The machine shop’s ltest toy needs some TLC. Does anyone with experience welding cast iron have advice on tackling this? More importantly, would anyone care to do it?
It has been welded before, and is failing how it usually does. It could probably be welded with nickel rods, but I think brazing is a better option. And without OA gear, maybe TIG brazing, but you can’t properly preheat it that way. I’m thinking maybe the best bet without taking it offsite, would be to drill and tap some new holes and install a plate reinforcing the front to back and just sandwiched between this base and the press.
Nice press by the way.
I will take a look at it tonight Bryan
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You had to wait until I was out of town, didn’t ya? This screams aluminum bronze TIG with preheat. If you can’t get it fixed by the time I’m back, I’ll take a crack at it (and hopefully avoid cracking)
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Looks pretty doubtful to me. The size and location of the crack, lost material from rupture, and pre-existing failed weld - all tell me that an electrical weld is just going to harden the already messed up iron.
It might be fixable by pin and stitch. The elasticity of the steel stitches might actually improve the strength and prevent re-occurrence. But it’s also possible that the prior weld may have hardened up the surrounding iron enough that the strain at that crack will just blow out around the stitches.
Fusion welding would restore it back to original strength, but building a temp furnace to preheat the casting would require a fair amount of firebrick.
Admiring the broken weld last night with another Maker last night it appears the original weld was pretty much a surface bead with little grind out to get deep penetration. No welding was done on the underside so it was still able to “flex” the crack - basically forming a stress riser against the weld from underneath.
We thought probably the best solution to fixing it would be to grind out the old weldment, braze, not weld the crack as it would be easier to get metal to flow into crack all the way through unlike the prior repair (the mass of this stand would require a big torch or a lot of smaller torches on it at one time, top and bottom sort of a drumming circle of torch bearers) then put say a .375"~.250" steel plate on top using the existing two bolt holes and adding two others at the opposite end, this would help take the strain away from the crack. That or just go with a thicker plate.
Anyway, that was our thoughts on matter. That or build a new stand.