I finally broke down and got one of these things. I been tinking aboot if for prolly a year, and figured, "What the h ell", so I bit the bullet.
I been needing some way to repair some broken/cracked plastic pieces on ALL of our vehicles, and this looks to be a good answer for me. I'll be givin it a shot soon, to see how well it works.
One thing I noticed, is that some of the "welding rod" material that comes with it is vaguely familiar looking....anyone with a '68-'71 Shark will be pleased to find out that this stuff is practically identical to the fiber-optic cords used for the console mounted light monitors. I tested it, and it does carry the light thru the complete roll of material, just like the fiber-optic stuff....hhmmmm....this might be far cheaper than buying the "correct" fiber-optic stuff from the vendors for your cars....

Anyway....whattya think? Anyone here ever used one of these(or similar)?


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Adams' Apple2009-01-26 06:17:54

Looks interesting, I didn't know such a machine existed but can sure see the uses for it, automotive and otherwise.

I purchased one sometime back and used it to repair the broken aircond vent connectors on a 79 corvette and the plastic covers around the power seat controls on a 95 T-bird. the item worked well after i figured out which rods to use and how little air pressure you need.

This one is air-less. It's basically like a big-ol' soldering iron, with a couple of specialized tips for melting/welding the plastic rods, and the base material.
It came with a book on plastic repair, and it tells how to identify different types of plastic, and what material(rod) to use, as well as the proper procedure. Also came with a kewl DVD showing how to do repairs on a few different items.
I've got a bunch of stuff on the '85 I need to fix, as well as a few minor items on the '74, and the Goldwing.

Man...........you have all the neat "stuff"

This might be amusing to some.Back around 1972 or so, when I was a plumber in N.Y., My company did an olympic swimming pool in a county owned park.Almost all the pool plumbing was PVC and we welded all the joints,no glue! It was a little ahead of it's day.Sizes were from 10" and down.Heat the joint with a heat gun and weld with 1/8 plastic rod.I suppose the thought was if we had to glue a 10" fitting onto a length of pipe we had better have it lined up correctly or else! Plenty of time to line up before welding started. Never did it again after that job,maybe they didn't like my joints or sumtin.

I have seen this several times, and used it a couple of times.  One of them was air assisted.

We use one at work for plastic containers.. ours has air. Similar to stick welding... used it to fix that angled piece of plastic behind the seat where my conv top goes down. Easy to break, then just dyed it saddle..  I'm not sure how good they are but Harbor Freight has a couple of them.. some of their electrical stuff is suspect... ours was bought by Uncle sam.. so it was not cheap... but we have had it for a long time now... 2 cruzn2009-01-26 19:24:36

I didn't really wanna go with the hot-air set up, since I needed something a little more "portable"....I've only got aboot 100' of air hose for my compressor.
I figure I can use this one just aboot anywhere I can plug it into an outlet, and not have to worry aboot having air.
I'll let ya'll know how it werks out...if/when I get to use it.