Filling up a 2mm hole in 1/16 7075 alum

Apr 16, 2006 9 Replies
R

stopping just short of going into the garage and trying it out, was wondering if one could achieve the subject w/o distorting adjusent areas.



It is an accordion reed plate and about 2mm away from the rivet hole I have a reed opening that I'd like to keep intact (not distort it).



The rivet hole is FUBAR and about the only way I can restore it is to fill it with Al and then drill a new one.



Will it work if I were to clean up the area real nice and try say 5Amp DCEP with me $200 HF Tig ?



For something this small, will DCEN work ? - assuming of course I clean the area and the filler rod real nice ? Should not take more that .2sec to fill that hole out and Al won't have much chance to grow oxide ?



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M

Not seeing the reed plate, its hard to judge. (i.e. how thick is the base metal?) I'm with the other guy, try something like JB weld, or better yet, try the Forney industries Aluminum brazing rod - stuff works great!:

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I think this is also Forney Industry:
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And define "FUBAR". How thick is the parent materal ? is it sheet metal ? Problem with Tig on Al is that your gonna have to get that area up to alomost melting temp. And with Al, and because it is such a good heat sink, when you first start your arc, all the heat is gonna go racing to the opposite end of your work piece, so no, its gonna take more than .2 seconds (TIG isn't deposition ARC).

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R

On Sun, 16 Apr 2006 5:25:27 -0700, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote (in message ):

Would it be possible to just enlarge the rivet hole slightly and use a slightly larger rivet?

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C

Duh, read the header about thickness. For the mathematically impaired 1/16th in = .0625 in or 62 and 1/5 thousands.

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D

Or even enlarge and thread it. Make a plug, drill, and rivet. Or thread and screw everything together. Lots of possibilities seem less dangerous than attempting to weld it up. Don Young

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R

Well technically 1/16is 62 and 1/2 thousanths.

(sorry, just clean> Duh, read the header about thickness. For the mathematically impaired 1/16th

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L

"Don Young" wrote: Or even enlarge and thread it. (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Don, please. A 2 mm hole in a piece of aluminum that is 1/16" thick. And the hole is FUBAR. (F****d up beyond all recognition.)

I would be tempted to aluminum braze it, with one of those low-melting rods. That way you don't have to melt the parent metal. Overbuild it, and then clean it up with a file.

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R

Mr.Wizz - the lo-temp brazing rod just might be the ticket for me ! Excellent advice. Will get me some and try.

BTW - I did try TIG'n it: cleaned up the "f*d up beyond repair" hole, cut a piece of Al filler rod, cleaned, gently hammered it in and then at the lowest DCEN setting got smallish, no more than 1/16" long, arc going for a sec. Worked out fine. After some filing, I drilled a new one there. The filler rod was somewhat hardened by the arc, the adjucent

7075 was not affected much.

I have to stay 2mm, for a number of reasons. Threading is not an option. has to be strong enough for me to rivet a new reed on. The rivet is annealed steel wire.

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