1. Home
  2. ⏣ General Metalworking
  3. welding cast with nickle rod

welding cast with nickle rod

Is there any thing special I should do to weld cast with nickle rods?
any certain heat range, do I need to grind bevels or pre heat.
This is really old cast, it is the spokes from an iron wheeled hay mower
and a couple of the breaks are years old..
TIA...granpaw
Reply to
granpaw
Loading thread data ...
V-grind the cracks out. Preheat to about 600 DegF or until a drop of oil smokes lay in short stiches, peaning each as it cools. slow cool by burying in powdered lime, vermiculite or wrapped in a wool blanket.
The idea is to expose some clean metal to stick the nickle to, and to difuse the nickle as little as possible into the base metal.
Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler
.....
.....
Could you elaborate on what is meant by peening? Whack it with a 12 lb. sledge hammer? Tap on it with a welding slag hammer? What I did last time, take a center punch and carpenter hammer and put several punch marks in the weld? Other?
Karl
Reply to
Karl Townsend
You will have a difficult time with a spoked unit. The contraction and restraint is complicated. They are difficult enough to cast let alone weld. Sometimes you have to fracture the rim, weld the spokes. then weld the rim. You might try first to weld the spokes with short nickel rod welds bead in veed out cracks. Peen with a small ball peen until cold enough to touch with a bare hand. Often what happens is the rim restrains the spoke and the spoke fractures again. The cracks sometimes are a result of stresses that have been in the casting since manufacture. Randy
Reply to
Randy Zimmerman
Peening is tapping it, hard, with the pointy end of a chipping hammer. This expands the nickel as it cools. The nickel will shrink at a far greater rate than the cast, and the shrinkage will make it pull away from the cast and cause a crack at the transition zone. Peening counters the shrinkage. The other points Karl made are important. Short beads. Let it cool between beads. Don't burn into the parent metal; the cast welding is more like brazing. Diluting the weld with cast will make it really brittle. The cast has to be clean: no oil in it. If it's a crankcase it needs to be baked until the oil has carbonized.
Dan
Reply to
Dan Thomas
"Randy Zimmerman" wrote in news:Lh0Xc.211144$J06.34146@pd7tw2no:
Being as how I am doing this job for 5 bucks + cost of the rods, it's beginning to look like an experiment in futility, the thing weighs about 100# and is bigger than my work bench. The client has a spare in case this one breaks but I would really like to do it up right. Thanks to all for the advice!
granpaw
Reply to
granpaw
I seem to recall reading somewhere that this is the reasoning behind the graceful "S" curved spokes in the old cast flywheels and pulleys. Gerry :-)} London, Canada
Reply to
Gerald Miller
Only know how I've done it. I both pre heated and beveled on most cast welding with NiRod. Use lower amperage than you'd use with equivalent size mild steel rod. How big are these spokes? Small section stuff probably doesn't benefit from preheat. OTOH, you may want to try to preheat the rim so that the whole thing will shrink together. Is the wheel a single casting, rim, spokes and hub?
bob g.
Reply to
Robert Galloway
I don't know that the nickel shrinks so much more than the cast it's just that all the hot stuff (nickel and adjacent cast) shrinks while the rest of the casting doesn't. (could be wrong about this)
rhg
Dan Thomas wrote:
Reply to
Robert Galloway
Keep us posted on how this goes. I've also repaired a fair number of castings with acetylene and silver solder. So called silver brazing is stronger than cast. Acetylene heats a greater area but the temp is quite a bit lower.
bob g.
Gerald Miller wrote:
Reply to
Robert Galloway
I like 99% nickel rods and do just a spot and let it cool completely and then weld some more. Object is to not get it hot and slow cool.
Reply to
Mike
I've managed to be surprisingly lucky in cast iron welding with 99% nickel and a little 110V welder. Biggest thing to remember is lots of peening as the bead cools. So far I've done some machine parts and a recently-broken lathe dog without trouble.
GTO(John)
Reply to
GTO69RA4

Further Reading

  • Welding rod for cast iron?

  • The gent offering a rod assortment on ebay got me thinking...Ive onlymade...

  • Is there any value in old steel welding rod

  • I have about 200 lbs of old welding rod, such as 7024, 6010, 6011etc. (no 7018)I...

  • welding cast iron radiator

  • If the radiator is a cast iron radiator then you will have a much betterchance...

  • Nickle-free cast iron rod Q

  • I have a pack of Nickle-free cast iron electrodes that I picked upsome place in...

  • Welding cast steel to mild steel plate.

  • Is it ok to weld cast steel to mild steel plate? If so, what sort of rodshould I...

  • Cast iron welding questions

  • So I have this charity job for the WA state parks dept. A pulley on an old...

  • Welding two Cast Iron Exhaust Manifolds Together

  • I have a 1950 Ford Truck and want to cut an exhaust manifold in half and weld it...

  • Welding castiron

  • Hi,-I have stick welded cast iron (DC reverse I think it was) using...

  • Welding 303 with 316 rod?

  • Greetings All, It looks like a customer ordered the wrong material. 304 should...

  • How to Weld cast iron with internal thread

  • The traveling nut on my vise broke and I need to weld it back together with...

  • Cast Iron Andiron Repair

  • I bought an old andiron. Goes in front of a fireplace as somewhat of a screen. ...

  • PLEASE HELP WITH CAST IRON STICK WELDING

  • I have a Chevy Van with a 6.2 liter naturally aspirated diesel in it that...

  • trolling for ideas and a little tool gloat

  • I'm looking for ways to put my junk to use for very little or no other money. I...
  • « previous thread

  • Polishing scratches out of glass?

  • Youngest son just got his first (used) car. It seems to be working well after...
  • next thread »

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.