Found a cheap way to fix plastics!

[czac]

I saw a video once where a guy was fixing plastic parts (not bike or trike parts) by melting strands of wire into them... I was wondering if this would work for a fender? he had a camera tripod that one of leg adjuster handles snapped off, he held a wire between two alligator clips and used electricity to heat the wire then just laid them across the break and they melted into the plastic, once cooled it was like new! here it is... he says it may not look pretty but its stronger than the original... lol hes right, its butt ugly. but maybe some re shaping of the repair site will make it look nice again! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziPutFi1BlI

[Zach]

Dru looks better than frankenstich but man those plastics look kind of beat

I think that was the whole point his plastics were not just beat but stitched with zip ties, this looks much better than zip ties. Were you expecting brand new plastics to come from something that was drilled and held together with zip ties?

[OKSTATE#1]

This makes me wonder, since I don't know how the process works....after the fender comes out of the mold, do they polish the exterior part somehow? I mean, the underside of a fender, even new, is dull and whatnot...so how do they come from the factory all shiny? Again, never worked with plastic like that, other than the sanding and other things I have done. Just wondered what went into making a new fender. If they did some polishing of some sort, it would be nice to know how it's done so maybe it could be replicated in some way after a repair is done.

[czac]

they probably come out of the molds already partially smooth and shiny id imagine, then they just hit them with a buffer of some type? if you were fixing a crack in a flat part and had some sort of really smooth, flat steel plate like object, you could probably heat up the repair section till its really soft then sort of press it with the steel piece to flatten it out sort of like ironing a shirt. might work. I wonder if you can put some sort of like, vasoline on your fenders then cover them with fiberglass, shape it to the fenders then once dry, take the plastic fenders off and have a cool fiberglass set?

[czac]

we could build a huge vacuum press and mold our own...lol just need to buy the big sheet of plastic to make them out of.

[OKSTATE#1]

I have been toying with the idea of the whole "mold" thing myself. From my understanding, to come up with the proper mold for a fender is either expensive or beyond the scope of most regular dudes lol. I dont know, if I knew more about it I would try it out. I know there have been some guys that have made molds of the side panels, made fiberglass fenders, but I haven't seen anyone replicate a true OEM looking big red fender. But then again I haven't seen everything....

But how *%#}*ing hard is it for Maier not to make a true looking fender? Jeezuz. They could just cut out the square part on that bottom flap for Christs sake. And make that groove for the side moldings. Boom. Done. Instant purchase from me.

[ps2fixer]

I have been toying with the idea of the whole "mold" thing myself. From my understanding, to come up with the proper mold for a fender is either expensive or beyond the scope of most regular dudes lol. I dont know, if I knew more about it I would try it out. I know there have been some guys that have made molds of the side panels, made fiberglass fenders, but I haven't seen anyone replicate a true OEM looking big red fender. But then again I haven't seen everything....

But how *%#}*ing hard is it for Maier not to make a true looking fender? Jeezuz. They could just cut out the square part on that bottom flap for Christs sake. And make that groove for the side moldings. Boom. Done. Instant purchase from me.

Check out some youtube videos on vacuum plastic molding, you start with a flat sheet of plastic, heat it up till is is melting/saggy, place it over a mold, and suck all the air out to pull it down onto the mold. It isn't like injection molding where melted plastic is injected in and shaped perfectly how you would want it. Vacuum molding only allows for so tight of a curve, or else there is higher chances of the end product coming out defective.

[Frankencelery]

I bought some of that plastic mesh. My 200s has a spot that's stitched, and I might do that, but my wife's quad that we just bought also has a cracked fender, and that's a better machine to practice on!

[C.J]

Effort=results showed how to imbed metal mesh into plastics in one of his plastic repair videos. I've tried it out and it worked amazingly for my 500 hood.

[czac]

how about heating the cracked area up until its almost at the melting point then pouring molten plastic into the cracked area and blending it smooth? anyone try that? also, Harbor freight sells a plastic welder... another member here has a plastics welder, he has offered to zap my fender for me... maybe I will take him up on that... lol Chris? Chris?

[Kismet]

I may be misunderstanding this, but couldn't a person just lay the mesh on the underside and bond the two edges together, so that the crack line may show on top, but it would be tightly held together? The 200m has some cracks radiating from bolt holes, but is very clean and I'd prefer not to stitch it if I could avoid doing so?

You wouldn't even have to match colors.

Seems like it would work.

Whaddya think?

[T-Sox]

I have welded tons of ATV fenders using this method, a soldering iron, the plastic welder from Harbor Freight and a high dollar plastic welder. They're all doing about the same thing.

The absolute strongest welds are made using stainless steel screen on the back side. If you can't find SS, Aluminum will work but isn't quite as strong. Heat the mesh (Not the plastic) and push it into the plastic on the back side and then work it in. I like to trim some filler plastic off somewhere you won't see and then cover the mesh directly over the crack with that.

I fixed the fender on a friends 450 Polaris and he rolled it over and the weld didn't break.