Plastic welder portasol

[Throwawrench]

Hey guys im new to the forums as of yesterday. I posted this question in the introduce yourself threads but prob wrong place to do that. Btw i love this forum ive gone to it for all my tool purchases but have never joined it.
Onto the issue. I was looking into plastic welding and the portasol butane torch has a tip that you can speed weld with. whats the general consenses on prefered plastic welders and do you think a butane torch will cut the mustard. Also im thinking about getting good with it and maybee starting a side gig with it. Maybee use the torch to get my feet wet then moving on after i see what i like and dont like about it.
Thanks for any input.
BTW from what ive read its very simalar or identical to the snap on one.
Sorry, had to mention snapon for all the die hard addics out there aka chum the water.

 

[Warrenator]

Bunch of different kinds of plastic, ABS, HDPE, polyethylene, PVC, Polypropylene, etc. Some weld with a hot knife or soldering iron, some with a hot air welder, some with a hot air welder using a shielding gas like nitrogen. I bought the the harbor freight hot air welder, works well but on hdpe you must use a shielding gas or the plastic burns and loses strength. Made some decent repairs on horse feeder barrels but perhaps not a great use of time and effort as the plastic cracked again in short order due to perhaps some brittleness in the welded area. Or maybe the horses like destroying things.

Gotta determine exactly what plastic you have to make a good repair, they all weld differently. I use scrap pieces of the same material as filler rod, that works best as it is the exact same material.

 

[Throwawrench]

Not heard of different techniques for different types of plastics before, ill deffinately do my research. Also a lot of people seem to like the HF one if i already had a sottering iron id try it out and i may yet. Initionaly i was looking into it for mods for my hdpe kyak. Thanks for your imput. Plastic welding seems to not be overly pooular.