Ianc
1st August 2009, 01:03 AM
I recently finished putting together a small hoop greenhouse with UV-stable plastic for the cover. Any of you using this stuff will realise that it is difficult to stick it to itself or anything else. The normal method is using heat, and I spent many pleasant hours on the deck with an acre of plastic sheeting on the ironing board, melting it together with newspaper or aluminium foil above and below the plastic to stop it sticking to the electric iron and the ironing board. To get iron setting and timing right, practice on some scrap plastic first!
I was stumped for a while when it came to attach the zipper. I bought this at Spotlight where they have endless plastic zipper. Don't know if it's UV stable or not, but I will attach something to cover it. The easiest way to attach it is probably a heavy duty stapler, but I didn't feel like laying out over $40 for the tool... anyway I found something else quite useful. Selleys make a glue called Selleys Plastics Glue. It will stick lots of things including polyethylene and polypropylene plastics. It comes in two parts. The first is actually like a marker pen... you use it to prime the plastic. The second is probably a normal superglue... It works like superglue, and you can stick yourself together if you are not careful. The point of this is that when the tiny tube of glue that comes in the double pack ran out, I kept on using the marker pen with normal superglue, and it seemed to work just the same... much cheaper than buying lots of the double pack.
To attach the zipper, I applied the marker pen to the plastic edge, ran on a bead of superglue and then (wearing rubber gloves) pressed the cloth edge of the zipper onto the superglue until it set.
Cheers
Ian
I was stumped for a while when it came to attach the zipper. I bought this at Spotlight where they have endless plastic zipper. Don't know if it's UV stable or not, but I will attach something to cover it. The easiest way to attach it is probably a heavy duty stapler, but I didn't feel like laying out over $40 for the tool... anyway I found something else quite useful. Selleys make a glue called Selleys Plastics Glue. It will stick lots of things including polyethylene and polypropylene plastics. It comes in two parts. The first is actually like a marker pen... you use it to prime the plastic. The second is probably a normal superglue... It works like superglue, and you can stick yourself together if you are not careful. The point of this is that when the tiny tube of glue that comes in the double pack ran out, I kept on using the marker pen with normal superglue, and it seemed to work just the same... much cheaper than buying lots of the double pack.
To attach the zipper, I applied the marker pen to the plastic edge, ran on a bead of superglue and then (wearing rubber gloves) pressed the cloth edge of the zipper onto the superglue until it set.
Cheers
Ian