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Adventures in plastic repair

windoesnot

windoesnot

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1 10 Years
Joined
Aug 10, 2014
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Lancashire
So an errant air ball on my Creech last night decided to get nasty and broke the snack bar plastic:

img.photobucket.com_albums_v203_windoesnot_IMG_0201808x1077_zps03176330.jpg

Before I can get a proper replacement, I'd like to try and glue this back together if possible until I can get one.

Whats the best recommendation for putting this back together for a short / medium term fix? The breaks are clean, the plastic didn't have the 'LM' for FILM on them when I got the table.

Thanks
 
Piece it together, lay it face down and stick a piece of Mylar over the back. For added rigidity , also consider sticking a piece over the entire top side as well. You could also splint the underside with a piece of thin Perspex. That's what I'd do anyway.
 
PH have the replacement easy break plastics for Creature.
Think you can buy them individually.
 
I save that thin clear plastic you get from products that have been sealed in those plastic clamshells for retail packaging, and glue a piece of that to the broken plastic. It ends up fairly rigid
 
You'd have to have to know exactly what sort of plastic it is, but most of them can be "glued" using solvent weld. This isn't glue in the traditional sense of an adhesive filler. Solvent weld slightly dissolves/melts the plastic and then evaporates leaving the slightly soft edges to merge and re-bond at a molecular level. It's seamless and very strong - as strong as the plastic itself because effectively it's been fused together. It's how to glue edges of Perspex together. The solvent is usually clear and watery. Just hold the edges together and brush the solvent along the join. Capillary action pulls it in. Hold the joint tight for a minute.
 
+1

Why have we never heard of this before? I always try superglue and it always fails to work on plastic.
 
We used to use it when joining plastic trunking. Egaweld it was called... not sure if it's the same stuff nowadays, since those were the days when 5 minutes and you were high on this stuff.... it now seems to be "non-flammable" - i.e. boring :D
 
Let's just squirt a load into some plastic bags then we can huff on the bags for a bit until we pass out and wake up later with all zits round our mouths. Or something. Ha ha joking.

Plastics glue. Yes. Joining plastic together. No sex or drugs or booze here. Move along.
 
Showed it to the bloke who runs the workshop at work and he said he could fix it no problem.

He's used some Araldite on the cracks and some thin adhesive tabs underneath. Looks to have turned out quite well:

img.photobucket.com_albums_v203_windoesnot_IMG_0202808x1077_zps44df7fa6.jpg img.photobucket.com_albums_v203_windoesnot_IMG_0203808x1077_zpse18bd0a9.jpg

Will see in time how sturdy the result is, from feel though it seems very solid. Obviously you can clearly see the crack up close but when I'm playing the game later I doubt I'll be focusing too much on it, especially in that god damn multiball mode :)
 
cooldan said:
Let's just squirt a load into some plastic bags then we can huff on the bags for a bit until we pass out and wake up later with all zits round our mouths. Or something. Ha ha joking.

Plastics glue. Yes. Joining plastic together. No sex or drugs or booze here. Move along.
Click to expand...
Dan
I've not met you before, however here is how I imagine you look:
s3.amazonaws.com_rapgenius_7443midnight_q_quagmire_50287.jpg
;)
 
BigIan said:
any how heres the plastic welds stuff http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tasma-Products-Ltd-Plastic-Cement/dp/B0053WXLVU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=undefined&sr=8-1&keywords=ema plastic weld
Click to expand...
Thanks, that's what I've got. Literally exactly the same bottle and brand. And it smells great :D Evaporates really quickly. In fact, my bottle has half disappeared over the last year with the lid on!

But nice job on the repair. I won't last forever, couple of direct strikes and it'll go again, but I bet when fitted you can't see the repair and glue is way cheaper than the rip-off that is repro pinball plastics.
 
I think it was very slightly in the air when it hit the flipper and it must have hit the metal lip above the snack bar hole hard for it to have broken the plastic in 2 places. Just one of those things.

As usual for me, a snack bar shot doesnt go in properly :)
 
Nedreud said:
.....and glue is way cheaper than the rip-off that is repro pinball plastics.
Click to expand...
Or you could have a crack at making your own repro. Simply scan the artwork, clean it up in the PC, flip the image and then print onto adhesive backed clear vinyl. Stick the lot to a piece of lexan before cutting it out and spraying the back with a few coats of white acrylic paint. Jobs a good 'un.

I made a repro shooter cover for my R&B this way and it came out really nice. Thanks to Poi for mention the method in his coverage of making his Ramones Pin.
 
Thanks Peter. For those interested here's a comparison between the original and my repro.

http://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/rocky-bullwinkle-shop-log.3258/page-10#post-41289

The colours on the one I made don't look quite like the originals but the problem here is that i have to consider the original is > 20 years old so it's possibly faded or changed over time. The only way I could confirm an accurate colour match would be to find a NOS shooter lane cover and they're pretty much unobtanium. I was going to have another crack at making a better matching repro but a kind soul on Pinside had a spare which they kindly passed onto me.

Anyway, apologies for the brief thread hijack. :-)
 
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