Super Glue and Baking Soda

But before I went on to the broken corner piece. I found that entire mounting tab was missing. I big one, not a little one. Now again there are many things that could fix this but I wanted to see what SG and BS could do if you used it to make an entire tab, not just fix a crack. I made a template of the passenger side good tab and reproduced it with a piece of perforated metal from a laptop cooling stand. There was an additional crack so the new piece needed an extension. I added a screw for fun and started the process. Glue first, then powder. Turned warm and solid. Blow it off and repeat. Add tape when needed to hold the powder and drop in more glue. I made the metal grill a bit bit bigger than I needed and bent it up to form small edges to allow me to fill the area. See pics. Its not pretty but super solid.
Plastic to metal?....no problem. Kept going front and back for awhile until I got something roughly similar and then sanded with a Dremel and flat file. The resulting mtrl is hard but not brittle. I could easily pick the entire piece up by the new tab without fear of braking off. I was more worried about the rest of the plastic. The last pic shows the sanded tab without paint but I used a sharpy on it. I think I will wait till I use the piece to add any extra and drill the whole.

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Here are the rest of the pics. Post mortem on this fix. I really like this combo for cracks and average size voids. Its very quick and strong. This big tab replacement took longer than I wanted and took a probably an entire small bottler of SG. Its strong and will be fine but this could be easier with epoxy putty. By the way I did experiment with adding water to the BS and painting one side with water.BS and the other with SG. It immediately seized up and set. I suspect this is what the commercial "activators" are. Just high PH spray. Maybe made with some solvent instead of water. The point is it doesn't have to be powder.

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Next is the corner. Should not be a problem but the front has suffered some sanding marks already and lost the grain. I'll make it strong but the front cant be too ugly. This is the PO fix that did not last. I have some UV resin I might try too.

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Here is the corner completed but without sanding. Its real strong and the first pic show me holding it by the once broken off piece. It kind of heavy so there is some torque involved here. I did embed some metal screen in the fix.

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And the most important part: The frosty Miller High Life. It must have been hot in your shop, cause it evaporates quickly from photo to photo!
 
Fixed a seat back mounting stud. All of them actually. The screw would pull through and part of the stud was cracked off completely. I used a piece of metal window screen that I laid over the stud and pushed a plastic cap I had over the screen to form the general shape. Then covered the screen/stud with SG and BS until I had a little "volcano" looking lump. Filed the top of it flat and then filled the other side completely. Then drilled a new hole with a small bit and then a bigger one to form a shoulder for the screw to grab. Seems very solid. The white ring will be hidden when hit it with SEM paint. I would like to find a way to make these fixes better looking but they are hidden , but still, its ugly. BTW, I did try my own version of an "activator" spray using water, baking soda,and alcohol. Using this spray sets up the glue fast without the need for any powder. I had mixed results as sometimes the water caused the glue to not stick to the plastic defeating the whole purpose. I did have luck if put some fabric over the crack and then a light mist of activator and then SG. If I find a good technique I'll post it.
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Looks like a good fix. Won't notice that at all once it's dyed.
 
An update on reinforcement techniques. I have been using superglue with fiberglass cloth as a strengthener. You don't even need baking soda - the cloth hardens in a second and I think is better than using a metal screen unless you are trying to produce a certain contour with the metal screen. I found using the round edge of a wrench is good to push the cloth against the plastic without bonding to it. If you don’t push it down it will dry off the surface which defeats the purpose.


Amazon product ASIN B000BQSKQY
 
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