Polyethylene is one of the most popular and widely known materials. Not too expensive and, in general, unpretentious. Polyethylene is quite often used in the construction of greenhouses and greenhouses, for insulation and moisture insulation of various objects. At the time of the work, many craftsmen are faced with the need to glue this material. This is where the problems begin. The fact is that polyethylene is difficult to bond. But you can still fasten it with glue. It is also possible to do this under the influence of high temperature. How to choose a suitable adhesive for polyethylene and what should you pay attention to when carrying out work? Answers to these and other questions can be found below.
Properties of polyethylene
This wonderful material has a lot interesting properties... Polyethylene is used to protect against moisture, is an excellent electrical insulator and is able to absorb one of the most dangerous species radiation. It is almost completely resistant to chemicals... It is this last quality that sometimes turns from an advantage into a disadvantage. How to hold such a material together and how to choose an adhesive for polyethylene?
Interestingly, bonding is not only chemical, but to some extent electrical process... The molecules of the substances to be joined are attracted among themselves due to the difference in their charges. Therefore, it is quite difficult to find such a substance that adheres well to polyethylene, and after drying it firmly holds the fastened parts together. Since the molecules of this material are quite strongly "balanced", it can be very difficult to glue it with other elements. Still, the chemical industry has created an adhesive for gluing polyethylene. And not alone. Such an adhesive must have certain properties. Let's see which ones.
Requirements for the adhesive material
If you decide to glue polyethylene or penophenol (its foamed variety) to a concrete or brick surface, then the bonding adhesive layer should have a number of properties:
- Remain resistant to atmospheric influences.
- Do not destroy the bonded materials.
- Have high degree hygroscopicity and adhesion.
- Be resistant to temperature extremes.
- Have antiseptic and fungistatistic qualities.
- Retain its properties for a long time.
Consumer reviews suggest that it is also worth paying attention to the environmental safety of the adhesive. This is especially important when using materials for interior decoration premises. And if you decide to use polyethylene (penophenol) when arranging a sauna or bath, you need to pay extra attention to the heat resistance of the glue and its resistance to hot water vapor.
How to choose a glue?
If you don't know which polyethylene adhesive is right for you, ask the seller to look for one that contains methyl acrylate. This substance provides quick softening of polyethylene and its high-quality adhesion. Also, the product may contain chromic anhydride, various acids and xylene. The indisputable advantage of such glue is that when using it, you do not need additional surface treatment. But users argue that it also has a drawback. Such adhesive for polyethylene is very toxic. Therefore, all work is best done on open air... Well, or you have to at least provide high-quality ventilation premises. The glue works best at a temperature of +35 ˚C. He is not afraid of moisture, but ignites easily.
Also in stores you can find means for connecting polymers. They are sold as a thick paste. They usually come with a solvent. After connecting these two components, the glue acquires the desired structure. Since the solvent evaporates instantly, the mixture must be used quickly. So do not breed a lot at once.
But neoprene glue for polyethylene is better not to use. Such a composition is more suitable for joining rubber and rubberized parts, neoprene fabric, leather, felt, ceramics, metal in any combination. But it is better not to use it for styrofoam, polypropylene, polyethylene and plasticized PVC. There will be no sense.
Filled Acrylate Adhesive
If you do not know how to glue, try using a two-component composition based on the same methyl acrylate. Alternatively, you can try Easy-Mix PE-PP brand Weicon. It has excellent adhesion properties. It is used for bonding polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride and others polymeric materials... You have to hurry when working with this glue. It retains its properties outdoors for no more than three minutes.
Easy-Mix PE-PP contains a special additive consisting of microscopic glass beads. This filler prevents the adhesive from leaving the bond. Therefore, the seam is strong enough. This glue for expanded polyethylene should only be applied from the mixer of the original packaging. It is best to work with it at a temperature of +22 ° C. Complete solidification is ensured not earlier than in 5-6 hours.
Epoxy adhesive
Of course, this is not a very suitable glue for gluing polyethylene. But if nothing else could be found, then you can try. You just have to pre-prepare the surfaces:
- The edges of the parts to be glued should be "cleaned" with fine emery cloth. Then degrease them thoroughly.
- Treat both parts with a 20% solution of chromic anhydride or a 25% solution. If such substances could not be found, a strong solution of potassium permanganate can be used.
- Dry after surface treatment.
- Dilute the glue according to the instructions. Apply a thin layer to the bonding surfaces. Dock the details right there.
- Withstand several hours, and preferably a day - until the seam completely solidifies.
Film welding is one of the working steps that can sometimes be necessary. For many types of work, pieces of polyethylene film must be tightly connected together. Most often it is necessary for the construction of a greenhouse, greenhouse, installation of vapor barrier during construction.
For some activities, it is necessary to provide a tight connection to the material in order to obtain a product. When gluing polyethylene using scotch tape or adhesives, high-quality sealed joints will not be obtained, therefore, if necessary, to ensure a strong connection, welding is used.
There are many ways to seal PE film. The operation itself is the bonding of layers of material by heating, creating a temperature convenient for melting. When the layers are compressed, a weld is formed.
Welding of polyethylene is as follows: When heated, the layers change their structure, join at the molecular level, and after cooling, a strong seam is formed.
To glue plastic wrap, the layers should be well cleaned - in case of any contamination strength characteristics are much reduced.
Foreign impurities pass into the melted mass, which violate the molecular structure in the seams.
For a high-quality connection with high strength, it is necessary to observe following conditions:
- when welding the film, its pieces must be homogeneous, belonging to the same batch;
- surfaces must be clean;
- choose the temperature mode correctly during operation - with insufficient heating, the strength deteriorates, with excessive heating, the joint and the pre-seam area are deformed;
- when heating, ensure sufficient compression.
To connect pVC film qualitatively, it is impossible to re-weld the edges of the material. If you need to perform such an operation, first cut off the damaged edges.
Both in the implementation of construction operations and for household needs, the following connection methods can be used:
- welding with a soldering iron equipped with special nozzles - at the same time it acts as homemade apparatus for welding;
- joining when heated, melting the film with an iron;
- desired temperature layers is achieved with a burner;
- industrial equipment is used to heat the seam.
You can try to warm up the film with a hairdryer, then tightly connect the surfaces intended for gluing to each other, or it is better to put it under the press.
Film welding with a soldering iron
How to glue plastic wrap with a soldering iron? This method can be safely attributed to the most common - the tool is easily accessible, allows you to get a good result, and with a little refinement of the soldering iron, the effect can be improved.
It should be borne in mind that it is not always possible to make a tight connection without revision - the joints may be uneven, the material spreads.
So you can glue the greenhouse film or make a canvas for other needs. Only with very small amounts of work can it be recommended for use pVC compound soldering iron. After a little refinement, it turns into a convenient and easy-to-use tool.
Iron as a welding heater
How to glue the film using an iron - the simplest household appliance, which is in every home? Everything is very simple - the work consists in melting the polyethylene and creating joints using the heated soleplate of the iron.
Improvised welding machine from the iron allows you to connect large areas of film... In this case, the seams can be made with a certain width. Everyone has modern irons there is a thermostat that allows you to adjust the heating temperature.
- Provide a comfortable working area before gluing the film - a smooth wooden surface is best.
- The film is laid with an overlap, upper layer covered with fluoroplastic or paper, the sole of the iron is pressed and led along the welding line.
- The clamping speed, force are determined empirically, the temperature is selected.
Professional tools for welding
To connect the film at home, you can make a variety of tools with your own hands, but they are suitable only for performing small-scale work. If necessary, large-scale production - commercial activity, the creation of a greenhouse or greenhouses - the use of these devices has the greatest effect. No glue has the same ability.
The welding process is faster, professional devices allow you to set the desired pressure parameters, speed of advance along the weld, temperature.
Most professional devices have tension and guide roller elements that pull the film at an optimal speed, which has a beneficial effect on the quality of the seam.
By parameters, photo, cost.
The LENTAPAK company manufactures and sells wholesale and retail various polyethylene films:
- greenhouse;
- technical;
- construction.
Roll length - from 15 to 100 m, width - from 1000 to 1500 mm.
Buyers are wondering how to get a solid cut large area or how to glue plastic wrap stronger. Indeed, due to high quality characteristics - elasticity, lightness, strength - our products are used not only in everyday life, but also in many sectors of the economy:
- in construction for waterproofing foundations, basements and floors;
- in agrotechnical production for growing early vegetables, flowers and berries;
- in transport companies for cargo shelter.
In construction, polyethylene film is used mostly as a waterproofing agent or heat insulator when it comes to film greenhouses. Has polyethylene and certain sound insulation properties, but not enough to be used as an independent sound insulator.
For gluing polyethylene, it is necessary to purchase such glue in advance, which is used for gluing plastic.
Can polyethylene be glued?
When installing waterproofing or greenhouses, it is often necessary to glue several pieces of polyethylene together in order to obtain a film of the desired size. But how to glue the plastic wrap, and is it possible to do it at home?
The question is not as simple as it seems initially. It is also known from the school chemistry course: the higher the polarity of the polymer material, the better it lends itself to gluing. The polyethylene molecule written in chemical symbols is very similar to a long chain, consisting of the same units - CH2-. Such monotony suggests that electric charges they are evenly distributed inside the polyethylene molecule, i.e. it is non-polar. Therefore, polyethylene sticks together very poorly.
Welding of a polymer film: a - using an electric soldering iron; b - using an electric iron runner; c - with an open flame.
Very often, adhesive mixtures are used for gluing polymeric materials, which are prepared from the same materials (or similar ones), dissolved in a suitable solvent. But this will not work with polyethylene - it practically does not dissolve in organic solvents.
Some polymers can be glued just because they have a rough surface. In this case adhesive solution fills in irregularities and, freezing, clings to them, tightly gluing together pieces of material. But this cannot be done with polyethylene, since it has a perfectly smooth surface.
Therefore, if we talk specifically about the gluing process, then it is almost impossible to glue the plastic wrap at home. And in the industrial sector it has never been glued.
But although pieces of polyethylene cannot be glued, they can be welded, or, more precisely, soldered, which has been successfully done for many years in industry, having developed many methods of such welding. But of this many ways, there are only two that can be applied at home.
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Welding polyethylene with a hot object
Welding the film using an electric soldering iron: a - type of seam; b - an electric soldering iron device for welding a film.
The most convenient way to do this is with a metal roller with a heating device inside. But to make such a device at home, you need to have a sufficiently high qualification of an electrician.
Therefore, folk ingenuity has found a completely satisfactory replacement for such an instrument - an ordinary iron. Since different brands of plastic film melt when different temperatures, then no specific recommendations for temperature regime welding cannot be given.
The heating temperature of the welding iron will have to be determined by trial and error. If the temperature of the iron turns out to be insufficient, the film will not boil, but if the iron is heated too much, the seam will turn out to be “overcooked”, weak, besides, the film on the sides of the seam will easily break. The only thing that can be advised initially is that the iron should not be too hot.
The soldering technology itself is very simple. To make the seam neat and even, it is better to weld on a flat wooden surface... The edges of the film should be placed on this surface with a slight overlap (0.5-1 cm). On this overlap, you need to draw with a spout or edge of a heated iron. The passage should be no more than a second in one place, otherwise you will lose the film.
PVC film can be recognized by the yellowish tint of the roll edge.
But with this method of soldering, there is one very important negative point: the heated plastic film very often sticks to the iron. To prevent this from happening, it is better to cover the polyethylene seam with a thin sheet of cellophane before soldering, and then go over it with an iron.
The solder strength can be checked by simply pulling the soldered pieces in different sides... If the seam diverges, it means that the quality of the soldering is unsatisfactory, and you need to repeat everything from the very beginning. Some craftsmen perform this soldering not with an iron, but with a hot knife blade, claiming that it is more convenient for them. But this is already a matter of taste.
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Open flame welding of polyethylene
To verify polyethylene in this way you will need:
- metal or ceramic bars;
- welding tool (it can be gas-burner, blowtorch, spirit lamp, and in the absence of these, you can use a torch or even ordinary matches).
Electric circuit diagram connecting the "iron" to the network: 1 - constant wire-wound resistor; 2 - metal case; 3 - sting-horse; 4 - textolite handle; 5 - stand.
The edges of the films to be welded must be fixed with metal or ceramic bars (wooden ones are not suitable for this purpose). It is necessary to fix it in such a way that a narrow strip of film (3-5 mm, no more) is visible from under them at the welding site. The bars are needed not only for fixing the film, but mainly in order to quickly remove heat from the films being welded, otherwise they, instead of fusing, will burn out entirely.
Then you need to draw along the remaining open edge with a flame. The speed of the flame will also have to be selected empirically, especially since it will be different not only for each grade of polyethylene, but for each tool too. If the operation is performed correctly, then upon its completion a dense roll forms, firmly connecting the two edges of the plastic film.
As an alternative to welding, when setting up greenhouses and greenhouses, two pieces of plastic sheeting can be stitched together. For this, two pieces of film are overlapped on top of each other. The overlap should be 2-2.5 cm. Then an ordinary medical plaster is glued to the overlap on both sides. It will not hold on well, but this is not scary, the main thing is that the strips of the plaster lie exactly in the place of the overlap one above the other.
Then, two seams are made over the overlap with large stitches. In this case, pieces of film are fastened with stitched threads, and the plaster, having a more durable structure of the material, prevents the threads from tearing the polyethylene. However, this method is not suitable for waterproofing, since the joints will allow moisture to pass through.
It should be noted that both welding methods are suitable only if it is necessary to combine polyethylene with polyethylene.
If it becomes necessary to glue the film to some other material, then you will have to look transparent film from another material, which adheres better, and for which there are special adhesives on sale. Alternatively, it can be polyvinyl chloride film.
Connect the plastic wrap in the described ways or look for something new, it's up to you. The main thing is not to be afraid to experiment, because if something cannot be done today, this does not mean that it cannot be done tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
How to glue the plastic wrap? This seemingly simple question constantly puzzles many summer residents and gardeners. After all, if you first decided to build yourself a greenhouse, you will have two options - to purchase a ready-made one (the pleasure is not cheap) or to glue the film of the required width.
To facilitate your searches, we present quick guide about how to glue polyethylene film.
First you need to purchase polyethylene in the required amount, at the same time take with a margin, since you need to overlap. Is there plastic wrap?
This means that you have very few tools left, namely: an iron, sheets of paper and preferably two assistants, plus a table or other flat surface.
The film is welded according to the following scheme: take the film and overlap the edges to be glued (the width of the overlap should be equal to the width of the iron used with a margin of 5 centimeters).
We lay the prepared paper (you can use a regular newspaper folded in half) a little wider than the overlap.
We take two small segments and use the stick-on method to select optimal temperature, at which the welding of the polyethylene film will be carried out
If this is not done, then when gluing large pieces of film, it may become unusable, melting due to too high an iron temperature or an exceeded holding time.
After selecting the temperature on the table, we make gluing, it is desirable to have two assistants who will not only move the adhesive film evenly, but also level the finished overlap.
Note to everyone who will glue the plastic wrap - the paper should not be removed immediately from the hot film to avoid tearing.
Let it pause a little and then shoot.
In conclusion, we note that plastic wrap for greenhouses glues together very easily at home.
However, if you need to cover the greenhouse big size, then look in hardware stores for a special machine for gluing polyethylene and it will become much easier for you to work.
How to glue plastic wrap? This seemingly simple question constantly puzzles many summer residents and gardeners. After all, if you first decided to build yourself a greenhouse, you will have two options - to purchase a ready-made one (the pleasure is not cheap) or to glue the film of the required width.
To facilitate your searches, here's a quick guide on how how to glue the film made of polyethylene. To begin with, you need to purchase polyethylene in the required amount, while taking it with a margin, since you need to overlap. Is there plastic wrap? This means that you have very few tools left, namely: an iron, sheets of paper and preferably two assistants, plus a table or other flat surface.
Film welding is made according to the following scheme: take the film and overlap the edges to be glued (the width of the overlap should be equal to the width of the used iron with a margin of 5 centimeters). We lay the prepared paper (you can use a regular newspaper folded in half) a little wider than the overlap. We take two small segments and, using the "stick-on" method, select the optimal temperature at which plastic film welding (if this is not done, then when gluing large pieces of film, it may become unusable, melting due to too high an iron temperature or an exceeded holding time). After selecting the temperature on the table, we make gluing, it is desirable to have two assistants who will not only move the adhesive film evenly, but also level the finished overlap.
Note to everyone who will glue the plastic wrap - the paper should not be removed immediately from the hot film to avoid tearing. Let it pause a little and then shoot.
In conclusion, note that plastic film for greenhousesit is very easy to stick together at home, but if you need to cover a large greenhouse, then look in hardware stores for a special machine for gluing polyethylene and it will become much easier for you to work.
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