With the impending water restrictions we've eventually bought pool cover material from Brights hardware. The chappy at the counter gave me the name and details of a company that could do the joining/welding of the cover. Later yesterday I had a quick look on Youtube for tips about plastic welding and got an idea. It worked perfectly - and here's my description:
Turn the bubble sheet over so that the bubbles face up. Along one edge of the bubble sheet, tape masking tape all along. Next, align the two (or more) sheets that you need to join and stick short strips of masking tape across them to keep the sheets in place. Use a hot soldering iron ( I had an old one and bent the tip up so that it had a rounded foot) Use a long piece of wood or aluminium as a "ruler" to guide the soldering iron as you apply heat along the lengths that need to be joined. If you drag the soldering iron over the masking tape, you should do it slowly enough to turn the masking tape an onion skin brown colour - then you will have achieved a proper welding of the material. Just peel the masking tape off afterwards - and you have a perfect weld of your pool cover material.
Its slow, but its very effective - saves money - and quite rewarding afterwards
Turn the bubble sheet over so that the bubbles face up. Along one edge of the bubble sheet, tape masking tape all along. Next, align the two (or more) sheets that you need to join and stick short strips of masking tape across them to keep the sheets in place. Use a hot soldering iron ( I had an old one and bent the tip up so that it had a rounded foot) Use a long piece of wood or aluminium as a "ruler" to guide the soldering iron as you apply heat along the lengths that need to be joined. If you drag the soldering iron over the masking tape, you should do it slowly enough to turn the masking tape an onion skin brown colour - then you will have achieved a proper welding of the material. Just peel the masking tape off afterwards - and you have a perfect weld of your pool cover material.
Its slow, but its very effective - saves money - and quite rewarding afterwards
