Bakelite/Catalin Repair?  

Bakelite...
..is a thermosetting plastic. Actually the very first manmade ever made. Being a thermosetting plastic with quite a lot of fillers (both mineral and organic fibers)it can be glued with most other thermo setting materials. Bakelite requires high pressure and heat to poly-condensate (the equivalent of polymerizing in thermo-plastics) but epoxy or polyester does not and poly-condensates at room temperature. I would mix some polyester in the right proportions after having added polyester colorant of the same brown color as the lamp shade or base to the resin and let it flow in the cracks (it might require a little bit of help. Remove the excess right away when the plyester starts to gel and clean with acetone. The acetone is not completely harmless for the bakelite (it will not dissolve it as it would with thermo-plastics) so, wipe it off completely. Do not use too much acetone because it will affect the curing of the repair. The polyester will not bound to the Phenolformaldehyde (Bakelite) but to the fillers in the bakelite. Considering that there is as much filler in it than resin, the bounding will be more than strong enough.
This Walter Dorwin Teague design is part of several museum design collections and certainly worth all the care you can give it. Good luck

Thanks
Thanks, koen. I've got a cheap old Bakelite radio to practice on, so I'll try polyester resin on it to see how that works.

There is some info here on...
There is some info here on bakelite repair (Repairing Bakelite Cabinets section)
http://www.vintage-radio.com/repair-restore-information/general_restore-...

he's ALIVE !!!!!!!!!!!!
Do not loose hope , it is I , hippie Artist, Dan Blake.
Actually that would be a hippie, AND, an Artist to be more correct.
Please go to my website Badartdog.us to see my work, and get hold of me for repairs, (I still do them on occasion)
Now serving your plastic needs in Jacksonville , FL.

Groovy
Thanks, Dan.

Before and after.
So it's fixed.
You can't tell from the camera-phone photo [why is it always nighttime when I want to take photos, and why is a real camera never nearby?], but the exterior of the repaired shade is absolutely flawless. There's no hint, even from six inches away with a strong light, that it was ever damaged.
If the shade is removed from the base, the cracks ARE visible as black hairlines in the white-painted interior. I suppose I could paint over them, but hiding all traces of the repair would make me feel dishonest. Besides, the cracks can't be seen when the shade and polarizer are in place.

Wow.
Seeing the multiple broken pieces, I'd never have guessed that such a great repair were possible. Good job!

Wow.
Who knew. Wonder how that was done?
Was the bakelite fragile from the heat or dropped?
What's the cool little box sitting on the left? A board game?

And. . .
who did the repair ? The owner ? Congratulations !

SDR and Rockland
SDR: No, I didn't do the repair, Dan Blake did.
Rockland: The shade broke when the lamp fell from a table. The thing on the left is the corner of a backgammon board designed by Shahen Pooladian for Zanazan.

bakelite Repair - Remoddeling
this is a good thread and I agree with Koen. But, regardless what kind of filler you use, you have to have a good "eye" and a faboulus "hand". The poloaroid desk lamp is only one example. From the complexity it is very easy to handle, in reason no "waves" ore other 3 dimensional oulines have to mould. But, what you have to know...Also the consistence of bakelit is most of the different. So you can´t compare one lamp with an other lamp. I remember a Jumo (Made in France) restauration. This bakelite was completly different to hande. Also specially the germans were very advanced in this technology. But, as I told the constistence is a problem (sometime wastes were included to get a strong mixture. I know a germany guy in Berlin, who is operating in this field. His background is design and architecture. He is aware of doing re-design, re-modelling and normal bakelite restauration. The Problem of all, he is very expensive - but this is ok, he is producing an outstanding quality, like Dan has done for the polaroid.

Polaroid Desk Lamp
Would be interesting to have an inside view, under the scone from the polaroid lamp ?!

The underside.
This is a poor-quality cellphone photo (as usual from me), and I didn't want to take the polarizer out of the lamp even though it filters some of the light... But I think this shows the hairline crack on the underside well enough.

Interesting Model
Hi, thanks for the pictures. I haven´t seen the polaroid with a wire (metal framing). Has sombody a picture with the original frosted glas ? Normaly its lost or broken during the time. I am interested in the hang-on mechanism for the glas. May sombody have some other photos ? Rgds