Hot welding of linoleum: tool, video

Linoleum attracts with high performance, a pleasant price, durability, an abundance of design options. However, if a section of the roll does not cover the entire volume of the room and you have to combine several pieces, the seams spoil the picture. Even with the most high-quality and professional laying in the joints of the material, he begins to bully. To eliminate this unpleasant moment, creating a solid surface, cold or hot welding of linoleum will help.

Types of welding: what is the difference?

Connection options linoleum joints:

• Cold welding. It is carried out using special glue, which melts the edges of the paintings, which, when dried, are combined into a single whole. It is used mainly to get rid of unaesthetic joints that appear during the laying of household linoleum. Depending on the size of the gap and the type of material, adhesives of types “A”, “C” and “T” are used. This method is suitable for repairing a damaged coating.
• Hot. The role of the welding tool is played by a building hair dryer, heating the material to 350–400 ° С during operation. Due to the high cost and complexity of implementation, it is rarely used at home. for connecting commercial linoleum in public and industrial premises with high patency.

When deciding how to weld linoleum, you need to rely on the features of the coating, the complexity and geometry of the joints.

The specifics of performing hot welding

Hot welding for linoleum involves the creation of a hermetically sealed seam. To ensure that the connection is guaranteed to be even, the coating strips are overlapped, cut with a sharp knife along the line.

Welding should begin after the linoleum material is firmly bonded with adhesive to the floor. Due to the need to quickly complete the procedure, the master requires some experience and skill. Cutting and grinding of the docking cord is carried out before it cools down, otherwise the resulting surface will look unpresentable. An ordinary soldering iron, as in the old fashioned way, is not enough in this case.

Advantages of the technique:

• High tightness of the resulting compound.
• Greater reliability than cold welding.

A restriction on the performance of such bonding is the possibility of use only for hard types coatings, the decorative attractiveness of which will not decrease under the influence of high temperatures. Usually this is commercial linoleum, including on a felt basis. The disadvantages include the need to use a specialized tool.

Tools and materials

In addition to the flooring itself, you will need:

• Welded cord for filling the seam, similar in composition to linoleum. Under the influence of high temperature, the edge melts, the harness penetrates into the material. To guarantee a high-quality result, you should purchase a cord in specialized stores.

• Building hair dryerequipped with a thermostat to control the heating temperature. Qualitative models of hot air guns can heat air up to 600–700 ° С.
• Special nozzles for the hair dryer.
• Groove Chisel.
• Crescent knife. Can be replaced with scissors with arcuate blades. The tool is used to remove excess deposits.

In the absence of experience in “communication” with the hot air gun, it is recommended to give preference to cold welding, which is suitable for both domestic and commercial linoleum.

Hot welding process technology

Work order:

1. We carefully lay the material so that a uniform seam of minimum thickness is obtained. We expand the joint with a chisel, preparing with its help a groove for subsequent laying of the cord.
2. Using a powerful vacuum cleaner, we thoroughly clean the place of the future joint from debris.
3. We install a special nozzle on the hairdryer.
4. We fill the welding rod, after which we connect the tool and heat it to 350–400 ° С.
5. With the tip of a building hair dryer, press the cord into the previously made groove. The formation of a monolithic connection takes a couple of seconds.
6. Similarly, fill the entire connecting line. With the right speed, melting the cord and filling the grooves will occur evenly.
7. Having completed welding, we remove unnecessary deposits using a sickle-shaped knife and special nozzles designed to trim the cord.
8. Carefully monitor the deposition. In order not to deform the surface of the canvas, the nozzle is installed parallel to the floor material.
9. Having removed the excess cord, we proceed to the process of grinding the seam. For this purpose, an “nulevka” emery cloth glued to a wooden block is used.

To understand the principles of hot welding, we recommend watching the training video.

Expected Difficulties

Having become acquainted with the main stages of the hot bonding of linoleum, you can decide that this process is a very simple event. However, professionals point out some difficulties:

• Low prevalence of welding cords. The implementation of such building materials is carried out in a limited number of outlets.
• A specialized tool (hot air gun) has a high cost (from 20 thousand rub.). For one-time procedures, it is wiser to rent it.
• The probability of damage to the coating due to ignorance of the principles of operation of the equipment, lack of practical experience.

Given the above, to summarize: for beginners to undertake hot welding with their own hands, it is not recommended without the help of a specialist, even after watching the training videos. Indeed, without the proper experience acquired over the years, there is a risk of simply spoiling the flooring.