Welding Tips and Tricks

So I attached picture of what i was told is a cast aluminum, but I dont know the type. What materials, what's the best way to prep these for weld fix? What do I use to clean this, restore it as new, any advices..?

Would it be wire brushes, drill, acetone, etc? Just trying to prep it for a friend, those 6 brackets were from the truck side steps, nd there are some layers peeling off which I'm clueless what it is, much is appreciated for advices!

Clean them to bright shiny aluminum. Then preheat them to above 350*. Then chemically clean them with acetone. If the breaks fit back together cleanly, V grind both sides to bevel both pieces. Then weld it up. Expect a lot of crap to pour out during the first pass. Clean that, then do again.

Good luck. Crappy job, but it can be strong again if you are willing to endure the hassle.

cj737 wrote:Clean them to bright shiny aluminum. Then preheat them to above 350*. Then chemically clean them with acetone. If the breaks fit back together cleanly, V grind both sides to bevel both pieces. Then weld it up. Expect a lot of crap to pour out during the first pass. Clean that, then do again.

Good luck. Crappy job, but it can be strong again if you are willing to endure the hassle.

Thank you! I know this is such a noob question but what's the best way to clean em, would it be a steel wire brush or sanding paper or etc? To be honest it would be my first time deep cleaning it and prepping it, just wanted to start somewhere.

I totally understand all your other direction except preheating to 350, not sure if it's weld related or something to do with weakening cast stuff on it to make it easier?

If so, does preheating in oven work fine lol? Or blowtorch?

Again thanks a bunch, I'll definitely send in pictures of my process and final finish!

Hard to advise about cleaning without knowing exactly what the “coating” is. Downside to wire wheel is you embed more junk in the cast ally that you need to clean later. A citrus-based stripper might work well?

Preheat is to help purge the impurities out prior to welding. Cast is very porous so decades of road grime and dirty boots will have contaminated those steps something awful. Getting as much out before welding will be a Godsend. Oven works fine. 350* for 30-45 minutes. Don’t let the old lady find out!

Clean it. Heat it. Clean it. Clean it some more. Weld a bit. Clean it again! Then weld it up good.

cj737 wrote:Hard to advise about cleaning without knowing exactly what the “coating” is. Downside to wire wheel is you embed more junk in the cast ally that you need to clean later. A citrus-based stripper might work well?

Preheat is to help purge the impurities out prior to welding. Cast is very porous so decades of road grime and dirty boots will have contaminated those steps something awful. Getting as much out before welding will be a Godsend. Oven works fine. 350* for 30-45 minutes. Don’t let the old lady find out!

Clean it. Heat it. Clean it. Clean it some more. Weld a bit. Clean it again! Then weld it up good.

I added more picture if it helps, just to make sure I'm not gonna break my hands cleaning the wrong way lol, and thank you! Much appreciated for help getting started !

Those pictures and the idea of having to weld repair them made me throw up in my mouth.

Closing thought: glad it's you and not me.

I would start with some truck wash. You can probably get it at your local truck stop but it might be a Walmart or Amazon deal too. Just do a search for truck wash aluminum cleaner and all sorts of stuff will come up. The stuff is amazing but it's got quite a laundry list of warnings on the label. Take heed of those.

Once you have the basic dirt cleaned up, then I would go on to something like dynaflux aluminum cleaner or any of the other things recommended here.

f_ZP5YLpkdU

cj737 wrote:Those pictures and the idea of having to weld repair them made me throw up in my mouth.

Closing thought: glad it's you and not me.

I can't believe I got the worst project as a beginner.. :"( started realizing after just cleaning em lol. But it's defiently not going to be me welding it, gonna obviously need to have experienced welder friend to do it but since you mentioned that, God I hope he's not going to be frustrated lol.

Just trying to clean and prep as much as I can

BugHunter wrote:I would start with some truck wash. You can probably get it at your local truck stop but it might be a Walmart or Amazon deal too. Just do a search for truck wash aluminum cleaner and all sorts of stuff will come up. The stuff is amazing but it's got quite a laundry list of warnings on the label. Take heed of those.

Once you have the basic dirt cleaned up, then I would go on to something like dynaflux aluminum cleaner or any of the other things recommended here.

f_ZP5YLpkdU

Hmm, well the pictures I just added in, took me a few hours... I had to use flathead screwdriver to scrap off those layers that was coming off, wire brush wasn't getting em but I wire brushed em after. , quickly brushed off any crap off with plastic brush, quickly dried em down wiping off rest.

Those are the results, my next step was gonna preheat em on oven but owner's concerned about fumes which I dont blame him lol so preheating out of question.. my friend did suggest to use "aircraft removal" supposedly itll help eat em off, is this the way to go..? He said the acetone wouldn't do much..

Aircraft Stripper works well, BUT, you need to be extraordinarily careful when welding on that material afterwards. Follow the stripper with a thorough soap and water wash, then Acetone before welding.

Some chemicals, cleansers, etc when you hit them with a welding arc cause lethal off-gassing. I don't know whether Aircraft Stripper will, but be really careful anyways. You don't want to kill someone inadvertently because you didn't know and didn't tell them.

(Your last pictures linked didn't show up?)

How much weight do those brackets have to hold? If it is anything significant I probably wouldn't weld those. The weld material is never as strong as the base metal you are welding unless you do some kind of post weld heat treat or hardening process. I think for the amount of time you will put into them it may actually be cheaper to replace them if possible, unless they are irreplaceable for some reason.

"How much weight do those brackets have to hold? If it is anything significant I probably wouldn't weld those. "

I would agree 1000%. That's got bad written all over it.

My not at all professional opinion.

eelman308 wrote:"How much weight do those brackets have to hold? If it is anything significant I probably wouldn't weld those. "

I would agree 1000%. That's got bad written all over it.

My not at all professional opinion.

They're for steps. He stated so in the original post. The "weight" they will hold is a human being stepping into or onto a truck. Hardly catastrophic stress. Purely safe to weld if weld by someone competent (as he says is the case).

linkline, how is it those were broken? What happened?

how is it those were broken? What happened?
looks to me that those steps found an accident that found a place to happen. I did a repair on steps that "caught" a large rock and tore them all to hell. Some of the base material was missing and I did a repair as well as I could.

Maybe the pics are bad or maybe my old eyes are bad. But I don't see a lot of tearing or missing chunks. It just looks to me like either a stress crack or the the step was overloaded. It would be interesting to know the back story.

Heavy duty coil cleaner like newbrite from an hvac supplier is an option. Aggressive enough to actually strip off the surface of the aluminum but water soluble for clean up.