Plastic Welding a cracked suitcase

The usefulness of plastic repair reaches far beyond that of the bumper cover. Polyvance's tools and supplies can allow you to repair a wide array of items, whether they're recreational or automotive. To demonstrate this point, we've repaired a rigid plastic suitcase using Polyvance products.

Begin by reinforcing the crack with aluminum tape so that the plastic won't melt through to the other side. Use a body spreader to smooth.

To determine which type of plastic welding rod to use, perform a weld test using plastics from which you think the suitcase may be made. Polypropylene, Polycarbonate, and Polyethylene are particularly common domestic plastics. Once you've found the plastic that fuses well to the base, you know which rod to use. Through trial and error, we determined that this suitcase is made out of polycarbonate.

We welded the inside of the crack using a Polyvance Nitro Fuzer nitrogen plastic welding system. Polyvance has cheaper airless plastic welder that would work, too.

Once the first weld cools, remove the aluminum tape and use a rotary tool to grind the area along the crack. Apply aluminum tape on the backside, and then repeat the welding process as you had earlier.

At this point, you may sand, prime, and paint as you would with an automotive plastic repair.

Granted, it's unlikely that anyone will start a thriving side business for rigid plastic suitcase repair any time soon, but that's not the point. Each year, automotive manufacturers add more plastic components to their vehicles. Inevitably, those pieces, likely obscure and expensive, will break. The demand for repair will lead to profit, and Polyvance can provide you with all of the tools you need to do them.