Creating vivarium with acrylic sheets & solder iron

[Oswoc]

Any tips on welding plastic sheets together to make my own enclosure? I've recently bought a soldering iron/pyrography kit, and I imagine i just put 2 peices of acrylic together, put some more plastic in the groove where they meet and smoothly heat the groove (similar to siliconing a joint)...

Or am I better off just hot glueing everything and saving my solder iron for ventilation holes?

I really wanna get good at this to save money in the long run!

I'm based in the UK too, which may inform your answer.

Perhaps someone can recommend helpful videos, or share a thread that unpacks this more. Be great to know what sort of costs are involved. Looking on amazon, just to get some a4 sized acrylic sheets costs £15, then £5 for magnets, plus my iron was £20.
Stressful!

Appreciate any advice!
Thanks,
James

 

[TheInv4sion]

You can buy solvent that bonds acrylic together (takes about 10 seconds). It essentially melts the two plastic together so that it is one solid piece. I believe it is a product called Weld-On but I can't remember exactly

 

[viper69]

Search the forum- plenty of info on your exact question.

There’s a guy from the U.K. with great instructions for this.

 

[Dry Desert]

Any tips on welding plastic sheets together to make my own enclosure? I've recently bought a soldering iron/pyrography kit, and I imagine i just put 2 peices of acrylic together, put some more plastic in the groove where they meet and smoothly heat the groove (similar to siliconing a joint)...

Or am I better off just hot glueing everything and saving my solder iron for ventilation holes?

I really wanna get good at this to save money in the long run!

I'm based in the UK too, which may inform your answer.

Perhaps someone can recommend helpful videos, or share a thread that unpacks this more. Be great to know what sort of costs are involved. Looking on amazon, just to get some a4 sized acrylic sheets costs £15, then £5 for magnets, plus my iron was £20.
Stressful!

Appreciate any advice!
Thanks,
James

If you look on Wickes website you will see Acrylic sheet 6ftx3ft for £31.50. Regarding glueing there are several acrylic solvents on the market that melt the two pieces together. You can even use Super Glue. Amazon in not always the cheapest, they just stock many suppliers goods - some reasonly priced, some very expensive, depends on which supplier uses Amazon as a warehouse at that particular time.

 

[Matt Man]

you will never be able to cleanly weld sheets of Acrylic together with a soldering iron, you would not have the ability to heat 2 edges at the same time. You want a Weld On Acrylic Cement, they chemically do what you want to do physically

 

[Oswoc]

When it comes to welding acrylics together, can someone recommend a named brand? How about Gorilla Epoxy glue? On amazon for £6 or something...

Thanks guys!

 

[Oswoc]

Be great to have a link to other forums that discuss this in more depth too - I've tried searching, but struggle find any!? Its just hundreds of pages of threads that seem so vague...

 

[Dry Desert]

When it comes to welding acrylics together, can someone recommend a named brand? How about Gorilla Epoxy glue? On amazon for £6 or something...

Thanks guys!

If you go to Screwfix website - Item No. 14285 - FLOPLAST SC250 Solvent Cement £ 5.40 inc.