Welding Tips and Tricks

There is this metal that seems still a mystery ,how do indedify it and what it is.

Salute everybody.This is the case.Does anybody can tell what metal is it.This is a part of an italian scooter.Looks like aluminum but seems heavy so it might be antimony.

i doubt it would be exotic as antimony alloy.
more likely pot metal which is common for low cost castings. or was until aluminum casting became popular.

Thank you,can it be welded you think and how.Also can you tell few things for antimony.

Such old parts can also be Zamak, which was quite popular before aluminium casting became affordable. Lots of die-cast stuff from the 40s-50s is Zamak.

Some info: https://www.diecasting-mould.com/news/w ... ting-mould

As it's mostly zinc you can't really weld it with normal rods. However.. Some of the low temperature 'alu repair' rods can be used as they are often mainly zinc and it becomes more of a brazing process.

Antimony is usually not used directly. It can be added as an alloying metal to other base metals like lead to improve their strength though. Still.. It's a toxic metal, so not used too often, especially where it can be touched. (aka. mixed with lead is OK as that's toxic too )

If you have some shavings of the base metal you can try adding a bit of hydrochloric acid to the shavings. If they react pretty violently and bubbles a lot then it's probably a high zinc based alloy you're working with. You can evey try some flame near the bubbles. If they ignite then it's hydrogen and zinc based alloy is quite likely.

Bye, Arno.

Thank you, very informative, what about welding is it possible with tig?

eventually it was aluminium cast I was mistaken that was very
heavy.I welded with easy with 4043 1.6mm rod with #5 ceramic plain tig torch set up.It works very well and I highely recoment to try out.(I have seen it in one Jody's videos and I am very pleased even in lower cleaning settings.I did a good work out of the base
metal since it was dirty and coroded.

Good result!

Castings can be deceptively heavy as they tend to have much thicker walls and features compared to clean machined/billet parts as they need to be dimensionally stable while being cast. Too thin features tend to distort or not fill out evenly during the casting so that's usually avoided. Similarly sharp features/angles are also avoided during casting as it tends to cause problems with releasing from the cast, so all transitions in direction tend to have fairly big footprints.

It all adds up in total weight...

At least on a part like this you're 'only' fighting impurities from the casting process itself (eg. trapped sand and other materials) and not also oil or other fluids that have worked their way into the material like on a sump or tank.

Bye, Arno.

I say yes I agree.The discription is perfect.I would say the picture is rather misjudging me the weld was very good.I boil every detail out carefully it took considerable time.It is always better to win than to lose.