Goodafternoon, everyone 
So, here's my latest repair... Its a Cast Iron bench vise I'm fixing up for a buddy of mine:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeJQEDTpTaE[/ame]
When the thing showed up, the front jaw was cleanly broken from the slide, and I knew it had seen some better days...
So, a quick spark test determined it was probably gray cast iron, possibly white cast, but either way I knew it was, ideally, a job for Nickel Electrodes, as those are two of the harder kinds of cast to weld.
I'd used 7018 on Cast with success before, but since this wasn't my vise I didn't want to take a chance on it. I spent $30 on a pack of 10 Nickel-99 Electrodes from Tractor Supply, and after realizing they were only 12" long instead of the usual 14, I got to work.
I quickly discovered that the instructions were useless and it took almost twice the "recommended" amperage to put down a half decent weld, but got setup to run them at 95 amps on A/C...
After lighting up the rosebud and preheating the daylights out of the casting, I started welding, peening, welding some more and hopeing for the best...
I then buried the part in sand, and HOURS (literally) later it was cool enough to touch, and then I torture-tested the finished repair. I'm very happy with how this turned out, I got to run some nickel electrodes, and had another successful cast iron repair :cool2:
Anyway, I really enjoyed making this video, and fixing something that can be put back in service... It was a fun job. Just thought I'd stop in and share the video before I leave for school here, hope you guys enjoy it. Have a great week, everyone!!
So, here's my latest repair... Its a Cast Iron bench vise I'm fixing up for a buddy of mine:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeJQEDTpTaE[/ame]
When the thing showed up, the front jaw was cleanly broken from the slide, and I knew it had seen some better days...
So, a quick spark test determined it was probably gray cast iron, possibly white cast, but either way I knew it was, ideally, a job for Nickel Electrodes, as those are two of the harder kinds of cast to weld.
I'd used 7018 on Cast with success before, but since this wasn't my vise I didn't want to take a chance on it. I spent $30 on a pack of 10 Nickel-99 Electrodes from Tractor Supply, and after realizing they were only 12" long instead of the usual 14, I got to work.
I quickly discovered that the instructions were useless and it took almost twice the "recommended" amperage to put down a half decent weld, but got setup to run them at 95 amps on A/C...
After lighting up the rosebud and preheating the daylights out of the casting, I started welding, peening, welding some more and hopeing for the best...
I then buried the part in sand, and HOURS (literally) later it was cool enough to touch, and then I torture-tested the finished repair. I'm very happy with how this turned out, I got to run some nickel electrodes, and had another successful cast iron repair :cool2:
Anyway, I really enjoyed making this video, and fixing something that can be put back in service... It was a fun job. Just thought I'd stop in and share the video before I leave for school here, hope you guys enjoy it. Have a great week, everyone!!
