: ok Paul here goes;
: what's a resistance wire?

Any wire that gets hot when you put an electric current through it. usually the material is "Nichrome" but sometimes stainless steel or some other alloy is used. The heating element in your toaster is a resistance wire. If you have a broken toaster you can remove the wire and stretch it out. That would make kind of a long heating element, though.

Resistance wire is sold with a rating of so many ohms per meter, or ohms per foot. With a shorter resistance wire you use lower voltage. You can use batteries with short wires. In fact, some craft stores sell hot wire cutters for cutting plastic foam. These things take "d" cel batteries. The hot wires for these should get hot enough, and you might be able to buy the replacement wires alone for a few dollars.

In the far north you can frequently find resistance wires sold for heating the eaves of houses to prevent icedams above gutters, or you'll see them marketed for keeping waterpipes from freezing. These devices usually are designed to work on 110 volt ( or 220v). If you get one and cut it in half, and then attach that to the same voltage you'll get a higher heat. You can shorten the wire, or increase the voltage up to the point where it melts itself.

There is an obvious, major, safety issue here. You get the most concentrated heat from a bare wire, but removing the insulation is kinda stupid, as you would be basically handling a bare wire that was plugged into the wall socket. That could be fatal. Write your own obituary before you take this path.

There are a few insulated resistane wire, or wire heating elements sold. You might look for one. I'd tyr to find one I could run off of 12 olts, and then connect it to a car battery -- less of a shock hazard, and plenty of amps available.

: how would i build one?

Read back in the previous posting. i think I covered it pretty well.

: what voltage/power source?

that depends on the resistance wire you get. If you go with the wires used for cutting foam you might run them off of one or two "D" cell batteries. If you find surplus elecronics you might have to go with whatever specs they were designed for. A rheostat or a transformer might be useful for controlling the temperature.

A while ago I got some heatign elements from American Science and surplus ( www.sciplus.com) They were about $2 each. Checking their online caalog i see they still have them listed. They get good and hot on 110 volts and are insulated so you aren't handling bare wires. If you check their site and search for "heating element" they'll list these, as well as the heating parts from a clothes iron -- which might be a good thing to try, too, although they mention that it get REAL hot and you might want ot put a temp control switch on it.

I think these would work:

http://www.sciplus.com/singleItem.cfm?terms=2945

: what would be the proper temp range for what thickness of vinyl?

The temp range would be the same, but the time you would need to heat the material and keep it hot would vary with the thickness. Experiment.

The stuff melts somewhere between the temperature of boiling water ( 100 C or 212 F) and the temperature of cooking a frozen pizza ( 400F or about 205 C) This I know from experience as the stuff won;t melt in boiling water, but it does if I set a hot oven tray on it! I'd say that you would want to work at about 325F to 350F (or about 160 to 180 C)

Actually, though, these ranges are "Best guesses" as I have not built such a tool.

: i have never had any luck glueing plastics of any kind. what is the name of
: the glue that you are so happy with?

VLP as in Vinyl Liquid Plastic, or Vinyl Liquid Patch.

Here is a URL to a company that sells it. the product is pictured on their web page

http://www.emocs.com/coolstufflex.htm

This web site I have not dealt with, they just happened to come up on a search, and had a picture of the product. They want almost $5 for it. I get it at the local hardware store for about $3. Craft stores may have it too.

You can also look for vinyl repair adhesives at any place that sells swimming pool accessories. They may have other brands. Also, Sevylor has a fine adhesive they use for patching their vinyl boats. Seems to be the same stuff as VLP.

Finally, I found a site for a company that sells materials for repairing vinyl tops for autos and boats. They have a vinyl cement called HH-66. you might want to contact them for information on this.

http://www.b-dco.com/RHProd.html

Hope this helps

PGJ