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I am trying to recreate the plastic cover which holds the art cover, of a DVD or Bluray case. I have suitable transparent plastic, but don't know how I should join/glue the edges to the case.

I have tried using super glue, however that leaves a visible gluey area behind the clear plastic cover.

How might I achieve a simmilarly clean join as a real DVD/Bluray case?

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  • Hi Josh, can you show us what plastic you have?
    – Joachim ♦
    Commented May 1, 2020 at 9:41
  • There are many case types, but I can guess what you are after. Those thin plastic slip covers appear to be heat welded to the case body. You can get soldering iron tips that are made for that kind of thing, but you are better off getting a new intact case from somebody. At less than a dollar a pop, maybe a friend will give you one if you cannot afford the 12 bucks or so for pack of them.
    – rebusB
    Commented May 7, 2020 at 13:33

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The case components are each molded as a single piece, not glued from flat sheets. They're dirt cheap to purchase already made; you'll go through a lot of work to make one from scratch. Consider just buying one (or a package of them when they're practically given away on sale).

If your goal is making one from scratch, solvent welding would be the way to do it without marring the plastic with excess glue. The edges to be joined need to be very smooth and mate together well. Typically, the edge of one piece is butted against the face or edge of another piece. A micro-pipette is used to allow capillary action to draw a tiny amount of solvent into the joint (which requires good mating for capillary action to work), which chemically welds the surfaces together. Lucite objects are often assembled this way.

I've had good luck with this product available from Micro-Mark, I assume you can get the same or similar at hobby stores or from a retailer like Amazon:

enter image description here

The solvent needs to be appropriate for the type of plastic you're using. The applicator is a glass capillary tube with an extremely fine metal capillary tube attached. You dip the applicator in the solvent and the solvent is drawn into the tube. Then you touch the tip to the joint and solvent is drawn between the mating surfaces (and nowhere else).

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  • Thanks for your answer. To clarify, I don't mean actualy hard plastic enclosure, but how the flexible, transparent, paper thin, cover is joined at the front and back edges. Not sure if solvent would still be suitable, but I'll check it out, thanks.
    – Josh Kahane
    Commented Apr 30, 2020 at 21:27
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    I've never seen a case like you describe, so I did an online search. I came across this with a pocket for the art cover: cdrom2go.com/content/images/sitecdrom2go/blog/…. Is that pocket what you're referring to? If so, that looks like it's heat welded at the case edges. If you can confirm the case style, I'll modify the answer to address trying to accomplish that at home.
    – fixer1234
    Commented May 1, 2020 at 1:33

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