DIY Repairs with Super Glue, Baking Soda, Fixing Holes in Plastic, Super Glue and Paper Patch

Many repairs can be done with glue, now there are many types of glue and they all have their strong points and weak points. In the repair I'm going to show you today is how to keep the strong parts of a glue and reduce the weaknesses using fillers and accelerators, and by thinking outside of the box.

Mechanically Declined to Mechanically Inclined Rating of 2.

The repair in this case seams very simple, my selfie stick that works so well has a weak point. The plastic parts don't like heat. Yet part of what I use it for, involves placing it above very hot flame broilers for a short time many times in a day. This resulted in part of the plastic that surrounds the metal insert broke because of the stress of the insert and the heat.

Never long enough to hurt the phone but the plastic around the metal insert would crack after 3 months of this.

Warning: Cyanoacrylate is an Irritant, and will Bond Skin in Seconds
Super glue, also known as Cyanoacrylate (that will be the last time I say that in this video), is very fast, but doesn't like to fill large gaps. It is also very strong for tension but needs good surface contact between the surfaces to be bonded.

Then I remembered a trick I learned from professional model makers many years ago. Super glue can be modified with baking soda as a filler and accelerator. It retains most of it's strength as well as being machinable and works faster.

I stuffed baking soda into the crack then added super glue, done. This worked for a while then I noticed more cracks developing because of the stresses as I used it. I needed a way to hold the parts together and prevent the cracks from forming or expanding.
The Super Glue needs to be the thin liquid type, not a gel.
This is where thinking outside of the box comes in, my father in law says I reinvent the wheel. I've used fiberglass to strengthen parts before, but it would be too much for this, however layers of paper can have similar properties as fiberglass with the right resin bonding it together, such as super glue.

So after using the baking soda and super glue, I added a small piece of printer paper to the outside of the part using super glue. The glue soaked into the paper quickly and it bonded to both the plastic and paper. The paper took on many of the properties of the glue as it cured.
Hard, flexible, water resistant, etc...

Then I just molded the paper around the plastic shape, using the glue to hold it in place as I formed it. In a few places the glue saturated the paper so much that it came through, I just added some baking soda to it and it cured instantly.

Words of caution:
Super glue will instantly bond skin to anything even itself. This makes it a very effective wound closer for emergency first aid. But it also means if you get any on your skin you must remove it immediately or it will bond to anything you touch, including your eyes, nose, mouth, other fingers, clothes, etc...
Protect your working surface for the same reasons, I used this aluminum foil to protect my desk while I worked on this repair. Also the baking soda on the work surface would instantly cure any drips on the foil.

This is #HowWeDoIt to make videos and the tools we use:

Cameras:
#Samsung smart phones J7
GoPro Hero 7 Black

Video Editing:
Software:
Open Office
#Filmora9
GIMP 2
Hardware:
Dell Inspiron 5570, 16 GB RAM