Issue concerning reproduction exterior door handle

I had my ears syringed the other day, a good shipwright could have built the fo'c'sul & poop on a tall ship with what came out,

Goodwood wrote:

As a further update, I have been in touch with both RimmerBros and Xpart concerning these part failures. They affirmed that I am the first customer to complain about this. They stated they sell many of these handles and never have a problem. As a measure of goodwill, they offered to send a new handle. I recommended to them that they make this part with a thicker post to improve on the original flawed design. I doubt Xpart will but both companies were nonetheless responsive and polite.

How interesting, that's exactly the same response I got when I complained about the Suplex spring in a can system.:dry: :pop: :slapme:

As you have a scrap broken handle in the correct colour you could play with it, how about drill the hole out and as deep as possible to accept a piece of internally threaded tube to take a bolt. Fix it in place with 2 pack epoxy and also build up around and down to the handle where possible like a cone taking into account clearances to refit. If you do this I advise using a Dremel or similar to clean and roughen up all surfaces involved, even that ragged broken edge is now contaminated by handling.

I think the take away from this post by Deepfat is surface prep etc. Rough up the mating surface, cross hatch scoring I find to be effective, the thicker the material the deeper the cuts can be & make sure it’s chemically clean. Cellulose thinners is good as it opens the surface of plastics even more, a bit on a cotton bud is good for getting into corners. “Waxy plastics”won’t take adhesives well, ABS & acrylic will. Use sparingly unless you are building a “wall” to add strength, which is usually the preserve of two pack. UV curing adhesives can be effective in building thickness but you get what you pay for & Superglue is only super if it works.

Loctite actually make superglues that are especially formulated for plastics, they have different grades for different plastics.

I've had good success with Everbuild but Loctite, even the GP stuff is super & becomes unbeatable after a squirt of activator. Even crap "cyanoacrylate" would stick a pigs nose to a dogs arse after a squirt of activator.

Airportable wrote:

I've had good success with Everbuild but Loctite, even the GP stuff is super & becomes unbeatable after a squirt of activator. Even crap "cyanoacrylate" would stick a pigs nose to a dogs arse after a squirt of activator.

This practice poses many questions
Do you habitually stick pig’s noses to dog’s arses?
Is it some sort of ritual thing? Or just a jolly good wheeze?
Do they enjoy it? If they’re not willing participants? is it some sort of punishment?
Is it just a pig’s nose from a slaughterhouse that’s glued directly to the dog’s arse, if so when the dog farts does it sound like a pig? ie squeals or grunts? How does the no modified dog lay a cable, or barker’s egg?
So many questions!

And does it activate the dog when you squirt activator on it arse? I know it would activate me to run away! Especially if it stings as much as I imagine it would! Mind you just the thought of a squirting anything at my arse will bring a somewhat exited, violent negative reaction from me.

Don't hold any store by that Cobber, I'm just trying on some new sayings & idioms for this new regnal epoch. Having gained a reaction from one of my most recent I'm encouraged to see how some of these float.
It’s a small world, unless you have to paint it.
Even though the early bird catches the worm, it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.
Always borrow from a pessimist, they don’t expect it back.
What was the best thing before sliced bread?
The darkest hour is just before dawn, which is the best time to nick your neighbours news paper & milk.
A walk of 10,000 paces starts with a broken fan belt and a flat battery.
Never criticize a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes, besides if he doesn’t like what you've said you’re a mile away and you have his shoes.
Never learn from the mistakes of others try and make them all yourself.
All experience is gained just after you need it.
Recognise a mistake when you make it again.
It a rare man that makes the same mistake once.
You will never forget that which you never needed to know.

Airportable wrote:

Don't hold any store by that Cobber, I'm just trying on some new sayings & idioms for this new regnal epoch. Having gained a reaction from one of my most recent I'm encouraged to see how some of these float.
It’s a small world, unless you have to paint it.
Even though the early bird catches the worm, it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.
Always borrow from a pessimist, they don’t expect it back.
What was the best thing before sliced bread?
The darkest hour is just before dawn, which is the best time to nick your neighbours news paper & milk.
A walk of 10,000 paces starts with a broken fan belt and a flat battery.
Never criticize a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes, besides if he doesn’t like what you've said you’re a mile away and you have his shoes.
Never learn from the mistakes of others try and make them all yourself.
All experience is gained just after you need it.
Recognise a mistake when you make it again.
It a rare man that makes the same mistake once.
You will never forget that which you never needed to know.

Very funny...I have heard some of these before but not all.

As a follow up to my prior post I am attaching the second batch of photos relating to the second failed door handle. The plastic posts on this one lasted less than 1 hour. As you can see, it did not even crack, the entire post just snapped off at the base and the body of the post was still attached to the bolt when I removed it. The traces of blue around the post are remnants of loctite (it probably had not even the change to dry before the post broke). This part is brand new. Out of curiosity - when you tighten the standard door handle screws - what sort of tool did you use? I used a ratchet (very gently and slowly).

After giving this some thought, I decided to try putting 2 screws through the one of broken door handles. It was already broken (but painted) so I felt I had nothing to lose. Maybe I also felt too embarrassed to go back to the painter a third time. The tricky part is that the hole for the screw comes out at a very awkward spot - basically right in the center of where the handle curves downward and where the door pull has to open (hard to explain without seeing it). You need to dremel quite a bit of plastic away in order for the screw to be flush and to not block the door pull. The screw has to be countersunk (no round heads), which is why a dremel is required. I will take some pictures in the coming days and post them with a bit more explanation. It actually seems to be holding pretty well for now. With the machine screws, it actually feels quite tight and solid. We will see how long it lasts.

If I had to do it a second time (well, actually, it would be my fourth...), I would improve on my 'dremeling' to make it look less amateur (when I started, I was just focused on seeing if it was actually possible - I was not even sure it would work or if I would use it) but overall it turned out OK (if you don't look too carefully). It is an odd corner to shape 'right' (not that I am much of a PVC sculptor anyhow). I chose M6 x 25 stainless screws with allen heads - to try to match the look of the fuel filler cap. I also used a couple of small rubber grommets behind the door handle on the screw (on one side at least where there was no post left - see my earlier photo of the first broken handle) in order to give a bit of support behind the plastic (where there was no post left - without the post and after the dremel, there is not much plastic left). Also, the small rubber grommets hold onto the screw (unlike washers) which makes mounting much easier (instead of falling down into the door when you are trying to line things up). Anyhow, maybe not the solution for everybody but it answers the question that it is doable.

I am generally a fan of doing things properly with new OEM parts as the factory designed, but in this case, I felt justified in straying from originality by using a bit of my own originality. I guess I am slowing becoming a 'real' MGF / MG TF owner...

There are a couple of aspects that are interesting & both pertain to the use of loctite. Firstly how compatable with the plastic is the loctite grade you have used? A goodly number of sealants designed for metal application do not react well on some polymers. Secondly & this could be more significant. As you drive your self tapper into the pillar the thread form will create a seal against the thread wall, trapping & compressing the fluid loctite in. There is no way for that pressure to release rapidly enough & so it could easily blow the the pillar into pieces. These two aspects when working in tandem could be at the root of your problem.

I see little useful purpose in using a Loctite type anaerobic compound to retain threaded fasteners in plastics, the very nature of most plastics will do a fairly good job of gripping the threads in new material. Often to the point of working too well and making it impossible to undo the fastener without doing damage.
Therefore use of Loctite on these will almost certainly end in tears before bedtime, as the plastic component is almost certain to break.

Indeed whist Loctite is a very useful tool, it is by and large over used, and even when it’s use is justified it is splashed around with gay abandon, and can migrate to to things it shouldn’t during assembly………. Things like seals and bearings!
On several occasions I’ve had to deal with someone else’s over zealous use of the stuff.
Including one case where an over enthusiastic “tradesman” (for want of a better term) had used way to much of the stuff and it had migrated into labyrinth seals that weren’t just NLA but even back when they were still available they were made from the purest unobtainium! What was worse he’d used the wrong grade, a bearing retaining compound… this stuff can stick like shit to a blanket!
It took me days to get that shit outta the seals, by drowning then in solvent and manually turning them by hand and then lubricating them by drowning the in trilube and working them by hand again until they were free to turn

Repeated use, where many threading cycles can be expected over the life of the plastic components, such as to gain access for routine maintenance, should have metal thread inserts moulded into the plastic or use metal nuts or clips to thread into.
The more times a fastener is screwed in and out of a plastic thread, will severely increase the odds of the threaded hole in the plastic failing due to thread stripping or the parent plastic splitting.
The use of Loctite in these situations will almost always lead to failure.
Only poorly designed plastic components rely on plastic thread’s for repeated use.

Loctite do also make various superglue type adhesives especially formulated for different plastics, these are not to be used as thread lockers or sealants! They are to be only used to stick plastic shit together.
So might be useful in gluing broken bits back together, but still must be used sparingly as you wouldn’t want any excess to migrate where it would be detrimental to to the components….. such as getting into threaded holes.
And great care would be required upon reassembly so as not to rebreak the area of the repair, as the repair will never be as good as the original part.
No matter how shitty the original part was to begin with.

I agree. Do not use loctite with plastic parts. Period. I never did that before and never will again. It seems (from what I have subsequently read on the internet) that it can both degrade PVC plastic as well as expand as it dries. It is not intended for plastic. Now I know.

This might explain the 'immediate' failure of handle #2. Although, as you can see from the photos, the loctite did not even have enough time to dry as it spilled over to the area around the base when it broke. Unsure how quickly it can degrade PVC but if it was the cause, it was almost immediate.

I did not however use any loctite on handle #1 (see photos, no loctite), That handle lasted about a week or two.