Magnesium Alloy Welding

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Does anyone in UK have a reliable contact for Mag Alloy welding?

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

[Richard ParsonsParticipant @richardparsons61721]

No but I have a contact over here (in lace w:st=”on”>Hungarylace>) who can but that is no help.  I also have the remains of some rods I bought in the 70s at the M.E. exhibition at Wembley which allow you to ‘weld’ with a butane torch any thing which has a reasonably large aluminium content.  It is called ’Lumiweld’ (usual disclaimer) and I think you can still get it (try Google).  It works on MAZAK and die cast/pot metal.  It leaves a bit of a mess (I am not very good with it) so you have quite a lot of work to do cleaning up after.  The bloke demonstrating it was welding ‘Coke/Pepsi’ cans together.  Hope this helps.

Does any one know how to ‘soft solder’ or sweat Aluminium together.  Everything I have read says that you can do it but is as silent as a fish in water as to how.

[Richard ParsonsParticipant @richardparsons61721]

Sorry about the ” (in lace w:st = “on” >Hungarylace&gt this is something to do with the font I use in MS Office 2003 and The website’s input system. I will try Times New Roman next time

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Ritchard,you can soft solder aluminium. First a drop of oilon the place to be soldered (I use this system to solsder earth wires etc), then scratch the area with a blade or similar (the oil keeps the oxygen out),nextput the tip of the iron on the spot and move it back and forth as you apply the solder, once you’v tinned the spot you can wipe of the oil and solder a wire on as normal. Can’t remember where I learned that, but it works for me. You can get solder for aluminium but its sometimes hard to find. I’v only tried this with tin lead electrical solder, don’t know if it will work with the lead free solder. Ian S C

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Magnesium Alloy NOT aluminium alloy, magnesium burns furiously you may recall.

[Keith LongParticipant @keithlong89920]

Hello Kwil

If you have a WV specialists (not main dealer) near you it might be worth asking them if they have any contacts. Beetle crankcases and gearboxes were made from alloy with a high mag content if not pure mag. Similarly if you have any motorsport specialists around they might be able to point you to a suitable welding shop. 

Keith

[Richard ParsonsParticipant @richardparsons61721]

Ian SC Many thanks I will try it.  If it works I will get a big iron, my 60 watt died years ago.

KWIL The problem is that Magnesium oxidises very quickly so it is never -to my knowledge- used as alone.  It can be only used when it is alloyed with something which prevents this -like zinc and aluminium-.

When you use Lumiweld you seem to create a lower melting point alloy than the mother metal.  You heat things up, dab on a bit of the filler rod and stir the molten blob with a stainless steel rod -heating all the time- gradually the melt pool spreads into the mother metal forming a union.  You add more filler as required.

[jomacParticipant @jomac]

Hi, here in OZ you can buy small prepacked rolls of solder, for normal, silver and aluminium, there is only about 300mm  in each roll,The UK probably has the same products in the handyman section of your DIY store.

The last time I welded aluminium, was when I built a forward cab on my 17 foot fishing boat, even though I am a welder, aluminium is not my thing, tying to stop the metal over heating using oxy was a real hassle, cause you have to put in a lot of heat for marine grade Al.

Good luck with the low temp soldering, Lumiweld can some times also be a hassle

John Holloway.

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Hi jomac, used to get that stuff at tricky dicks(Dick Smiths)but they’v changed to computor and cell phone sales over here in NZ.Ian S C

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