[TheForge] Welding cast iron

[ries]

I have always had real good luck tig welding it, with either Silicon  
Bronze filler rod, (tig brazing) for lighter duty apps, or with a  
nickel rod.
The nickel is fiendishly expensive, but it works like a champ, and  
with most common cast irons, you dont even need to pre or post heat.
I was the cast iron tig repair guy at the last Repair Days at the  
Metals Museum in Memphis, and did an amazing pile of oddball cast  
stuff for two days straight- some of which was subsequently heated,  
bent, ground, cut, or otherwise post processed by other blacksmiths  
helping out there.
All of it worked just great.
Its true, you gotta have a Tig welder- but the results are much less  
chancy, and hold up better, than stabbin in the dark with a stick, or  
trying to use a torch without melting the whole piece.

Ries



On May 22, 2008, at 8:13 AM, David Childress wrote:

This suject came up at one of our recent meetings.  More specifically
the subject was welding cast firepots.  Anyway several people had
heard preheat then mig with acast rod with copper wire wrapped around
it and then cool very slowly.  No one had tried this themselves.  This
sounds like a low lose chance to try the method.

David Childress
Rocky Forge Blacksmith Guild

On 5/19/08, IowaHarry <iowaharry at fastmail.net> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
>  I'm sure this has been asked before but here goes anyhow. I have  
> broken
> the vise nut in my chinese vise shaped object(bench vise). I first  
> did it
> about fifteen years ago, welded it, I don't remember what stick I  
> used but I
> twisted a little too hard and broke it again. I spent some time  
> looking for
> this on the net and most said to braze. So I brazed it. I threw  
> another
> wrinkle in it as well. The crack was on the diagonal behind the nut  
> proper
> so we cut the nut away from the base completely and made a black  
> steel base
> to braze to. I would guess it to be A36.  I did this at work so I  
> did not
> have access to the forge but we preheated, brazed, kept the heat up  
> for a
> while, then dropped it in a bucket of sand for the rest of the day.  
> Didn't
> hold for beans. It didn't stick to the steel not the cast side.  In  
> the past
> I had spent some time making brazing repairs to large radiator coils  
> so I
> thought I had an idea on how to do it. Maybe I don't. I have also  
> had some
> difficulty finding steel acme threaded nut to replace it with.
>
>  So, there is my story of woe. Any advice?
>
> Harry
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Ries Niemi
Industrial Artist
http://www.riesniemi.com/