Wall warts; was: hams on classiccmp

[Pete Turnbull]

On 22/01/2009 19:20, Ethan Dicks wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:08 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
>> On 22 Jan 2009 at 13:50, Roy J. Tellason wrote:

>> MEK works with some plastics and turns others to mush or has little
>> effect at all.  Methylene chloride seems to be a better choice,
>> particularly for clear stock.  Just repaired a pair of plastic-
>> handled scissors using it and you can't tell it was ever broken.
> 
> Yeah... I was just looking that up, since I wanted some plastic-weld
> but don't like paying several dollars per oz at the hobby store... I
> guess "proper" liquid polystyrene cement is Methylene Chloride, but
> MEK is easy to get at the hardware store by the pint or larger
> container.

MEK is used industrially for ABS and PVC, but not much else (it's used 
in the printing industry as an ink remover and rubber restorer, 
however).  It's great on those, and much cheaper than methylene 
chloride, but methylene chloride works on one or two plastics where MEK 
doesn't.  "clear stock" won't be ABS or PVC as neither can be 
transparent; if MEK dissolves it (messily) it's probably polystyrene, 
which methylene chloride works moderately well on.  If you want to weld 
acrylic (Perspex/Lexan/Plexiglass), though, professionals use chloroform.

-- 
Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Network Manager
						University of York