adhesive for plastic frame

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gadgetgal

CGF, Certified Grumble Framer
Joined
Mar 9, 2005
Posts
135
Loc
St. Paul, MN
I am looking for advice on what adhesive to use for a plastic frame. It is a "gilded" finish on a scrolly shaped framed mirror, with a masonite backing board that is screwed into the plastic frame. It fell off the wall, of course, and is in pieces that our customer wants us to repair and regild. The plastic is kind of the color of a Kraft caramel. Help!
 
Sue,
plastic foam frames are disposable...........sell them a new frame.

plastic glue is used on plastic frames.......as in airplane, car, boat models
 
Sounds like a home "inferior" product you're describing. I agree that you should just tell them it's beyond repair and sell them a new one. Your time and talent would be better spent repairing or creating a quality product!
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Chances are that the corners were held together with V-nails, and, if this is so and the corners are separated, the corner joints may no longer be smooth enough to take a simple “weld” with the adhesive that Jerome suggests.

You may have to re-miter each corner which will make the frame smaller which will necessitate cutting down the whole frame contents which may destroy the integrity of the whole piece.

When we are faced with trying to repair plastic frames, we get into the physician mode telling family members, “Tsk, tsk. This one’s a goner!”
 
Thanks for the quick answers. Now, this is a frame tht has no corners, it is an organic shape, swirls, arches, etc. Nothing to cut and join, just broken sections that need to be re-glued. All the breaks are clean. Once it has been re-glued, it will be screwed back to the masonite backing board. Yes, it is probably a home inferior product, and beeter off to just let it go. But I told the customer I would look into it....
 
I made the mistake of agreeing to repair a frame for a customer a couple weeks ago. I didn't take a good look at it and when I disassembled I discovered it was plastic. Told the customer of my findings and she still agreed to pay whether it worked or not and since I had her money up front......

The frame literally crumbles where the v-nails were. I was able to smooth out the mitres with my sander. But there were chunks of the frame missing where the v-nails were. I used some Weld-on plexi adhesive to join the corners as an experiment, stuff is liquid what a pain that was. But, it did I assume melt the corners back together because it doesn't appear that they could be taken back apart. My customer was thrilled because she didn't have to spend $150 for a new frame for her cheap crappy ready made art. I charged her $60 figuring on an hour labor. I should have charged her $150 for my time because it was a disaster to work with. I offered no guarantees and told her if the corners came apart she would need a new frame.

I absolutely will never, ever take in a plastic frame to repair again. In fact, it was kind of eye opening on what my life would be like selling polystyrene custom jobs. I bet there are better glues to use on those but man was this a headache.
 
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