1. Home
  2. ⏣ General Metalworking
  3. Colander Repair ~ 8 years later

Colander Repair ~ 8 years later

In RCM thread ?Colander Repair? (December 2009), I reported the failure of the spot welds holding the three feet onto my wife?s favorite colander, ideal for draining just-cooked pasta, that she had had for at least 30 years.

After much discussion on RCM, I settled on using solid stainless (18/8) steel rivets from McMaster-Carr. The repair was made in January 2010, and has held until now, when the two welds on one foot let go. The third weld had been failed and was drilled out and riveted in 2010. The foot now rotates freely around that rivet. This will not last. So replaced all the welds with rivets, from the box of 100 rivets purchased in 2010.

Drilled using a #41 drill (tight fit) and Mobilmet cutting oil. Took a lot of deburring - the bowl metal is very gummy. Installed rivets using an 8-ounce ball peen hammer and a piece of 1? diameter 4149 stock with one end turned flat to serve as the anvil. Wash the cutting oil off using very hot water and lots of dish detergent.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn
Loading thread data ...

That's the way to buy hardware. Given the single piece prices, it's often just a buck or two to move from the 10-pack up to a box of 100. And you always need 11 when they sell 10pks or 23 when they sell

20pks, don't you? Murphy is alive, well, and working in Hardware.

Drilling stainless can be tricky, can't it? I learned the hard way.

Don't you hate it when you have to repair something you've already fixed, just 8 years earlier? ;) I'm surprised that you didn't drill and rivet the third one then, though. If 2/3 of them had already failed...

Reply to
Larry Jaques

On Apr 30, 2017, Larry Jaques wrote (in article):

To your point, that box of 100 cost $7.

It isn?t tricky so much as different than 1018 and the like. With SS, one spins the bit slow and pushes hard without letting up until through, to undercut the work-hardened material at the bottom of the hole.

It was wel less than half of all welds that had failed in 2009, and my theory of the day was that the ones that failed were incompletely spot welded. One could see that the welds were uneven by looking at the weld spots on the inside surface of the bowl, so I drilled and riveted only the ones with underdone weld spots. Now we see that this theory is not totally correct - three spot welds may be sufficient here. I have a spot welder, but not one with the electrodes to tack feet to bowl bottom, or I?d do a ring of spot welds on each foot.

This time I just drilled and riveted all remaing spot welds. This should outlive me.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

Not bad.

Yes, I work-hardened the first hole and sacrificed the bit to finish it. It was a very expensive TiN coated HF bit, too.

"Oh, only half." he chided.

Yes.

But the rivets work well, do they not?

Bueno, bwana.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

On May 1, 2017, Larry Jaques wrote (in article):

Too soon to tell. Come back in ten years. And I still have 90 rivets.

I bet it will never fail, because a rivet head is 0.200? in diameter, versus a few tiny weld nuggets. Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

That's the way to buy hardware. Given the single piece prices, it's often just a buck or two to move from the 10-pack up to a box of 100.

*** Yeah. No freaking kidding. When I found out the nut and bolt vendor just that's closer to my house and shop than any of the hardware stores was open half a day on Saturday I celebrated. Not much more annoying than driving all the way to Lowes or Home Depot for a handful of screws that cost several dollars when I know I can box of a hundred for the same price (or less) at Copperstate.
Reply to
Bob La Londe

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.