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Aluminium “Welding” Rods Aluminium “Welding” Rods
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  #1  
Old 26 Apr 2020
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Does this mean that you have tried them but to little success? If that is the case And you think that it is the parent metal temperature that is critical then I can see a case for getting a cheapish laser thermometer - I am thinking of getting one for work anyway but this would clinch it.

I have every intention of getting good first before doing something that matters.
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Old 26 Apr 2020
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Yes, I've tried a number of times to get the rods to 'weld' but not managed it. It's been a while now since I last tried it but from memory there's a number of reasons why that may be the case - I may have useless technique, I may not have cleaned everything sufficiently, I may have been getting / able to get the workpieces hot enough or the alloy I was trying to repair may not be suitable. Again from memory, the last thing I tried it on was some cracked Kawasaki alloy manifold clamps. I couldn't replace them (unobtainable) but I didn't want to ruin them either.

The rods are more like high temp soldering than true welding and it was getting them to melt and run into the alloy that was the issue. Like normal soldering you can't just blob the stuff on, it doesn't take. The alloy needs to be clean and hot - much hotter than normal soldering but I was worried I could overheat the whole thing and just end up with a puddle on the bench. Aluminium doesn't give you any warning - like glowing red etc, so you have to use other methods. I have an I.R. thermometer but I'm not sure it goes high enough (?).

It was on my list of things to revisit but, prior to your post, fairly well down it.
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  #3  
Old 26 Apr 2020
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Ally welding is a pretty skilled process, as BoB says, you don't get any warning when it's going to melt, it just goes, so you need to know how much heat you're putting in or you'll either melt holes in it or just blob metal on top which will be useless. Another complicating factor is that aluminium oxidises very readily so if you don't weld it in an inert gas atmosphere (Argon is the usual gas shield) you stand a good chance of ending up with a spattered lump of alumina instead of a weld. Finally there's the Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) that develops where the recrystallised grain structure meets the original grain and that's where it tends to break, adjacent to the weld rather than through it. I'm not a welding expert but I believe if you preheat the weld zone or post heat treat the entire component you can avoid a lot of the HAZ problems - but again it's a question of knowing how hot and how long.
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Old 26 Apr 2020
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The thermometer I have looked at goes up to 550C and the melting point of aluminium is around 660C but the rods talk about a temperature of less than 480C so there is a decent amount of wiggle room there. I suspect that it is a two person job - one to heat and monitor the temperature and the other poised to apply the rod. The thermometer is a laser infrared job so non-contact and instant - the trick I guess is to get the temperature just right across the workpiece.

Aluminium oxide starts to form quickly at around 450C so the final 30C gain needs to be done quickly. The other thing is making sure that the aluminium doesn’t anneal - in my application for my pannier lids this is not a big deal but other applications may not be so forgiving.
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Old 26 Apr 2020
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That'll be a posh thermometer - mine only goes to 380C. You don't need to get the aluminium up to melting temperature for the rods to melt and flow. The instructions say there's a 200+C 'safety margin' between the temperature you need and the aluminium melting, the idea being that once you get the ally that hot the rod will flow onto it.

You can't melt the rod in the flame you're using as the heat source and 'flow' it onto lower temp ally - it won't do that, it just balls up or runs off. The problem is that in a hot flame that 200C margin can vanish in seconds and there's no way of telling how close you are. Maybe with a decent IR thermometer it'll work but last time I tried it I didn't have mine and it was all guesswork.
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Old 26 Apr 2020
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I saw this video some time ago, and thought he did a very good review:

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Old 27 Apr 2020
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I'm going to have to have another go at this sometime soon. I checked my rod supply yesterday and there's half a dozen half used ones as well as a load of new ones, so enough to try again. I don't want my ineptitude to colour this conversation though so it would be great if somone who has managed to weld / braze / solder with them to chip in.
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Old 27 Apr 2020
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Grant Johnson View Post
I saw this video some time ago, and thought he did a very good review:
An interesting review. So it has its place - temperature control is clearly a key factor as is preparation.
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Old 28 Apr 2020
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Originally Posted by Grant Johnson View Post
I saw this video some time ago, and thought he did a very good review
Yeah I think he covered the main points pretty well. It is soldering not welding, since there is no melting of the parent metal, and that makes it a process that needs to be a lot less closely controlled. As he found, it isn't as strong as the parent metal, it's only as strong as the solder itself, and is dependent on getting a really clean surface to bond to - but still, it's not a bad performance at all.

As he says, it's definitely not something to use on anything structural like a frame, but for some applications it *may* be a viable get-you-home. And for non critical items a good one for the more creative to have in their shed

As an aside, when I was racing years ago I had a Mk4 Seeley, and I got a spare tank made by the same guys down in Dartford who built the originals for Colin Seeley. They gas welded all their ally tanks, and the workmanship was superb. I never understood how they did it, given the propensity of aluminium to oxidise when heated in air, but I wonder now if they soldered it using the same sort of stuff as this. Whatever they did, it certainly worked and didn't suffer any distress despite 10 years racing including the Manx GP.
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