Cleared the detritus from the feed from the garage roof and now the water butt fills up nicely. And promptly shows up a leak with a really tiny hole almost at the bottom of the butt.
As I see it, I've got three reasonably sensible options, attack with soldering iron and melt the plastic locally, glue it, or put a stainless bolt through.
Not sure that heat will work long term as it may drive out plasticiser, but so far it's my favoured solution as the other two still remain viable options. The inside hole is not visible, and the outside one can only be found thanks to my marker pen before I drained it.
Any other ideas or hints?
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Mine split near the water tap. Widened up the split with a fine dremmel, drilled a small hole at each end to ease stress and stop crack propagation, then filled with some silicone bathroom sealant.
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Ensure the hole is a hole not a crack. Drill the hole a tad bigger. If its a crack drill a small hole at either end to stop it creeping. From the inside. Rough up with sandpaper to provide a key. Piece of plastic and epoxy glue such as Araldite or silicon. Mushroom the glue on the outside.
Last edited by: Fullchat on Mon 22 Sep 14 at 20:47
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I've never tried it but there's a plastic welding process, you use a heat gun and a plastic welding filler rod.
And that, is sum total of my knowledge on the matter :-) but it's on my bucket list (no pun intended) to give it a go some day!
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I've never done it before but when I found that Mrs had run the low front over a not so low kerb and punctured the plastic bumper for about an inch I thought I would give it a go.
Used one of those black plastic filler cards, cut a strip and got the soldering iron out. Created a stitch with the hot iron and the plastic filler strip and bingo. Finished off with the Dremel and then a smear of filler. It was quite easy. The filler plastic has to match the plastic being welded. I imagine water butts to be made of recycled pop bottles and the like.
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Pretty sure the leak is a hole, not a crack but hard to tell and had I not marked it as it's dry now, no one would find it.
Plenty of spare butt plastic, the lid covers quite a bit of butt, so I could remove material from the top and no-one need know as it won't be visible.
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IIRC correctly I used JB Weld for this job.
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If it's a tiny hole almost anything will do - it just needs to mushroom on each side to stop it popping through.
Araldite
Car filler
Chewing gum
Gutter mastic
Silicone
Half-chewed matchstick
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If it's a tiny hole almost anything will do - it just needs to mushroom on each side to stop it popping through.
Araldite
Car filler
Chewing gum
Gutter mastic
Silicone
Half-chewed matchstick
Oh it's a tiny hole, but I cant even find the inside one. Drilling through might not really help matters if the leak is travelling a distance, butts are quite thick plastic.
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Do you have any bitumen tape?
I'm just about to order some to protect the bearers of a new garden shed.
If you can wait a week until it arrives I'll snip a bit off and send it to you.
Contact me via mods if reqd.
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Whatever you do ……. don't do what I did!
I had a crack in the bottom of my water butt, so applied a heat gun with the idea that the molten plastic would weld together. It didn't - it suddenly turned into a strange shrinking liquid and formed a very large hole. I took it down to the tip where it joined a couple of others that appeared to have suffered a similar fate.
A friend who was into packaging for chemicals told me about some of the properties of this type of plastic drum. The vital thing is to ensure that they sit on a perfectly flat surface.
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"molten plastic would weld together"
Off topic but suddenly it's deja vu! Anyone remember Frido balls from years back (early '60s)? Those orange plastic footballs which came with a thing like a screwdriver with a round flat head so that if the ball got a puncture you heated the screwdriver thing on Mum's cooker, applied it to puncture and it melted the plastic to repair the puncture? That didn't work either!!
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I had a crack in the bottom of my water butt, so applied a heat gun with the idea that the molten plastic would weld together. It didn't - it suddenly turned into a strange shrinking liquid and formed a very large hole. I took it down to the tip where it joined a couple of others that appeared to have suffered a similar fate.
Too much heat, too wide an area. So far, cutting a bit off the top and attaching around the hole site with my soldering iron seems to be the winner, based on what I have and the fact it won't preclude me from trying something else.
I could of course buy a new butt, but that is a silly idea beloved of those who own DIY Sheds. A real bloke mends what he has... Saunters off whistling.
Added, I hadn't seen Roger's suggestion but buying a new one... Write 1000 lines I must mend things, not line the pockets of the bourgeois.
Last edited by: Slidingpillar on Mon 22 Sep 14 at 22:14
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You could crack an egg into it. Or is that Morris Minors I'm thinking of?
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Screw a self tapper into the hole..Save all that messing with nasty goos and stuff wot'll stick your pinkies together or burn them.
Mind you, I wouldn't like one screwed into my butt !
You can pay me later....
Cash only
Behind the cistern
3rd cubicle along Knott Mill station
Manchester
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>> Knott Mill station
Living in the past, HO, for all I know it's not so far from you... You'll confuse Rattle!
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"Too much heat, too wide an area."
Yes - I know that now. If I were doing it again, I'd use my soldering iron applied only to the edges of the crack. I have successfully welded plastic before, but maybe it was a different type of plastic.
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I used plastic Metal - leak sealing variety- on the bottom of our greenhouse 45 gallon plastic drum. Opened out the split.
Drilled the ends - to stop the split moving on.
Roughened it all with coarse emery paper.
Filled it.
And left it 24 hours before moving and 48 hours before filling with water.
Lasts about 10 years.. Done it twice in 25 years..Survived -16C in 2011 and 2012.
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Drat.
Examined closely and there is a split. In the sort of place where drilling holes to stop the spread are liable to weaken the butt. It gets a bodge job but I'm not too sure even that's a waste of time.
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Your butt has a crack?
Ha ha ha
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For goodness sake SP, do what a female would do and think outside the box.
Take old butt down to recycling depot and pick up a recycled one there which doesn't leak.
Easy cheap and simple:)
Pat
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>> think outside the box
Could you turn it upside down? Jigsaw out of the bottom, a section slightly larger than the top aperture. Bond the old bottom over the old top so that you in effect transfer the hole from bottom to top.
Means relocating the tap though.
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I have this image of a group of octogenarians standing round SP's water butt, all eagerly offering variously impracticable suggestions, much as a slightly younger group might stand round his car when it fails to start.
Then along comes another one to offer his advice "Oak, dear boy. Nothing like it for water butts".
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Actually Elm is the wood for traditional butts. Doesn't mind being wet and used for the bottoms of traditional canal boats for that reason.
Can't even find a plastic replacement, mine is a small plastic butt which no-one seems to sell these days.
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>> Actually Elm is the wood for traditional butts.
Red wine is I think aged in oak butts. Mine is definitely oak anyway. It never leaks a drop, unless allowed to dry out.
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Pick up a recycled one? The gannetsoperatives regard the picks as their personal fiefdom to be sold at car boot sales and you have to be very quick these days. And as I'm mobility impaired, not worth the attempt.
Have inverted the butt now and had a good look. The crack is much bigger than I thought and really, the butt is in structural failure and a repair of any kind may not work.
Tap area is reinforced and flat so moving it not one - bound to end in tears I think.
Last edited by: Slidingpillar on Tue 23 Sep 14 at 13:43
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Just bought one of these.
www.screwfix.com/p/water-butt-accessory-kit-green-230ltr/72869
excellent value compared to everywhere else I looked.
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We have butts very like those green ones. They work all right but are at risk of damage when filled with water being quite flimsy really.
I notice that the better-looking models are more expensive.
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Fair point - but this is fairly substantial. Can't see it deforming in normal use.
Now, with hindsight, the old base deformed because the butt wasn't on the level.
This one seems stronger, but I'm in the process of levelling up the site.
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First glance the price was a bit high, but then I noticed it included the stand and other bits and bobs - which the others don't and charge an arm and a leg for. So depending on what you need, could be a bargain.
I've bodged mine, see what happens when it fills up.
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Pah
We sell the 230 litre for £38 where I work
Also a rectangular 120 litre and a smaller cylindrical 200 litre
Anyway, off to smoky Tahoe in a few hours. Apparently there are 5500 firefighters drafted in from as far away as Alaska & Florida. My CA chums have asked me to bring rain ! Might come home smelling like a kipper .
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"Now, with hindsight, the old base deformed because the butt wasn't on the level."
The friend I mentioned in my earlier post was absolutely adamant that the butt had to sit on a perfectly level surface - he knows because his speciality was the packing and storage of pesticides; cracked drums can be a bit of a nuisance! In fact, he is regarded internationally as something of an expert in these matters.
I had 3 water butts that appear to be the same as the one shown in the Screwfix link. The base of the first one cracked after about 2 years and I believe that the 3-section interlocking base units are to blame. I replaced the bases for the remaining 2 butts with 45x45cm slabs supported on breeze blocks - and they have been fine for another 3 years - and still going.
I've still got the old base units and when I get round to it, I envisage sinking them into the soil and using them as herb planters.
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This topic indirectly inspired me to attempt to fix something that had been bugging me for months, but that I'd not had time to attend to.
The S60 has an oddments compartment between the front seats, whose lid is padded and serves as an armrest. The hinge is a peculiar plastic slidey affair, with too big a contact area and consequently too much friction. It got gradually stiffer until eventually the lid part snapped off just above the hinge. (Pat, you may notice the stiffness in yours; you can save some future trouble by working some candle wax or similar into the hinge.)
Anyway, I tried gluing it (can't remember now what with) but it didn't take and broke again soon after, and since then it's been sitting loose on top and annoying me every time I drove the car.
And then all this butt talk gave me an idea. My soldering iron recently resurfaced after getting submerged in the house move four years ago. The lid is made of ABS, which melts and resets easily, so a bit of gentle stroking with the hot iron got the edges reasonably neatly together.
But would it last? I thought a bit of extra material around the join would help. So I bought a couple of Lego blocks from Beestling Minor for the price of a Tunnocks Caramel Wafer (Lego also being made from ABS) and melted as much as I could along the out of sight side, let it cool and screwed it all back together.
And it seems OK. Early days yet, and while I've explained to Mrs Beest that it may be a bit delicate and should be handled with care, that may not be enough. But we'll see, and I at least feel better for having a go. Thanks for the unintended push.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Tue 23 Sep 14 at 22:41
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I have noticed that problem WdeB and because of that rarely open it.
I do admire Beestling minors bargaining skills but having no minors in this household, should the worst happen, would he perhaps be prepared to do a deal with me:)
Pat
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>
>> But would it last? I thought a bit of extra material around the join would
>> help. So I bought a couple of Lego blocks from Beestling Minor for the price
>> of a Tunnocks Caramel Wafer (Lego also being made from ABS) and melted as much
>> as I could along the out of sight side, let it cool and screwed it
>> all back together.
The solvent used for welding ABS drain pipes is available in small tubes from the DIY sheds, (you have to ask for it), it is good for all manner of ABS (the plastic type) repairs.
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We've an old plastic 40 gallon drum (got to be at least 25 yrs old) out in the back garden. I think my dad got it from the farm he worked at. The lid was cut off ¾ the way across and a hinge fitted. It makes for a very sturdy water butt. Better than these flimsy things you can buy.
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I have three water butts.Two from the car port gutter and one from the house guttering.
I bought two and the delivery chap gave me a spare one.I think he just wanted to get writ of them.
They are sturdy enough you got to watch around the tapes where they tend to leak.
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ON
I think most butts are made from polypropylene, which is famously difficult to glue, except by heat. I did see a hot glue gun with two temperature ranges a while ago - the hotter one being way above 100C - I was amazed that elf'n'safety hadn't got to it...
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>> ON
>>
>> I think most butts are made from polypropylene,
>>
I was replying to WdeB who was talking about an ABS repair using Lego. I have one of the Bosch two speed heat guns, I agree that it is ferocious on setting two.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Wed 24 Sep 14 at 11:41
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Sorry, ON - I was just highlighting the difference, as PP is such difficult stuff to stick.
WRT Lego, I'm more of a Meccano man (being that age) but I have to admire Lego for the quality of their moulding. The only reason it works is because of the fine tolerances, which are difficult to achieve with thermoplastics, given their tendency to shrink when cooling. It's notable that there are few successful Lego clones, and the few I've tried are conspicuously less good.
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Anyone remember Minibrix, brick-coloured rubber that plugged together? It was expensive and I didn't have it (good Meccano though and model trains, I really can't complain). It came with windows, doors and other features, and seemed terrific when one was six or seven, more boring after that.
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I progressed from Meccano to fixing cars and anything else I could take apart.
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Yep, I had minibrix as a kid. No Lego and not a lot of meccano. My mate had a fantastic Scalextric set and I remember playing for may hours with that.
Talking of which, I remember sometime from when I was very young something like the loom bands that is today's craze. I didn't make things with them, I would have thought it was my older sister, and would have therefore thought it was a late 60s thing. I can remember long keyrings and other things. SWMBO is more or less the same age as me but says I am wrong. Anyone else remember them? Something like this but older... www.craftnhome.com/key-ring-on-the-mini-loom.html
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My best toy was my tool kit.
My Dad gave me a small hammer and screwdriver, then I progressed to pliers and spanners and nothing was safe.
I never did have a doll;)
As I got older and started work, my love of tools still remained and my Verniers and Micrometer have been lovingly kept tucked away.
Pat
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You could get very thin coloured plastic tubing for pennies. Then you could weave or knit them together into strings, bracelets etc., or make small swords and other weapons by sticking pins through or down them.
Reply to smokie, not Pat!
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Wed 24 Sep 14 at 16:46
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>>Anyone else remember them? Something like this but older... www.craftnhome.com/key-ring-on-the-mini-loom.html
ISTR my sister having something similar. We were both born in the early sixties (last fortnight of 59 in my case)
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Wed 24 Sep 14 at 16:49
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Scoubydou - a sort of plastic knotting. Was hugely popular in 1959 and has had a number of revivals. I could still make you a key fob!
Somewhat reminiscent of the current craze for loom bands.
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" I could still make you a key fob!"
Fine - but could you make a water butt???
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A full sized one would be difficult. But with a watchmaker's glass and a very fine soldering iron he could make countless thousands of tiny ones.
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Actually I could probably knit you one. One of my minor accomplishments was teaching myself how to knit. Not sure it would hold water though.
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Ahhh OK, I was born in 55 so maybe my sis had the craze the first time round... (though that feels a bit too long ago, as do many things nowadays!!!) Found some Google links now, thanks
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Mending a plastic water butt - Zero
