To be clear, I’m not asking how to repair it, I’m just trying to understand in general terms why it is so difficult to repair effectively when on paper it seems like typically an easier material to work with than wood or metal (both of which are fairly trivial to repair).
Flagging this post as chemistry because I suspect that’s part of the answer, but it might very well be a physics problem instead.
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Plastic is similar in it’s repairability to wood or metal. Wood can be glued and jointed and then disguised with paint or stain. Metal can be welded or soldered and then painted depending on it’s application. plastic while often appearing like any other plastic can be made of many different types of plastics and the key to repair is identifying what type of plastic. Almost all plastic repair involves heating, or a chemical reaction of solvents and glue to finish a repair. There are plastic welders to repair some plastics but cosmetically they may not be appealing when a bond is completed though functional. Why plastic isn’t repaired often comes down to cost. It’s often cheapest to simply replace it and dispose of the old part due to the low cost of the material.
Not a very good ELI5 but nobody has responded.
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