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Any tips on plastic adhesives? Trying to repair headphones (slrpnk.net)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/diy@slrpnk.net
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Hi DIY!

My headphones of many years recently broke. My first response was to attempt to glue them back together with super glue (ethyl 2-cyanoacrylate) however that didn't seem to hold. Not even a little bit.

I then did a bit of searching and found that Sony often use ABS plastic in headphone manufacture, so presumably these are ABS. I then read super glue should work okay on ABS, however there seemed to be no bonding happening at all.

Do any of you have any tips for the best kind of glue or epoxy to bond these plastic parts back together and get the music flowing again?

I plan on wrapping the joints in thread afterwards, for additional durability. But first I need to get them bonded.

A close up picture of headphones with the plastic connecting the headband to one of the cups being snapped
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[–] 5 points 3 months ago (3 children)

The problem with uv glue is it needs light to cure. So it can't be used to fill that broken area or inside the break itself. It can only coat the outside.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Not with that attitude (unscrews the entire thing and shoves in a UV light on a wire in the gaps)

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Next time I find myself with the right assortment of junk, it would be interesting to run a piece of optical fiber through UV glue inside an opaque enclosure and see if it helps the light get where it needs to go. There's decorative stuff that glows from the sides with a visible light source so I'd expect it to do something worthwhile in that situation. Could be a waste of materials for almost every possible use but maybe it'll solve a weird problem eventually.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    I never said it would be pretty. The other option would be to get some clay and make a mold around the break and then remove it and cut away at the break and replace the mold and UV the glue until it comes out as a resin and then take a buffer wheel to the UV Glue. Personally I would put up with the surface repair myself.

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