Welding Tips and Tricks

I have a bedframe that looks like it's cast potmetal or cast iron. Not sure which. It's hollow, thin metal. I'm an HVAC contractor so I have dual gas, but I think that might be too hot. It's got two spots that need to be repaired. Trying to determine whether a low temp propane with aluminum rods or another low temp rod would work best for this. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I thought about cheating with some JB, but where's the fun in that?

Aluminum rods won't stick to steel, no matter the temp.

Maybe just braze it (as you're an HVAC guy already).

Is it magnetic?

https://www.harrisproductsgroup.com/~/m ... dering.pdf

mowhawk2 wrote:
It's hollow, thin metal.

Unless it's very old I would doubt that its cast iron, but sitting behind my keyboard I could be wrong.

Need more information. Steel is easy, period. Aluminum isn't hard, if you have the equipment. Pot metal, or white metal, (a random mix of floor sweepings) is hard to find a suitable filler for.

It is ferrous. Its not extremely old, my guess would be less than 20 yrs. I wish it was aluminum. That's an easy fix. Copper would be better.

I think that my ox/acet would be way too hot for the thickness of the metal, I use a 15 silver alloy by there are a lot of options for this too. Some have no silver, most people use a 5%. I have some no silver alloy rods, lower temp might be beneficial. Willing to give it a shot. The original welds appear to be mig and the metal is so thin that when they broke it pulled a chunk out of the frame rather that actually break the weld.

You need 45% silver or higher percentage to get good adhesion to steel. Oxy acetylene should be fine just use a 0 or 00 or 000 tip. Keep your gas pressure low and you can get small flame. You can also get it hot enough to braze with a mapp gas torch.