This hydraulic cylinder rod took a nasty hit. Even before the depression, the rod's replacement cost would have raised an eyebrow. 
No way the damage could continue to pass through the gland packing without causing serious problems. Decision was made to repair the rod's "divot" with braze filler.
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The injury was cleaned up with a flap wheel and carbide bur.
Sorry, I forgot the dime.
It took a lot of heat input to get a good tin and flow.
This repair would have been a good candidate for two torches, one for heavy heating and one with a low soft flame for depositing filler. But Alfred was grumpy about taking on such a repair in the field; he kept talking about furnaces lathes and and all that jive like they have in Massachusetts, :waving: so I went it alone the old-fashioned way, with one big torch.
After a good preheat the filler "took" to tinning and then I built up the divot with filler.
![]()
After build-up I started to roughly size the filler using a rotary-file, or carbide burr.
After the initial rough finishing of the filler I found low spots and then had to heat and fill and rough cut again.
![]()
After the rough cutting I switched to hand filing with frequent checks against a straight edge. Worked progressively from hand filing up to 800 paper. Final finish with buffing wheel and compound.
![]()
Bibliography:
Common old 1/16" coated filler of AWS A 5.27 spec.
![]()
Common old Harris 62 cutting torch; propane fuel gas.
Work was done "off the tailgate," in the field, outdoors.
:waving:
No way the damage could continue to pass through the gland packing without causing serious problems. Decision was made to repair the rod's "divot" with braze filler.
The injury was cleaned up with a flap wheel and carbide bur.
Sorry, I forgot the dime.
It took a lot of heat input to get a good tin and flow.
This repair would have been a good candidate for two torches, one for heavy heating and one with a low soft flame for depositing filler. But Alfred was grumpy about taking on such a repair in the field; he kept talking about furnaces lathes and and all that jive like they have in Massachusetts, :waving: so I went it alone the old-fashioned way, with one big torch.
After a good preheat the filler "took" to tinning and then I built up the divot with filler.
After build-up I started to roughly size the filler using a rotary-file, or carbide burr.
After the initial rough finishing of the filler I found low spots and then had to heat and fill and rough cut again.
After the rough cutting I switched to hand filing with frequent checks against a straight edge. Worked progressively from hand filing up to 800 paper. Final finish with buffing wheel and compound.
Bibliography:
Common old 1/16" coated filler of AWS A 5.27 spec.
Common old Harris 62 cutting torch; propane fuel gas.
Work was done "off the tailgate," in the field, outdoors.
:waving:
