?

Doug, I believe ABYC is independent. They sell nothing. Just recommendations based on best practices. Keep up the great work

😢It cannot Glue on Telfon surface to Teflon Tube. Why! What a shame😮

Doug, Didn't you watch the movie TREMORS..."Its got to be foil. Plastic is not and oxygen barrier". LOL Just kidding but moisture is likely the biggest issue with plastic glues and plastic wrap will do just fine.

What is a weld. Oh well there’s something that breaks molecules together of two different objects and fuses them together. What do you think that glue is doing it’s not glue it’s nothing the Atoms down and fusing them together

Nothing adheres to HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) for any length of time.

3m 5200 is the sure bet to glue most anything.

I just seen another video where just JB weld original works better.

Doug, you need a 2x72 inch belt sander like us knife makeers use. you can buy cheap belts from Industrial Supply or i been getting then from amazon. different grits and you use it for a day and wonder why you didn't have it from the first day. look at them on youtube.

Acetone is a no no for cleaning plastic

I have a batch of jb weld that I swear is just a bad batch. Cures extremely brittle. I’ve tried it at least 5 times and my brother has tried it and he said it isn’t anything like the jb weld he’s used. Neither of us are [compleat] idiots; instructions were followed. Moral or the story, I don’t trust the brand anymore and never buy it now👎🏽

DEVCON is better than all of those!!!!

“VietMenies”

They all seem crap for plastic holding ability.

KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) is the best saying a engineer ever taught me

Nothing sticks to polyethylene well

Another thing you can do to PE or polyethylene plastic to increase it's ability to take paint or glue, is to heat treat the surface. This involves inpinging a flame on the plastic for just a few seconds to take the 'shine' off of the plastic. Propane torches are my favorite.

Hi Doug, I think the cans you are gluing to is HDPE (High Density Poly Ethaline) a fantastic plastic but very slippery and almost impossible to stick anything to however you can weld it with a relatively low heat and the fumes aren't as dangerous as most plastic fumes. I even have an oven in my workshop to melt HDPE to make plastic feet for tables and chairs. HDPE is also number 2 in the recycling triangle you get on most plastics. Personally for your two plastic cans I would use a mechanical plastic pinch fitting, I don't think any glue would last very long. Good luck whatever you do decide to do.

You can weld plastic with ultrasound. You just need an expensive tool.

Panel Bond witch is an auto rebuild product And Marine-Tex which I swear by. Every fishing boat in Alaska knows Marine-Tex.

you have polyethylene bottles? use the same material to weld. you can use tie wraps( zip ties) in a hot glue gun or melt milk bottle part with wide tip soldering iron to damaged area on bottle, will not come apart or leak

In addition to the physical abrasion with sandpaper to provide 'tooth' to the plastic surface, a quick heat up with a heat gun or torch chemically makes the surface more available to chemical bonding for glues. Don't overdo the heat. Cheap small zip ties around a plastic pipe can also provide an increased surface area for glue to grab. For pipes into hdpe containers, bulkhead fittings in high vibration environments to provide physical clamping forces.

The barn where I boarded my horse had a plastic stock tank that was leaking. We used some of the putty type material to plug the leak from inside the tank while it was still filled with water. Worked great. Not under pressure and no one is prying at it with a knife or other devices so it may not be a comparable example but if you've got an accessible leak on a water container it would be worth having.

Pretty much nothing will stick to hdpe. You'd have to friction weld it, or use a soldering iron.

I HAVE FOUND OUT THAT USING SUPER GLUE WATER CONSISTENCY AND CARBON-GRAPHITE BUILDING ADDITIVE IS WAY BETTER. THE TRICK IS TO LAYER THE POWDER SO THE GLUE WORKS ITS WAY THROUGHOUT THE POWDER. KILLER STUFF FELLA. PEACE V

Welding is maybe an acceptable term for glues that use solvents to liquify the surfaces, but they only work on styrenes and vinyls (ABS, PVC etc)

Polyolefins are almost Impossible to glue. When fabricating you typically weld them. There is a high voltage corona surface treatment sometimes used to allow glue to work. Also etching with hydrofluoric acit. And some people say a pretreatment with a propane torch helps, but has never worked for me. In your case just use mechanical bulkhead fittings with boring or rubber washers.

The reason why some of your plastic bonds are not lasting is, you used Acetone to "Clean" the area. Acetone cause "Micro-cracks" in the plastic which do not show up unless you have a microscope. Hence, your bond is not breaking, the plastic around the bond is breaking.

Dredging up what little chemistry I can remember, success of gluing plastic is all about surface energy. Polypropylene, HDPE, etc. are “low surface energy”, ie. a bitch to glue. However, I think there are chemical activators that can effectively increase the surface energy for a given plastic. I had some glue that could do polypropylene if you scribbled on it with the accompanying marker pen, containing the activator. Googling “surface energy” and “glue’]” looks like 3M do know something about it. And, in my (limited) experience, those epoxy putties don’t last long, even in a nice sealed box. The layers slowly diffuse into each other and you get a crusty gunk at the interface. I did get some cheap “single serving” six packs that lasted better than the sticks, but still... And the mixing process wrecked my manicure ;)

Doug, you would enjoy a plastic welder very much. Then there is no glue joint, just a solid piece of plastic. They are cheap, small and very effective. Much Love Seeker

Flame pre treatment is the way to go for "fatty" plastics like PE and PP. Requires no hard to get chemicals and everybody has a blow torch. Just slightly burn the surface with an oxidizing flame, rub it with alcohol and then you have about one hour to apply the glue before the surface goes back to its original fattiness.

Testing. The best way to get a feel for real world results is test it with the environment, materials, even objects and document the results. Great video showing the process

Mr. Sticky's One Two Glue $3.10 from TAP plastic is the only adhesive I've found that works on polypropylene (typical of gas, and water cans). Beware you must follow the directions or it won't work. I've used it fixing gas cans, diesel cans, canoes, etc.

Doug, I’ve been in the industrial glue space for 26 years. The carboys are polyolefin, prob HDPE. Nothing sticks to PO’s, superglue and a primer gives you a fighting chance, but add in water, then you are in trouble with superglue. The tube you are using to test looks like nylon. That’s another trouble maker. Very crystalline. If you want to talk smart about glue, we can figure out how to hook up.

There is a company called Gator guards and they have a formulated adhesive that will bond HDPE

I've used the Devcon plastic epoxy with good results fixing broken off tabs on a tail light, but it cures strong but very hard. I might have to give the JB-weld stuff a try if I need something a bit more flexible. I think most of these adhesives for plastics have pretty strong solvents to help them bond. That also means that they have pretty limited shelf life as some solvents can pass right through the plastic packaging.

Thank you for the tests on the different products. I have used JB Weld products but am impressed with Permatex..

Many epoxy components don't like to freeze, like West System... Fridge perhaps, not the freezer

I am pretty happy with locktite brand ultragel superglue, yes its a small package but it tends to just work

It's not "glue" just like it's not "paint". It's an epoxy adhesive.

Don't envy you, HDPE is a bitch to glue. Apparently 3M ScotchWeld is the business

You really need to give epoxy like at least 3 days to cure. And better if you wait a week as it can still gain strength.

Let it sit for 24 hours to cure fully and it will be soo much stronger i use it on my mobility scooter for the screw holes because some chinamen thought plastic was great for a part to be unscrewed alot to get access to a wiring harness

We don't glue abs pipe we weld it pvc is glued try and prime the plastic better

just as well that wasnt a really sharp knife eh?????

Latex paint can be left in it's roller tray with roller, inside a trash bag, twisted shut and stored in the refrigerator for several weeks without drying. Really convenient during long painting projects; alot easier to stop and start.

jb weld claims shelf life 25 years and up.

Wouldnt plumbers glue work

Take 24hrs to fully cure

If we had to put a float sensor in a tank, the sensor had a rubber 'tube' on the threads, you could insert the float from the outside and tighten it up to compress the rubber and make a good seal, it may e another idea for you Make a connector with a flange that's smaller than the hole and rubber tube, aadd a nut, insert and tighten, then you can screw your pipe fitting on. Water companies and plumbers use expanding rubber bungs to seal pipes (didn't you use one for the rov test chamber ? ) Superglue should last longer if stored in a dessicant Many years agou when 'cyanolit' was introduced, it came in a small applicator that was inside a pot with a dessicant tablet inside the lid ;)

Its adhesive!

Sikaflex

are there any products that intend to do the same thing but that actually become "one" with the parts that are boing joined together? kind of like with plumbing

My sons key broke on his car and I used the JB weld plastic epoxy and it’s will holding up with every key turn. I subbed subbed for more 😊

Surprised why so far your followers are few

sanding the spot first and clean the surface with acetone any epoxy will stick much better.

Try the West System G Flex. I haven't yet found a surface it wont bond for me. "G/flex Thickened Epoxy Adhesive is a toughened, versatile, 2-part epoxy for permanent waterproof bonding of plastic, fiberglass, ceramics, metals, damp and difficult-to-bond woods."

Have you ever tried 3M 5200? I had the injection pump changed out when the warranty ran out on my Dodge Cummings engine and they cracked the timing case flange and it started to leak. I took some of the 5200 and plugged the crack, put over 200k on it and never leaked. I've also used it on the plastic Banjo fittings on chemical spray systems with good luck, but if you use the 5200 on the threads don't expect them to ever come apart again. If you want them to be able to come apart use the 3M 4200 instead. The 5200 is what is used for joining the hull and deck plate on fiberglass sail boats. Just FYI.

The thing with gluing plastic, is what kind of plastic you're trying to glue. Polypropylene, which is more or less the teflon of plastics and coded in the US as recycle #5, usually requires specialty epoxies that chemically heats it up before it sets. ABS glues won't even work that well. Even sanding can only help so much with certain plastics. Polypropylene is your trash cans and usually water/liquid containers. Look up "polypropylene glue" specifically.

I know your pain, working with 3D printed plastics and dealing with chemical "welding" of PETG ot itself or another plastic or HDPE (or it's cousins) to itself or others is a night mare at best. The chemicals that do the best job are NOT things you want to breathe under any conditions. Best wishes to you.

The stuff you used at first JB Weld Plastic Bond, we working on a modern Club car golf cart the other day. They put steel bolts into plastic, the previous owner used it at a mud part, so the steel bolts have rusted to the plastic. We drill the bolt and plastic it, went got some thread in wood inserts, a bunch tubes of the JB Weld, filled in the cavity with the plastic with the JB Weld Plastic Bond, inserted the wood nut with a bolt with a fender washer on it, and let it cure over night. The day we was able to bolt everything back on the golf cart, and my buddy grandkids rode it until the batteries went dead yesterday on Thanksgiving Day.

Great video, that Permatex should be advertised as an aluminum adhesive .Acetone will create brittleness and cracks in some plastics ..my experience has shown isopropyl alcohol works best for cleaning

Unfortunately PE (Poly Ethylene) and PP (Polypropylene) are both the most used plastics AND very hard if not impossible to glue... Both plastics can be welded though using a zip tie as a "welding rod" and a a soldering iron as the localized heat source...

Which one dried the hardest like real plastic?

I had a customer bring a printed circuit board to me for repair , he had used something called liquid solder. Granted it looked like solder but it was just plastic. I had to explain the difference between conductive and non-conductive material , I don't know if I ever convinced him.

Have a look at milliput I bought 10 packs years ago I've used it for bonding glass to metal glass to plastic I don't even have to scratch the surfaces just bang what ever I need to fix in a dishwasher to glean it quick wipe down with brake cleaner and good to go

Most plastic glues are polyurethane based...that stuff sticks to anything. In a pinch you can use insulating spray foam....dispense a little ball of it and stir to release most of the foam's bubbles then quickly apply to the joint.

You weld it using a nitrogen torch. Look into panel bond 2 part epoxies for automotive body repair. 3m 8115 panel bond when used correctly can be used as replacing factory spot welds

Check out West System G/flex. Hit the plastic with a torch to lightly oxidize it before applying the epoxy. The oxidized plastic bonds better to the epoxy to bond better.

Scoring the plastics with a razor in a criss cross pattern and cleaning with 91 percent rubbing alcohol helps any epoxy work better ...

Do it right. Take two fender washers stuff them drill large hole and 24hr Jbweld them together with a C clamp that will fit in the filler hole. then screw a hose fitting on with seals. easy as pie.

Absolutely correct... It's not a weld. Hell.. it's not even glue. It's epoxy.

would be interesting to see how well it stands up against a long cure two-part resin used in fiberglassing... (if you REALLY need it to absolutely hold, a strip of fiberglass cloth, across the tubing, should hold up to just about anything you'd want to thru at it....