The Craftmans Shop > New from Old

In-Sink-Erator resurrection

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awemawson:
So now to turn my attention to the plastic pressure balance chamber.

Again this has been made in two halves - but instead of being bolted it is glued. As there is an aperture though the tank for the inlet and outlet pipes, there are two glue lines. The inner one had survived and was still strong, but the outer had failed leaving a big leak.

awemawson:
At first I didn't think that it was going to be much of a problem, just gluing it back together, so I started by opening it up all round, and pegging it open to allow me to scrape off the old glue.

OK what glue to use. Well the obvious thing I initially thought would be the solvent weld glue used on plastic plumbing - it's ok for drinking water, and ok for boiling water so that's what I used.

 . . . . . . . silly boy  :bang:

awemawson:
Leaving it to dry / evaporate / set or whatever for a good 24 hours it was immediately obvious that it hadn't worked - this plastic isn't soluble in this glue  :bang:

A lot of opening up, re-pegging, scrapping and cleaning ensued - this also pulled off the remnants of the original glue, which (ok with a bit of force) just peeled off the plastic.

Time to do some testing. I had several glues to hand, including Normal Araldite, Rapid Araldite, a speciality 'hard plastics' glue and various silicone squeezy tubes of sealant.

On the flat, smooth upper surface of the tank (which I cleaned scrupulously with acetone) I put dabs of each of the glues and left them for 24 hours before trying to dislodge them with a sharp blade.

All of them came off, but by far the hardest to dislodge was Normal Araldite - it would come off but clung on reasonably well. Where the halves of the tank go together there is a moulded shape that increases the surface area, and I reasoned that if I gave this a rough finish it would give the glue a better chance - so Normal Araldite it was to be  :clap:

awemawson:
Now I was fairly certain that the Araldite was going to make the tank waterproof, but I wasn't too happy with the fact that in tension, as the two halves are pressed apart, it would take the strain over many years  :scratch:

... time for another cunning plan  :lol:

I reasoned that, if I formed a channel that effectively clamped the two halves together, the Araldite would no longer be taking the tension and I might sleep easier  :ddb:

A quick measure up found me some lengths of brass channel, 1/4" external, with 1/8" legs that just nicely fitted the flange. Only problem was it was only available in 1 foot lengths  :bang:

OK two of them ordered, and when they arrived I set to to make them one

awemawson:
Now forming this channel round the tank flange was going to involve heat and hammering - not sensible to do it on the tank itself - so time to make up a template out of steel plate.

To the rescue came my CNC Plasma Table that kindly turned an Autocad DXF into tangible form - did I ever tell you - I love my CNC Plasma Table  :ddb: :ddb:

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