Weak Spot Revealed…
While prepping the Visor for the second coat of paint, it snapped at the seam line. Time to do a repair, and try some reinforcement, as well…
I’m going to try embedding some metal wire into the plastic to help strengthen the joint. I decided to just use plain old paper clips…
First, I tacked the pieces back together with some super glue, and then did a quick melding of the seam with my soldering iron.
I then bent the paper clip metal so that it will bridge the seam, but also have curves that can help “lock” the parts together. The theory is, if you just use straight pieces of wire, they’ll just be able to pull out. But, by adding curves, and embedding it into the plastic, there’s no way to just slip out. We’ll see if it works…
Using the soldering iron to heat the metal, it was easy to just push down into the plastic…
Top of the Visor prepped for the metal reinforcements.
Metal, shaped and ready to be added…
Metal, embedded with the soldering iron.
Used some more filament to build the area up.
New seam after grinding down all of the excess plastic with my dremel using a sanding drum. The seam repair seems to have successful. It’s definitely a LOT stronger now. We’ll see how it hold up over time.