Advice needed - plastic repair

I have a palstic tap splitter (not sure if this is the right word for it) but it screws onto an outside tap and allows me to have upto four hoses connected at any one time, its split but I think its repairable.

What resin/epoxy/glue would you use to repair plastic, bearing in mind that when in use it will be wet and under pressure?

Thanks in advance.

Steve...

 

I'm also not sure epoxy would work on plastic, most glue containers are made of plastic or they provide you with a plastic spatula.

It depends on the type of plastic, but something on the lines of the old polystyrene cement might just work.
You can get something similar for use with PVC building products, but if its the wrong kind of plastic I dont think it will work.

 

I guess it depends exactly where the splitter has .... split

I'd suggest you look in the plumbing dept., of your local DIY 'shed' for something like a leak repair kit. There are two main types (as you probably know) - one is a bit like putty, where you pull off a bit of the 'stuff' and (a bit like plasticine), knead it and shape it then wrap it around the leak; the other is the tape - something like LLFA compression tape. You could perhaps also try a garden centre where you should be able to find the stuff normally used to stop leaks in butyl pond liners.

By the time you've used the petrol to go to the DIY shops and the garden centres though, you might do better just to go onto somewhere like Amazon where I see they have a 'Garden Hose 4 way connector' for £4.99!

 

if its any help, you can get metal tap splitters, not sure of the price and they are quite heavy.
I am not so sure that an adhesive/epoxy would hold.....

 

I think I'd go along with all of the above advice Steve. Adhesives and water generally don't mix althought there is a two part resin putty called Milliput www.milliput.com which I used to use when I was a modelmaker. It supposed to set when wet, and I used some to repair a leak in our boat and it seems to have held.

However, you're going to be putting the joint under a lot of pressure and I reckon you'll be better off splashing :lollol:out on a new one!

Chris

 

I have repaired a split in a "Hoselock" plastic hose "gun" in the past with a soldering iron.
Running the hot iron along the split was enough to melt the plastic and fix the leak.
You're left with a "scar" but it's cheaper than buying a new one, at the time they were around fifteen quid. But they sell quite effective ones for about two quid in "Wilkies" now, so I wouldn't bother again.


I've also mended a split in a plastic header tank in my filter system with a plastic patch. I melted it with a hot air paint stripping gun and used a wallpaper roller to press the edges of the patch down. This was years ago and it still works fine.

 

Hi Steve R. when i worked in the Plastics industry we used a substance named Methyl Ethyl Ketone to break down the plastic polymers to do repairs to our broken plastic household items such as vacuum cleaners etc ( always done on night shift in the lab) :wink: this liquid was great for repairs to plastic A.B.S. we added the M.E.K to the break in the plastic it broke down the polymers then rebonded the plastic again ,after dry it was solid. in saying that there are a lot of different types of plastic out there ,my advice Steve is buy a new Splitter :( music