Last winter I bought a plastic welder and hadn't had a chance to play with it. At least until today. This is the unit I have.
I took apart my "laboratory" pond and had some 5 gallon buckets with holes in them so I figured today would be a good to try to patch them. The first one was a Home Depot bucket and had holes for a 2" pipe in the bottom and a 3/4" pipe in the side. I cleaned the bucket with soapy water and cut patches to close the holes. I set the welder on 580* with low air and started out.
I did pretty good on the bottom.
The side was a little more difficult. As you can see in the picture the hole was a little pulled out and wasn't flat. In the end I got it.
Best part is it held water!!! So with my confidence up, I decided to try another bucket. This one was a spackle bucket. I am sure you have noticed they are heavier then the HD buckets. I suspect they are a slightly different material too. As I was working on the HD bucket it melted to look shiny and wet. The spackle bucket on the other hand looked like it was "sweating".
I cleaned this bucket with soapy water and cut patches out of the same "sacrificial" lid as the first one. As soon as I started I noticed the differences mentioned above. It was not a happy outcome. The more I tried, the more the orange plastic melted but the white in the bucket didn't. Eventually the orange plastic just fell through. I never could get it to weld.
But I wasn't going to give up. I found a lid that came from a spackle bucket. It was almost as thick as the bucket. I cut patches from it and got them welded on. I had to raise the heat to 750* to get it.
Not the neatest of welds. But they are utility buckets and they hold water.