Stitching Cracked Plastic With Hot Staples : 12 Steps (with Pictures)

... and also making blurry photos even after 3-d attempt! Yay! Frustration!

But nevermind. It's about plastic. Cracked plastick stuff and how to repare it using soldering iron and regulal metal staples. The thing is that glue in this case doesn't do much, especially if the plastic is polyethelyne; and to fuse edges together you need to have one of those special heet guns that melt the edges and simultaneously eject molten filament, which is too much of a sci-fi in one scentance for my... ...oldfasioned... mind (I love sci-fi though). My method gives not the prettiest result (unless your name is Victor) but it works to some extend and I use a couple items in my workshop fixed this way for a long time.

Also because the end result already accesable a bit higher as a photo presents both: nothing spectacular and nothing intriguing at the same time, I'll put some cool pictures of a thing I made long time ago using this technic at the end.

Step 1:

So... The first step is to plug in our soldering iron. I use the one with interchangable attachment but it doesn't really matter.

Step 2:

And while it is heating up, we can prepare our staples by stapling the air with a stapler, or by snipping them one by one ftom a bar with a tool.

Step 3:

You're already familiar with the plastic bowl I'm reparing from the photos. It has a crack and the first thing we need to do is to seal the ends of that crack from traveling further by poking them with a tip of hot iron. Just make sure you're made it throuhg the whole thickness of the material. And no, the bowl won't be waterproof again after stitching.

Step 4:

Now take the staple by the corner with a needlenose pliers with one hand, put it onto the place and push the other corner down with the soldering iron using the other hand. It is shown in two photos as a separate things because my third hand is not functional at the moment. Do not push very hard. After a few seconds the tip of the staple will heat up and melt into the plastic. You don't want to push it all the way down yet, just on 1/3-1/2 deep. Take off the iron tip and let go the pliers.

Step 5:

Now start heating the other corner of the staple and do the same as before.

Step 6:

When the staple is partialy push/melted at both sides start to apply heat and pressure to the middle, or switch between one side and another untill the staple is flush with the surface of the plastic.

The reason because we don't want to push one side all the way through at first is because this way we would have to push the other side at inconvenient angle... Just tinker with the process and you'll get your own technic.