- posted 13 years ago
Greetings all.
Turning once again to the wisdom of the group for advice on a
peripherally
metalworking topic:
Does anyone have any experience/advice dewarping a cast-iron casting?
I have a cast iron part (radiator bolster from a Farmall cub) that had
water
freeze in it and bulge & crack it (previous owner's indiscretion). He
also
brazed up the crack, but didn't work the bulge back out. The problem
with the bulge, is that it throws the mounting surface for the
radiator out
of plane. If there was a little more meat there, I'd just mill the
mounting
surface down and be done with it, but that would leave very little
metal
in the mounting flange at the peak of the bulge.
So... I know one can shrink sheet metal a couple different ways, and
I seem to remember seeing someone bend an I-beam by placing periodic
welds along the flanges and letting the weld shrinkage pull a radius
into
it. I'm wondering if I can play a similar game with cast iron. The
radiator
mounting flange requires little structural strength, so I don't have
to worry
too much about weakening it by heating/local heating differential.
If there's no success to be had along those lines, my fallback is to
mill it
down, then braze on a .25in raiser flange that will put the entire
radiator
.25 too high, but at least leave enough metal to seal, and be properly
aligned.
Any thoughs/ideas/suggestions most greatly appreciated,
Will Ray