acetone and ABS plastic

[Martian]

does acetone still fuse ABS? I tried and it didn't seem to do anything, and, does acetone go bad? this stuff is a few years old

[multidon]

I never heard of acetone fusing ABS. It does fuse cellulose. I think with ABS you have to go with something like Duco or CA.

[Martian]

thanks , I was wondering, because, looking back, my acetone, is 8-10 years old. . If that is the case, I will not order the binding gluing jig for sale at stew mac, because I hate the idea of the haz-mat charge for celluloid, thanks again

[Walt]

Acetone will definitely dissolve ABS. I recently melted down a bunch of ABS binding for gap filling. I've never tried laminating binding, though, so not sure whether or not it works well for that.

[Drew Streip]

Acetone will definitely dissolve ABS. I recently melted down a bunch of ABS binding for gap filling. I've never tried laminating binding, though, so not sure whether or not it works well for that.

Yes, it definitely works. I made a quick laminating jig (basically a bandsaw kerf in a piece of maple, lined with wax paper) for my StewMac dreadnought kit. I took the two pieces of black and white ABS, brushed acetone on 6-8" at a time, and fed it through the saw kerf slowly. It's been finished over 6 months and it's fine).

Two observations:
1) I had to redo a few places that I probably pushed through too fast. Make sure the work area is fully covered with acetone.
2) It would probably work even better if you roughed up the mating surfaces with some 220 grit before laminating them.

[multidon]

Sorry for passing along bad information. Obviously those guys have more experience with it than I do.

[Martian]

Sorry for passing along bad information. Obviously those guys have more experience with it than I do.

hey son, no sweat, i still do not know if acetone goes bad though,lol

[Drew Streip]

Don — I seriously doubt I have *more* experience (I’m a rank amateur) but my recent experience was a good one! I used celluloid binding for my most recent project and it was a much more noticeable “melting”.

I used an acetone based glue on a faux-tortoise pick guard and it worked well, too:


Original 1913 on the left, New on the right.