Hi Larry,



I've seen your work on another forum and glad to see you posting here and hope you stick around. From the looks of things we could use somebody with your experience.



How big is that first cage? It looks huge in the picture.



Regarding PVC solvents, I experimented with a few methods and also found the working time to be a problem. So I took a totally opposite approach of what you are suggesting and found the thinnest and fastest evaporating PVC solvent I could find. I think it was IPS Weld-On 2007. It is thin enough that it can be injected along a clamped joint and it just wicks in and bonds the material. You don't need to apply it and then clamp the material together like you would with woodworking.



For clamping I used masking tape and woodworking corner clamps. This worked okay. What I liked better was to assemble two pieces together with small aluminum rivets and then inject the solvent along the edge. One downfall to rivets is that they don't work well with 6mm or thinner PVCX.



Now, to be totally fair I never made it as far as you did -- I just ended up with all sorts of various pieces of scrap PVC stuck together at 90* angles laying around. But I did learn a fair amount about working with the material.



But back to your idea of a thicker and slower evaporating solvent, I never tried that specifically. I'm sure IPS makes such a product but my local (at the time) plastic shop did not carry it so I never tried it.



Another option are the two-part IPS Weld-On products. They come in guns and are applied sort of like caulk. If you scroll further down you'll see one of my posts with IPS in the title. You can see what I mean there.



At any rate, I have not used these products but have heard that they are very strong. You basically use them for form the equivalent of a fillet weld. I think Boaphile used these with their first generation cages. They are expensive and time consuming to use.



Another idea is the polyurethane hot melt glues. These are supposed to stick to just about anything and offer excellent strength. I believe it requires a dedication hot melt gun, however. Again you use these to create a fillet, not to go between two surfaces like a regular adhesive.
-----
Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

[ Show Entire Thread ]