If you build up the back side too much with weld or epoxy, then the plate will be pushed back. Is there a simple was to weld / braze / solder the frames? I've seen vendors at swap meets demonstrate the "magic" rod for brazing about anything. It looked like aluminum rod. Any ideas? thanks
When I choped my brothers 56 Chrysler I played around with pot metal a bit with success while chopping the vent window frame. I think I did use the rod from the swap meets as filler metal...or was it other pieces of pot metal... Can't rember. Anyways, I used some U shaped channel as a mold and melted the two pieces together with a propane torch, then filed the piece down to the shape I needed. Maybe try doing what I did and use a Dremel tool to grind out the excess material on the back side and file the front side. Be carefull...the pot metal does not give much warning before it turns into a puddle. Practice on some scrap piece until you are comfortable.
The problem you have with those "aluminum welding rods" is they are not really welding, they are soldering. There is no base metal melting and fusion is strictly surface bond. Think of a braze on steel, same idea just with different lower temp melting filler material.
Google "Muggy Weld" and see if that might work for you. I use that to repair a grille part once. Worked real well for a low stress area. Scott...
If it's thick enough,....(probably not), seperate the two broken ends by torqueing the frame, drill a couple small holes the size of two steel dowels, (wire or finish brads), pin the pieces together with the metal dowels & epoxy. Can you silver solder a "fish-plate" on the back if it's too thin?
As you originally suggested, try the aluminum brazing rod, Al, Cu, Zn alloy (fluxless). MP is 720*F, however this is pretty close to the MP for some pot metals. You do not want to melt the base metal. I don't think that you need a lot of structural strength, but the rod spec is 34K#/sq in. I've used the ABR 701 for Al. A downside is that it turns dark w/ oxidation.
Ive heard alumna weld works.I have never had any luck with repairing aluminum with it ,I heard the trick for potmetal is a small torch
I'm working on patching up a thermostat housing on an international harvester with a hairline crack in it. The guy I spoke to at the welding supply shop sold me some cadmium free rods that seem to work but I am still looking for a better solution.
Hello Guys. Thought I'd chime in on this century old problem.. Well. Even as old as this comment is, People are still trying to repair #potmetal either by gluing it with epoxy, JB weld (which still is epoxy) super glue and the like. Or soldering it will Muggyweld or some other soft solder. Gluing flat out does not work, and soldering works, but it you plan on rechroming, your selected plater will not chrome over muggyweld or the like. Pot metal is hard enough to chrome due to its inherent corrosion issues. Adding another soft material on top of that, you're looking at a desaster waiting to happen. Good news is, #potmetal can easily be welded. However it takes a very unique skillset to understand why it acts the way it does when it's brought up to its melting point to attempt to weld two pieces back together. This skillset, is something that has taken me quite some time to devolop. That said, Can Pot Metal be welded? You bet it can! There's only a handful of people in the world that can do it and make it look good and I happen to be one of them. Unfortunately, welding pot metal is one of those things that is so damned difficult for the average welder, they go into it thinking they're going to make it wet-up like aluminum and before they know it, it's already distroyed. Pot metal welding is so far from any other form of welding for this reason is why no one has bothered to figure out how to do it. Yeah, there are people who can gas weld it, problem is, it ususally is a complete mess when they're done. This is due to the inability to burn off the corrosion before the raw base metal starts to melt. See. Pot metal corrodes so damned fast and it takes as much heat to burn it away as it does to melt the base metal. That said, you end up melting the corrosion deeper into the base metal creating bubbled up mess that is full of porosity living very little strangth in the repair. However, there is hope. See my website for some of the potmetal repair's I've done. I wish I could teach ya'll how to weld pot metal, but due to it's nature, it would be an imposible task.
there is a welder here in town that can weld pot metal. [if you come in with the right attitude] he has done several pieces for me and they have held up
We can probably weld it with our laser welder. We can actually weld dissimilar metals with it!! You might be able to find a local laser welder, a lot of jewelers use them. The laser welder does not heat the parent metal other than the actual weld so no worry of it melting.
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