Interior plastic repair recommendations?

[lanejacobs84]

Does anyone have an idea on the best way to repair our cracked interior plastic where the curtain rod Molly screw has pulled out and fractured the plastic? 

Maybe some type of “splint”?

Thank you!

1979 J

 

[hammdo]

I did some work on mine, maybe this will give some ideas..,,

 

[EricJ]

It's ABS plastic, which is very easy to repair.   You can weld it with a soldering iron, or use a slurry of ABS pieces and acetone to glue/fuse it, and reinforcing pieces can be made with ABS sheet and heated to form into shape.   Other glues/adhesives/methods also work, and there's a ton of stuff online about various techniques.

[N201MKTurbo]

When the plastic becomes brittle, there is no fixing it. You could add a thin fiberglass backing.

[anthonydesmet]

Completely repairable.  I’ve repaired as EricJ stated. I have also bought Bruce Jeager’s interior repair kit which comes with a few ways to patch up things.  Looking at yours I would use some 3M Aluminum strips as backing, take a piece of abs plastic (you can get online or in Bruce’s kit and attach to the tape then fill in cracks with ABS PVC glue (the blue label), sand and paint.  Whine you start with that repair you will want to repair and repaint all your panels…..I did.  It was actually fun and you get to put some personality into it…..

[Brian2034]

Simple process to repair plastic interior panels with epoxy resin and fibreglass cloth.

I’ll post a couple pictures of a recent repair I just did on one of our aircraft. The before door image shows a piece missing and if you look closely you will see the plastic panel is actually cracked in a couple of places and the only thing holding the panel together is the door frame. 
The other interior trim piece was broken into three parts and the centre had a missing section that was long gone.

I use EPOXY resin and fibreglass cloth usually 7781 from spruce but you can go to your local fibreglass shop a purchase a light weight glass cloth.

Usually I hot glue the pieces back together and sometimes if the parts are really damaged I glue them to a board or the bench top with hot glue to hold them in place. Hot Glue the parts on the exterior side (the exposed side you see in the aircraft). For the missing areas use what ever you require to make the shape of the missing area. I use foil tape as my first alternative because you can rub a little mould release wax on the tape and the epoxy won’t stick to it. I’ve used cardboard, tape, plastic from containers, aluminum foil, believe it or not one of my best products for complicated shapes is PlayDo. What ever it takes to hold the shape required.  Also I use epoxy resin over other resins because  it adheres to the plastic better than vinyls or polyester. When the part cures you can touch up the front side with a little body filler or epoxy resin and q-cell mixture. Than off to the local auto store to pick up a spray can of whatever paint that matches the finish required.

[Brian2034]

[Brian2034]

Couple of parts I pulled a mold from and made new parts but you can see on the broken parts where I used foil tape, tongue depressors,  hot glue , body filler but it gives and idea of what can be accomplished.