Plastic welder recommendations?

[Steve_P]

Looking for a low-cost plastic welder. Are either of the HF ones any good? This will be used a few times a year, at most. I'm currently just using a soldering iron, so I'm not looking to spend hundreds of $.

 

[Brandon_Lutz]

I use the HF one for small repairs and it does decently. However, I prefer using my AP 7600 hot staple gun for bigger stuff. When I fixed the cracks in my old GMt400 beater truck, I first used the HF welder and while it held up at first, eventually everything came loose again. I went to the hot staple gun afterwards and even with the shaking of the dash the repairs have held up.

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[gregs]

A second vote for the hot staple gun if you are trying to put broken pieces back together. I also bought one to fix my suburban dashboard. I find I use it for a lot of different plastic repairs. Its so handy because it almost instantly connects the parts back together and reinforces the break. Sometimes I use it with a combination of glue as well.

 

[Steve_P]

hot staple gun is another great tool, but only works in some instances. I had a headlamp bracket, cracked on the right angle portion, and there was no access for a staple. But I should probably get one of those also. It looks like there are dozens of each on Amazon, so I'll probably just go by reviews there unless I get some more feedback here. Odd that it's so quiet on this topic. If I asked about the "best screwdriver", this would have 50 posts by now

 

[jabberwoki]

Great now i have a new tool to buy

 

[cpttuna]

I use the HF one for small repairs and it does decently. However, I prefer using my AP 7600 hot staple gun for bigger stuff. When I fixed the cracks in my old GMt400 beater truck, I first used the HF welder and while it held up at first, eventually everything came loose again. I went to the hot staple gun afterwards and even with the shaking of the dash the repairs have held up.

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I also use the HF iron as a soldering iron(I have two of them)

 

[CJM8515]

i have both the astro hot staple gun and the harbor freight plastic welder thats a soldering iron. ive had good luck with both depending on what it is. if the item is not subject to a lot of movement, vibration or such it holds up better. my atv plastics it wasnt happy with cause they moved too much and were to flexible.

 

[Wiz02]

I tried plastic "welding" with the HF plastic welder and I obviously don't know which "rod" to use, either nothing happened or I ended up with a melted misshapen puddle.