Cast iron

[WelderBob]

I have been asked to weld an assortment of cast iron parts from antique wood burning stoves. Mostly broken feet and such. Does anyone have experience with these old stoves. I am assuming that the parts are all grey iron, I have not got them to tell yet. Experienced input would be greatly appreciated.

[dyn88]

well in case you didnt know you cant braze stove parts because of the chance that the repair may fail under heat. To weld cast iron Ive always had success preheating to 500 degrees and tigging with 99 Ni rod. I have heard of people stick welding without preheat successfully.

[wrench3047]

I've watched a show where they stick welded cast iron. Engine block and table with iron legs. In both cases they beveled ground alot of iron away, and machine set at 90amps w/ 99 NI rod. They made tack welds until the entire gap was filled. They didn't preheat and stopped after midrod and the end of the rod 10 min each for cool down. Haven't had a need to try it yet but they sounded like they did it alot.

[Tanner]

I've welded cast iron. Bevel the edges, preheat to ..err..hot? And then weld with Ni99

[fun4now]

preheat to ..err..hot? lol
you gota love thouse boys in school didnt you just take a class in welding
i love it tanner that was priceless

[glockdoc]

Have an old stove that I worked on several months ago. I was able to brass braze the broken foot with no problem. However, the pot belly that was broken in half was a different story. Tried tigging with 70s-6 first then tried a bare Ni99 rod. Neither one really worked. then resorted to brass brazing and that wasn't much better. Figured the problem was with all the fires over the years, the cast iron absorbed so much carbon it caused the welding problem. Finally got it tacked together good enough to reassemble and paint. Strictly a deco item and currently a speaker stand. It has so many stress cracks it would never last if used as designed.

[dyn88]

if the material is absolutely filthy you can clean it with muriatic acid and a water rinse. finally wash with acetone. you can get heat sticks at your supply house. you want to heat it till it gets just barely red then let cool for a second weld and cover with blanket(fiberglass insulation) for a couple of hours.

[Tanner]

preheat to ..err..hot? lol
you gota love thouse boys in school didnt you just take a class in welding
i love it tanner that was priceless

Well, I wasn't going to put an exact temperature in there, pretty much because I forgot what I heated it to. I heated it until it was orange-hot. Not red-hot, but orange-hot.