Ni-Rod

99 means 99% Nickel It works best for cast to cast or cast to anything else. 55 is only 55% nickel. it costs less and works fine for cast to steel, but 99 works better.

You can't lose with the 99.

Unfortunately, you can lose with the 99 on occation. But it IS your best bet for cast irons.

There are some low nickel castings (in the 3 to 5%Ni range IIRC) that really don't like pure nickel.

7018 is dandy for many cast steels. Generally, preheat will help with the steels, and is absolutely necessary for the CI. If the casting is low grade, it may not be weldable. Any significant copper content will make life tough, as well as other casting contaminants.

BTW: the 19.78/lb for Ni99 sounds high-just picked up a few pounds for about $12/lb (in NJ). Where are you at?

An example, and inquiry for ideas, as all of the local guru's are stumped:

Just spent several days on a casting. looks lie steel, grinds like steel, but with sparks that are somewhat cast-iron like. The grinding dust is also somewhat intermediate--cuttings, not dusty. Material seems ductile under the pening hammer, grinds easily, but won't drill (which is sucky because one option was to pin with threaded stainless pins to tie in the weld). Welding: No dice. Anything and everything cracked out at the fusion line ( > yet. So I ordered a couple pounds of the "99" to get me by....$19.78/lb.

Thanks for the reply. That is what I was guessing the numbers meant. Also did a litlle googling but didn't find much. I am in Green Bay, Wi. That was the best deal I could find in town. (AGA was $21.35/lb.)

I have never preheated a cast iron part before going at it with a ni-rod. I thought the idea was to keep the part as cold as possible (short welds under 1" long) and peen the crap outta it till its cool to the touch.

Have you thought of trying silicon bronze for your part? or even brazing? sometimes even just going to a 9018, or even 11018 will change the welding characteristics.

Sometimes we'll get stuff it that doesn't play well with us also. Our "guess " is it was poured on a Friday afternoon and all the scraps from the floor were dumped in the mold ;) sometimes you just never know with cast...the same goes for cast aluminum. some welds great, other stuff just turns black and curls up when you strike an arc to it.

Good Luck with your "project"!

e wrote: : BTW: the 19.78/lb for Ni99 sounds high-just picked up a few pounds for : about $12/lb (in NJ). Where are you at? --FWIW the local welding shop up here in Santa Rosa, CA was selling the 99 for $55.-/lb!! When I told 'em I could get it mailed from another state for $16/lb (Hi Ernie!) they matched that price. It pays to dicker... :-)

Hi Ed. A lot of welding supply stores jack up prices on odd items, betting on the fact that when somebody needs that odd item, they are unlikely to have the time to haggle.

You guys are all lucky. They sell those little 1 lb packages here for like $34.00! They are 5/32", too. So you get like 4 rods in a package. Ahaha.