Plastic Bracket Repair Tips

[dv-]

Putting this in here be a use the bracket in question is from a 7300, and is far more brittle than others I’ve seen, but this is a more general question.

As you can see in the attached photos I had a drive sled where all of the flex-tabs snapped off like they were made from the finest crystal.

I tried superglue first but they broke again immediately. So I tried JB Weld. Slopping a bunch of it on there to reinforce the area was intentional, I’m not usually that crude.

This worked and the resulting bonds are pretty tough (I assume the glue is doing the flexing now and not the plastic) but it’s obviously not “pretty” as repairs go.

I was curious if anyone else had a better product they’d used or a different repair method that I could keep in mind for next time? I’ve used clear epoxy - that would at least be prettier - before but it often seems more brittle than the gray stuff.

I was actually thinking it might be possible to drill a long, thin hole or two and reinforce internally with metal, like how you pin a broken bone.

 

[zigzagjoe]

With ABS plastic you can use acetone to fuse it together. Though this won't make it any less brittle, when correctly executed, the bond can be as strong as the surrounding plastic instead of the bond being the weak point.

 

[Chuckdubuque]

I have one of those in multiple pieces in a Ziploc bag somewhere. My goal is to glue it back together, 3D scan it, and have a 3d printable replacement to share. It's way down on the to-do list though :-(

 

[Byrd]

Once it gets that brittle it keeps going sadly, I’d consider some sort of wire mesh to strengthen it or seek out a junk Outrigger style case locally for parts.