4047 consumables

For a small edge repair 4043 can work. As long as the casting is decently clean without too many inclusions. Die castings are always better than sand castings.
I spent 3 hours today welding up a cast aluminum cable drum support for the bow anchor winch on the school's deep-dive vessel. 30 year old casing on a boat with 2 bolt holes star fractured with deep corrosion in the crevices. Bloody nightmare. For that I was really glad I had 4047 because it meant shoving rod in and then boiling the crap to the surface. Wire brush it off and repeat until the surface is moderately clean. With thick castings the lower shrinkage of the 4047 means less crack propagating on cooling.
Here is a spool of 1/16" wire on eBay.
The stuff does exist, you just have to hunt. Most big supply chains, like Praxair or Airgas, have at least one 10 lb. box somewhere in their inventory.
Check your local area for boat prop repair shops. It seems to be very popular with them.
Anybody can order it. Just have them look it up in the Alcotec catalog.

I checked with the biggest supplier in town, came up blank. My Praxair dealer has not been super helpful; they moved into a new facility, a lot of the old stuff 'disappeared' in the move. I'll try some of the other places next week.
The pulley is a 6 step monster, 1" bore, the 1-3/4" flange on the small end is broken in 2 places. Came from a vintage '40's vertical mill. I can machine the old flange off down to clean metal, press on a new piece of 3/8" 6061 with whatever shoulder and weld clearances I need. It chucks up easily so getting it to run true is no big deal.
So......... Do I really need to spend $108 to get a full pound of 4047 to fix this thing? Total weld length is about 5", should go in one pass.
There is a superb machinery repair place in town with modest prices (!!!!), I might just have them weld it after I prep. I've got to believe they would be cheaper than buying a lot of rod/wire that I will never use up.
Ernie Leimkuhler wrote:

Buy the $108 lot and then resell the excess in small bunches to the other folks here who only need a dozen sticks for a lifetime supply.