Question on welding cast iron

[monte55]

A guy dropped his old wood plane and it broke in half. The break is vertical on both sides. No chunks missing. If you fit together you can't tell it's broken. I need a simple way to try and fix this if I can. .I know I'll need to V groove it out . Can this be migged? I also have some brazing rods. I'm not going to put a lot into this. Just trying to save it as it. Suggestions. I really don't weld cast but once I did mig the cast power steering box on my old dodge van. It had a hairline crack and was seeping fluid. It's held.

[Cgotto6]

I would really consider a high grade epoxy. If you can fit both pieces keyed perfectly you likely would have an undetectable repair.

[monte55]

I would really consider a high grade epoxy. If you can fit both pieces keyed perfectly you likely would have an undetectable repair.

I wonder if he wants to use this for static display. If so, even ca glue might work.

[Cgotto6]

Definetly something to find out. No reason to make things more complicated than they have to be

[Meltedmetal]

I'd remove the blade, maybe the handle, vee it out and clamp it to something flat and rigid and braze it but I'm not into mig. Been a while Nick, nice to know your still alive and kicking.---Meltedmetal

[Portable Welder]

I'm sure they make a nickle mig wire but its not as easy as mig welding it up, you need to do the prep, preheat, weld, peen and post heat to do a good repair.

I just gave instructions about this a few weeks ago.

Dont waste your time with epoxy if its a tool meant to use, epoxy is a great product under certain circumstances, this is just not one of them.

[jroark]

Stainless

I've welded cast finials on hand rails by pre-heating and using stainless welding rods. Peening it afterwards and they worked out. The finials were rather cheap but held up to the heat pretty good.

[Portable Welder]

I roark when welding on finales set them down tight and lift them up a little so the weld is not pre stressed

[ryanjones2150]

Question on welding cast iron

Ya, we talked a little about this a few weeks ago with someone that had a problem with an exhaust manifold. Wonder how that came out?

If you're positive it's cast iron and not cast steel, then TIG braze your handle doohickey. I prefer aluminum bronze, on AC with the balance around 70-80% EN and the freq around 100. That's how I'd most likely do it. The aluminum bronze flows nicely once you get the puddle going and it machines back down pretty easily too.

I would certainly agree that pre and post heat is a good idea. Peening the aluminum bronze I haven't found to be necessary.

Let us know how it goes.

[fjk]

You can weld it, but you must 100% follow the proper procedure, if not ... you get more cracks than you started with...

You can get Ni MIG wire ... several years ago I looked into it and it was very very expensive and you could only get it in the big (11#) rolls ... I only needed a little bit, even the 2# rolls would have been overkill...

Brazing also works. So would JBWeld.

With JBWeld I'd worry about the fix not being strong enough; with brazing and welding, I'd worry about warping and distorting the plane body (brazing less so as it's not as hot). Pick your poison.

Frank

[ja baudin]

Monte, good to see you back on the forum. Thought we had lost you. Ja

[walker]

Clean it up, clamp it, flux it and use silver solder.

[monte55]

Monte, good to see you back on the forum. Thought we had lost you. Ja

Thanks. I still visit every day just had nothing to say.

[monte55]

[Thanks to all that replied

[ryanjones2150]

Question on welding cast iron

Did you ever fix that thing?