Easy melt welding rods

  • Thread starter Thread starter Davo
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Davo

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Has anyone tried this stuff. Looks too good to be true. https://hyperowl.shop/products/super-melt-welding-rods?fbclid=IwAR2M9rKinppBYwLBGMWXKMrPrQR1rHQrBa20MGG7jR5K2G-12X5l_KeXflM
 
see also Lumiweld

I know people who have used the Lumiweld and they report success with what they have done, it is more of a solder than a welder, the parent metal being not exactly running wet, it is a DIY product and can never compete with a skilled operator and a very expensive (can easily be ?6000 or even ?8000) TIG welding machine.
 
I've tried that type of 'welding' filler rod. They're a little tricky to use, but they do work. OK for a joint that's not heavily loaded. Might be OK for patching a leak in an alloy tank for example.
 
I was thinking it may have application for repair of crankcase cracks/holes in non-load bearing areas as the amount of heat required and the way it is applied would not distort the case.
 
Lav the impala said:
I'm sure they are pure zinc, mainly used for repairing diecast.
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Supposedly aluminium/magnesium mix with built in flux granules.
 
Davo said:
I was thinking it may have application for repair of crankcase cracks/holes in non-load bearing areas as the amount of heat required and the way it is applied would not distort the case.
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I'd be reluctant to use them in that application. The stuff won't wick into a crack because of the oxide coating on aluminium interrupts the capillary action. Part of the soldering process is removing the oxide coating as you go with a wire brush. So you'd have to grind the crack out in a shallow V so the brush can get into the sides of the crack. Once you have deposited a foreign metal in there it may not be possible to do an aluminium weld if the lumiweld fails. You could end up stuffing up an otherwise repairable crankcase. I suppose you could do a surface bead over a crack (that you could easily grind off later) but it would look like shit.

Grant said:
Laser welding would be a better option there.
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Would be if you could find a laser welder. I wish someone would set up a laser welding shop in my area.

Davo said:
Supposedly aluminium/magnesium mix with built in flux granules.
Click to expand...

According to their website the rods are a tin/zinc alloy. Different alloying percentages are available for different fusion temperatures. 91% tin with 9% zinc is the eutectic mixture (lowest melting point). There's also a tin/zinc/lead rod for cast iron repair.
 
Dellortoman said:
According to their website the rods are a tin/zinc alloy. Different alloying percentages are available for different fusion temperatures. 91% tin with 9% zinc is the eutectic mixture (lowest melting point). There's also a tin/zinc/lead rod for cast iron repair.
Click to expand...

Dunno which website you are looking at but the one I linked to clearly states :-

SPECIFICATIONS
Material: Aluminum-magnesium.
 
Sorry Davo. Seems nobody read your original link properly. Everyone, including me, went off on a tangent talking about aluminium brazing rods (the type that go by the name of easy weld, Durafix, Alumaweld, etc.). Here's where I got my info from http://www.johnsonmfg.com/2015/alumaweld.htm

What you actually asked about was aluminium filler rods that are used for 'proper' aluminium fusion welds where the rods are melted into a pool of molten parent metal. The linked website shows a picture of the rod being used with a gas torch - apparently oxy-acetylene or oxy-LPG.

I'm pretty handy with oxy welding of steel, but never had much success with aluminium. Oxy welding of aluminium is a whole lot more difficult.

The reason being that aluminium melts well below the colour change temperature (doesn't get red hot). So you can't see when it's nearing its melting point. It's also a good conductor of heat, so the weld pool tends to be larger than with steel. You can be welding away thinking you've got it sussed when your job suddenly collapses into a blob of molten metal.

I see that the welding rods you refer to have a melting point of 647℃-658℃, which is only a few degrees below the 660?C melting point of pure aluminium. So you only have a narrow temperature window to play with. Below about 650, the rod won't melt. Above 660 and your rare as hens teeth aluminium part is a sorry-looking pool of molten aluminium in the benchtop.

I've watched guys who make gas welding of aluminium look easy. But it's not an easy skill to master.

Buy some and give them a try. Let us know how you get on. You'll probably find it easier using TIG rather than an oxy torch.

An expert welder like Clem may be able to give you some pointers.

 
I'm not going near the suckers. Most exotic metal I have welded was cast iron and I only did that because I couldn't afford to pay anyone else to fix the cooker.

I just wondered if they would be of any use to those who work on our stuffed aluminium bits.
 
thanks for the comment Cam, but "expert welder" I am not, just a scraggy old pipefitter, almost all of my stuff was pipes made from steel, and usually gas welded, for small stuff say up to 40 or 50mm, and stick after that, but plenty of big stuff was gas welded back in the day (70's and 80's) even 150mm flanges (!!!) due to lack of a good electrical source and/or a diesel genset, this makes anyone a very good gas welder. Aluminium came later for me when a tank and seat had to be made for my Egli (1979) and I learned a lot, all of it done with gas, since then my son(s) have taken up the art and Tom, has proven a better stick welder than me, and I taught him all he knows! how can that be? he has invested in MIG, and it gets used a lot, and later TIG, which he uses for thin high carbon stuff like frame manufacture but also aluminium, and he and I are both getting better at it, limited by the cost factor of the kit, we will go the whole hog soon, and buy a water cooled TIG, in the meantime we can still go to one of two local welders for ally work who are both the dogs bollox, one of them has said he will teach me and Tom, but that we will learn more cleaning his windows while he welds than we will by watching him.
CLEM
 
One of the vids shows filling a hole in thin alu sheet. Says you can?t apply heat directly to the rod and it?s obviously a lot easier to get sufficient heat into that thin alu sheet than a Lav crankcase! I wouldn?t try it even if I was a gun TIGger or general hotshot welder.
They?re probably good for things like the alloy fuel taps where the outlet pipe pulls away from the body.
 
When I went down the road on my race bike it worked well to build back up the ball at the end of the brake leaver. Anything thinner just melts.

My current bike has upside down forks and the previous owner has botched drilling out a threaded mount hole for the mud guard in the aluminium at the bottom of the fork leg. I?m considdering filling it with this stuff them drilling and retapping. They are meaty enough to dissipate the heat without melting.

::)
Robin.
 
As Clem has alluded, Aluminium TIG welding is quite technical.
I was under the impression that you require High Frequency TIG to break the oxide layer on Aluminium, but with inverter welding machines - other options.

Best to get friendly with an expert!
 
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