Casting resin and composite decking?

[Jesse Tutterrow]

I got talked into rebuilding a neighbor's deck using UltraDeck® Rustic™ Low-Maintenance Composite Decking. I tried using epoxy to glue two scraps together and the bond would not hold.

I was considering asking a friend to take some scraps and cast them into a bottle stopper blank. I would turn the bottle stopper as a thank you gift for his business.

If epoxy won't stick two scraps together will casting resin bond to the scraps?

 

[Bill Boehme]

If it is like some of the other decking that I have seen it is probably mostly polyethylene and if there is any kind of glue that will bond to it I'm not aware of it.

Google says that you can apply polyolefin primer to one surface and CA to the other and then quickly clamp the surfaces together.
Permabond Polyolefin Primer

 

[Mike Johnson]

You could try heating some pieces in an oven and then pressing them under high pressure to mold the pieces into one billet.
Some people use a metal baking pan to hold the heated pieces in and then place the baking pan with plastic pieces under a hydraulic
press and put a flat steel plate on top of the hot plastic and put some pressure on the plastic to mold them into one piece when they cool.
Some of these plastics used for decking are recycled plastic which usually means they can be re-melted.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Something to consider is once you turn beneath the faux wood grain surface the piece of decking will just look like a piece of polyethylene mixed with wood dust filler. If the decking is faux cedar it might be much easier and less expensive to go to the local home center and buy a real cedar fence post and then try to make the real thing look like the imitation thing that's trying to look like the real thing.

 

[Jesse Tutterrow]

If it is like some of the other decking that I have seen it is probably mostly polyethylene and if there is any kind of glue that will bond to it I'm not aware of it.

Google says that you can apply polyolefin primer to one surface and CA to the other and then quickly clamp the surfaces together.
Permabond Polyolefin Primer

So if I apply this primer I can then cast the pieces into a hybrid blank? I am concerned that if glue will not stick then the casting resin will not stick.

 

[Bill Boehme]

So if I apply this primer I can then cast the pieces into a hybrid blank? I am concerned that if glue will not stick then the casting resin will not stick.

No the instructions said specifically to apply the polyolefin primer on one surface and cyanoacrylate to the other and then clamp together under pressure. As far as I know, the polyolefin primer is not available a a retail product. I believe that your concerns about any adhesive being very effective are well founded. I still believe that turning the bottle stoppers out of real wood will give infinitely better results not to mention that a cedar fence post will be far less costly.

 

[Ron Borowicz]

I've had good results using MANUS-BOND 75-AM. I used it on outdoor furniture made from re-cycled milk jugs. Seven - eight years ago I made up 3 test pieces. I used 2 Adhesive products from 3M and the MANUS-BOND 75-AM. I just checked these pieces and the MANUS-BOND is still holding even with a good smack with a mallet. The other test pieces are starting to separate.