Welding Tips and Tricks

The flange on a vise I picked up has cracked off on the mounting flange, across one of the through bolt holes.

My question is, what is a good way to approach the repair? It is a cast material, unsure of specific alloy.

I have the following welding means available;

1. an oxy/acetylene torch
2. 110V MIG with solid wire, flux-core wire and a bottle of C25
3. Miller Dynasty 200DX with torch but no stinger for stick

I was thinking I'd clean with acetone.
Grind a bevel around the perimeter of the crack area on both the main and broken-off piece
Pre-heat the metal with the torch to 500F or so
TIG all around the joint with ER70S-6 filler rod

Or, maybe try flux core with C25 on the MIG? Not too powerful, but maybe better penetration with dual shield?

Thoughts? Thanks - J

Perhaps first do a spark-test on the metal to see if it's cast-iron or steel.

If it's cast-iron then welding is usually not advised as it gets very hard and brittle, but you may consider grinding it clean and then doing a full area buildup with braze and then shape and re-drill the hole. Should be plenty strong enough for a mount hole/flange like this.

Otherwise you can also braze on the broken off part, or if you do want to weld it then a nickel rod/filler it likely needed with a lot of preheat and cooling to stop it cracking right up again.

If it's cast steel then a good preheat V-bevel on the parts and TIGging with ER70S-6 whould be fine.

Bye, Arno.

You're almost always better off building an ear like that back up and redrilling it rather than trying to weld it but if it's cast iron you can't do it. You'll have to braze it or weld it back on.

Thanks folks. I'll try a spark test, however, it seems I might be better off drilling then brazing
Regardless of the results, right. Just better to fill and drill.
Should I use bronze filler for the braze?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQN_yz-4Hhg

You'll notice at the end, he shows a future vise repair of, yep, a Simplex vise! How ironic is that!?

JEKS wrote:Thanks folks. I'll try a spark test, however, it seems I might be better off drilling then brazing
Regardless of the results, right. Just better to fill and drill.
Should I use bronze filler for the braze?

SilBr works really well for cast. I just repaired a cast hypoid gear shaft that is no longer made for an old atv with SilBr and the guy just called me and said it is still working great. The teeth were sheared off pretty bad so I built them back up with SilBr and ground them back down. I normally pass on cast repairs but bronze does ok.

JEKS,

My fix would be much simpler. Seeing what percentage of the hole is still on the vice, versus what's on the broken ear, I'd use a high-grade epoxy like 3-M Hysol and clamp the hell out of it. Use a thick grade 8 washer when you bolt it down, and it will never move.

Steve S

Tig it with stainless rod.

I do it with my shop stuff when it breaks, drill press base, has a vice sitting on it full time. Some dumbshit tried to hammer something on the foot and broke it in half so the whole press went down on him.... Unfortunately he didn't get hurt too bad but I welded it back together with stainless rod and its still standing to this day.

Or the cast iron range part I fixed for a chef when they broke it in half somehow, stainless rod.

Something about the stainless being a little more flexible than steel and castings that makes it so it won't crack. Amazing stuff, I use 308L