What did you do to / in your garage / shop today?
- Thread starter Zorba
- Start date
It's a hot air welder. The hot air melts the filler rod and the surrounding plastic.
That particular welder looks a lot more sophisticated than the twist and pray HF model I've got. I like that you can digitally set the temperature...which is critical for welding plastic.
The second most important thing is figuring out what plastic it is so you select the right welding material and temperature.
-Mac
Mac, I bought this welder, which is a pro-level plastic welder, because our wells are drying up around here, and rainwater collection is going to be my only source of household water in the next few years. I have a fair amount of plastic welding to do for the massive collection and treatment system I've been building for the last several years, so I sought out a pro-level solution...
Very accurate statement, Mac. Just like welding metals, you have to know what you're welding and then use the proper settings. Leister makes a non-digital (just a knob to turn) gun exactly like the one I bought for a few hundred less, but the salesman told me the digital would be worth the extra money. He was right.
It just uses very low flow, dry air from the compressor and dryer.
Geez - I wasn't even trying to spend your money this time, Jeff!
I imagine setting just enough heat really cuts down on the noxious fumes and smoke. Burning plastic makes hydrogen cyanide,bad stuff!
I forget what you have for water storage. Have you looked into the large tanks with liners? I helped a friend set up a 50k gallon tank. Their spring is seasonal and rely on a large amount of storage to get through the dry season.
Some burning plastics create hydrogen cyanide, but welding plastic doesn't involve combustion. You just heat it above the glass transition temperature, which is well below the combustion temperature. The fumes while welding are not bad at all.
I have seven tanks. All but one are HDPE tanks, which is why I bought the plastic welder. The big one (30,000 gallons) is a Pioneer brand tank. Like most quality rainwater-collection equipment, it's made in Australia. Australia leads the world in rainwater-collection technology. That tank is a a corrugated steel structure with a plastic liner. Like your friend, my total capacity gives me a year of water storage because we have Texas-sized droughts down here.
About 37,000 gallons. We are very water-conscious and only use about 60 gallons per day.
I am totally going to leave a car parts collection just like that for my kids to take care of to pay them back for all the cleaning up after them I did. Then when they throw most of it out they are going to realize how much gold was in there reference maintaining the vehicles I left them.
You're welcome boys
You're welcome boys
Been running the chipper into an IBC and spreading the chips on the mud outside the shop.
-Mac
-Mac
I inherrited about 5000lbs of tools (mostly vice grips) and this red tool chest when my f-i-l passed 5 years ago. I brought it home over the summer because the black chest my wife gave me was overloaded and I needed to spread it out. But it didn't all fit quite perfect in my garage.
I secured the top of the old black chest to a wall beside where I park my car.
And swapped the tool chests so I'm back to having a good place to store my extra set of wheels for the car.
I secured the top of the old black chest to a wall beside where I park my car.
And swapped the tool chests so I'm back to having a good place to store my extra set of wheels for the car.
Not a lot started out just putting in a power strip to plug in the battery chargers. That lead to remembering I had some pegboard laying around. So mounted it to side of the steel shelving, moved around a few other tools around.
I finished the PVC cable tie holder and mounted it to a toolbox:
PVC is not nearly as easy to weld as HDPE is. It doesn't flow very well, so the welds are butt-ugly. On top of that, welding around the circular pipe was tricky. I had to change directions on every tube at the base. I doubt that I got full fusion everywhere, but I think the welds are strong enough for this purpose, though. At least I won't misplace my cable ties any more!
PVC is not nearly as easy to weld as HDPE is. It doesn't flow very well, so the welds are butt-ugly. On top of that, welding around the circular pipe was tricky. I had to change directions on every tube at the base. I doubt that I got full fusion everywhere, but I think the welds are strong enough for this purpose, though. At least I won't misplace my cable ties any more!
Ever since the movie "Fargo" I can never look at a wood chipper the same way.
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