Tuesday 6 November 2012

Closing the gap in the plastic


Now that I had the two leg forms I needed to join the gaps where the pipe bent around to meet itself, firstly the pipe had to have the exist material cut down so the two edges would align. Following this the pipe still had a twist in it, holding the two edges together would only result in them springing apart one the pressure was removed, to fix this I used a heat gun and heated the middle of the pipe on the opposite side to the two ends I was trying to join. Once the plastic was heated and mouldable it stopped springing apart when I held the ends together, and because I was only applying a minute twist force on the PVC pipe there was no need to brace the inside with sand when I heated it.  

Now that the Pipe was aligned came the task of closing the gap, the obvious choice was to brace it internally then keep it glued shut. To do this I heated the end the smaller pipe I was placing internally and then shoved in inside the larger pipe so it shaped to closely match its form.

I then covered the internal pipe and both edges with BGC Stud Adhesive then placed the smaller pipe inside the larger and held the gap closed until the adhesive dried.  

The final touch was cutting and sanding back the unevenness around the join, actually did this with a scalpel blade first then sand paper.


                                             


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