welding broken cast iron????

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Re: welding broken cast iron????

Postby LarryC39 on Fri Sep 20, 2013 10:35 am

That's a structural piece :shock: I personally wouldn't trust it to be repaired and hold a load as iron is brittle to start with and after the repair it's undergone who knows what kinds of changes.

That said, it's common to glue it, or as some people call it, brazing it with brass. Welding is also quite feasible, in fact you can even stick weld cast iron. That is how my porthole door was repaired, no preheat, just sticked. Warping is a major issue though, as is getting deep penetration.

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But it does look nice when done, and quite easy to machine. Iron is self lubricating.
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Re: welding broken cast iron????

Postby EdT. on Fri Sep 20, 2013 10:44 am

LarryC39 wrote:Welding is also quite feasible, in fact you can even stick weld cast iron. That is how my porthole door was repaired, no preheat, just sticked.

Holy hell, that door was in a million pieces. Did you have all the bits or did you have to do some filling?

Preheating is normally done on larger pieces that act as a heat sink (the weld area never gets hot enough because the heat is dissipated to the surrounding metal).
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Re: welding broken cast iron????

Postby LarryC39 on Fri Sep 20, 2013 10:50 am

What did we have Jay, two or three?

I had all the parts for all but one. The last one was re-assembled from the partial 2-3 extra halfa doors I had lying around.

These would have benefited from preheating, like I said they really tried to warp when welding. It's also better to let them bake and slowly un-bake them after welding to lower the odds of warpage.
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