I’ve been gluing together different plastics for 37 years now (!) at my job at TAP Plastics. I’ve seen a lot of really useful solvents disappear here in California as the VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) laws make them illegal. MEK has been the latest added to the list. We used to sell pure MEK by the Gallon and 5 Gallon container, now my customers have to go to Nevada to acquire large quantities of it.
We use MEK at TAP Plastics to solvent weld together ABS and High Impact Styrene (Polystyrene). Nothing works better. If you need some body to the glue, I recommend using SCIGrip Weld-On 16 . The Weld-On 16 contains MEK along with other solvents along with Acrylic Monomer to thicken it. Here is the SDS… TAP Plastics also sells SCIgrip Weld-on 2354 for ABS and Styrene. It is mostly MEK and it is what we have to use in the shop now… Here is the SDS … Of course, I use MEK at home.(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)
For the expanded PVC (Sintra, Komatex or Celtec) and other PVC sheets we use Weld-On 2007.It is a solvent only formula with no thickeners added so it flows really well.
For Acrylic Plastic we use Weld-On #4, #3 and the TAP Acrylic Cement. #4 is a little slower in evaporation and thus has more time to melt the acrylic and make a strong bond. We use this the most, especially on aquariums and thicker sheets. The TAP brand and the #3 are the same product but we are able to sell it at a lower price since it carries our name. These are the Applicators we use to apply these water thin solvents…
Jon posted this link…" http://nerfhaven.com/forums/topic/18527-intro-to-solvent-welding-plastic/ " and in general it is correct. I would never use MEK or Acetone to glue Acrylic… I’ve mixed up bottles in the past in our shop and I can tell you accidentally using MEK on acrylic doesn’t work. The joints fail quite easily… Also, I’ve never found a solvent that will bond HDPE, UHMW, LDPE, Polypropylene or Delrin. Heck, the solvent applicators mentioned earlier are made of solvent resistant polyethylene! I also found it interesting that he says Methylene Dichloride is banned in Europe while Ethylene Dichloride is not… The opposite occurs here.
Russ Miller
Past BAGRS President
NGRC 2016 Chairman
TAP Plastics Manager