Welding Tips and Tricks

I have some exhaust pipe shields for a motorcycle that are chromed from the factory. The original welds on the brackets cracked and broke, and the owner tried some epoxy of some sort a while back, which also eventually failed.

I've made new brackets and I'm going to weld them on the exhaust shields, but I'm curious as to the chrome holding up? My guess is that the chrome will bubble up, and chip on the outside.

I'll get some measurements on the shield thickness, but at first glance it looks like 1/16th inch.

My plan was to grind off the epoxy and any chrome in the way of the new brackets on the back side of the shields, and use wet towels up against the outside of the shields to soak a bit of the heat and hopefully keep the chrome intact.

We've already agreed that if the chrome doesn't hold up to the welding, we'll strip and paint them black. So it's a bit of an experiment, but if possible I'd like to make it work with the chrome intact.

I've got TIG and MIG. I'm better at MIG, but these are essentially going to just be several tack welds as the brackets are pretty small.

I've tigged a few little things that were chrome plated. They seem to hold their integrity quite well. I think you have copper plating and then chrome on most things, both high temperature melting points. Not the same as zinc plating. As you say, keep tjr heat down.

All the best, mick.

TIG it, don't just tack it, actually weld it.

I hate when people say "I just need a couple of tacks, like they did originally" If they did that originally and I duplicate that, should I Expect a different result? Weld it like it's going on a tank.

To answer your question, get the epoxy way off of it, epoxy smells like something out of this world when it burns, and it's like a smoke grenade went off. I had someone give me a piece they epoxied with clear epoxy, I couldn't tell they TRIED to clean it off, so I lit up and my oh my, smoke everywhere in a second.

SO, just grind it off, weld a little, spray some water on the chrome you are trying to protect, weld some more.

Just did a motorcycle tank the other day like that, tried to save most of the paint as the sides were super detailed, came out pretty good, just damaged the paint about 1" around the weld.

Weld it, spray it, dry it, weld it, spray it, dry it.