Broken vise

[MMW]

Not something I would normally agree to try but it's a favor for a friend of a close family friend. It was booger welded by somebody before and broke again, no surprise. I know it's most likely a waste of time but I had no good excuse to not give it a try. What are your thoughts on procedure and filler metal? Sparks are dull orange. Bottom is machined flat so I'm confident I can clamp it flat to keep it straight. I have never had much success with castings. Just cleaned it up so thought I would ask here.

[Meltedmetal]

Most likely gray iron. I have a few of them that were brazed years ago. Still going okay. Takes a reasonable amount of heat and bronze rod though.
---Meltedmetal

[MAC702]

High nickel content or even maybe just a stainless rod like E309. Will be a b**** to grind afterward.

[aametalmaster]

I welded an old Parker. Used lots of Crown Alloys 220M. It’s like eutitic 180 the blue rod lol. The rod was worth more than the vise but it worked

[ryanjones2150]

I have a vise I broke like that, only the shaft is round, so keeping it in line was a challenge. After I prepped the weld area, grooved out, etc, I preheated the entire part over a fire until it was red. Then I used aluminum bronze and tig brazed it with AC. It wasn’t fun, but it’s still holding today and I abuse the heck out of that vise.

I repaired a squared off one for a friend a couple months ago, pretty much like your deal there. I used the same process and I was very pleased with the result.

I’ve also repaired at least one more, again for a friend, with a round shaft and it came out just as good. I have complete confidence in that process.

Also, on each of those repairs, preheated on the fire, repaired, and then tossed back in the fire and I let it stay there until the morning.

[MMW]

Finally got around to this. It welded fine, I was surprised. Final test will come with usage. I forgot to take during pics but I vee'd out both sides, clamped to table, preheated with torch to 500* and tacked the bottom outside. Then ran a pass across top. Heated back to temp, unclamped and flipped over so I could weld the inside, two passes. Then I welded the out sides with a few passes while keeping temp about 500*. Finished by welding top with multiple passes making sure to add more metal than original for strength. Post heat evenly to 500* then wrapped in fiberglass insulation over night. Cleaned up and reinstalled the screw. Seems good. I used some rods I had, 1/8 Eutectic xuber 22-33n which is a cast and cast to steel maintenance rod. Thank goodness I save all these oddball rods people give me as it is very expensive stuff. Having trouble with pics, coming soon.

[MMW]

Here is the pics.

[ryanjones2150]

I have some similar cast iron welding rods that I hang on to and use sparingly because I don’t need them often and they’re quite spency.

Good looking repair! Can you tell did the welds get super hard or can you cut it with a file still? Try dragging a file right at the toe of a weld and see if it got hard in there, that should be a good indication of whether or not it got brittle on you.

[MMW]

Already gave it back to owner before I saw your file test.

[ryanjones2150]

As long as they don’t use it as a press or a compactor, or whomp on it with the guns of Navarone, it’ll be fine. Probably at least.