How to glue bamboo barrier

June 21, 2009 10:46 PM

How do I glue (or otherwise connect) two pieces of plastic bamboo barrier?

So I have a stand of bamboo in my yard (japonica), and it's broken through the barrier that the previous owners put in to contain it. I've dug out an area around the breach, and want to join another piece of this barrier to the old stuff. But I can't figure out how to bond two pieces of this plastic together. I can't tell what kind of plastic it is, so I'm not sure what kind of glue is appropriate, but it's a thick, black, glossy, flexible plastic (vinyl?), and I've seen it used for containing bamboo before. Here's a picture of some of the stuff, if that helps.

I've tried PVC cement and a two-part epoxy (Loctite). Neither worked. After waiting 24 hours, the two pieces pulled apart with a weak tug: it's like the adhesive never bonded to the plastic surface. I've considered heavy-duty staples or something, but I'm afraid if I puncture the barrier, bamboo rhizomes will wriggle through the hole.

I've found a few ideas on the Internet, but none of them sound that great (wrap it in lots of duct tape; use double-sided tape; overlap the barrier, put a 2x4 on each side, bolt them together). Surely some mefite has an elegant solution to this!

posted by molybdenum to home & garden (13 comments total)

Superglue. It glues stuff. Super, erm, superly.
posted by pompomtom at 11:10 PM on June 21

There are a lot of things it isn't good for, I'm afraid, and I'm sure this is one of them.

I think you should consider replacing it. Pull out all the old plastic sheets, and put in something like corrugated aluminum.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:18 PM on June 21

If you can overlap it, use contact cement. Roughen the surfaces with coarse sandpaper, apply glue to both surfaces, let dry ten minutes or so, align (you won't be able to move it after it touches), and press together. The solvent based glue works better than the water based stuff, in my experience, but the fumes are bad.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:29 PM on June 21

The bamboo stand in question is about fifteen feet long and four feet wide, and the barrier goes three feet into the ground. I'd love to use metal, but replacing it would be a major excavation project.

And yeah, superglue is indeed super for lots of stuff, but I thought that about epoxy cement, too. But it failed utterly. Might work, but I'm skeptical.
posted by molybdenum at 11:31 PM on June 21

Superglue is not designed for this. The moisture in the ground will dissolve the bond.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:33 PM on June 21

Duct tape is what I would try. Both sides.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:05 AM on June 22

Hot melt glue, the high temp stuff.
posted by hortense at 12:10 AM on June 22

pandemonium, contact cement sounds like a good idea. Thanks for the suggestion.

DarlingBri, I was considering duct tape, too. I was just thinking of cases in the past where I've dug up stuff that had been duct-taped together, and seen the tape mostly disintegrated, just the mesh remaining. I was afraid mine would rot, too over the years.
posted by molybdenum at 1:05 AM on June 22

I can think of some solvents in lab that would be interesting to try - THF and chloroform come to mind - but these wouldn't be useful to you because they'd be hard to get a hold of.

HDPE seems to be the plastic of choice for these things. It appears that they "weld" it to repair it using a heat gun and some extra HDPE that can be bought in rod form.
posted by sciencegeek at 4:46 AM on June 22

Springboarding off sciencegeek's idea, could you use an iron to soften and fuse the pieces together? I really don't know how tough that stuff is.
posted by lakeroon at 5:58 AM on June 22

Also check out your local building supply store for caulking tubes of construction adhesive. They make some space-age stuff nowadays.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 6:39 AM on June 22

punch holes up the sides of the two pieces, and lash them together with nylon cord, then fill any gaps with hot glue.

Alternatively, dust off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
posted by jimfl at 6:54 AM on June 22

There is a site dedicated to advice on glue; This to That
posted by fief at 3:48 PM on June 22