Metal repairs using epoxy metal and other resin based products

[Manxmodder]

Hi all, I have been experimenting with various resins,adhesives and metal filler powders recently.

The Alba shaper I'm currently rebuilding had some unsightly blow holes and porous areas on the main body. 

These were mostly in highly visible areas of the casting so I resolved to do something to permanently repair the areas  without using any high heat processes like brazing/welding.

Many of you will already be familiar with the process of using baking soda and cyanoacrylate super glue to form a rapid setting and very hard opaque filler compound.

I thought I would take this a few steps further by first mixing brass powder with baking soda and then wetting it out with low viscosity super glue.

The results were very impressive so I tried the same with iron powder and got an equally satisfactory result.

Ultimately I have found when using finely powdered iron or brass they work equally well without the addition of any baking soda.

The iron compound is tough,files to shape really well and has a self lubricating feel to the finished surface.

In the past I have also mixed my own epoxy based brass and iron based liquid metals,and these also turn out as a very robust metal repair paste.

Doing a little further research into commercially available products I found a system called Q- Bond which seems very similar to what I have been making and incorporates an industrial super glue with a metal powder.

I do also use the ubiquitous J.B Weld and just reordered some from Amazon,but the stuff I have been making has a far closer appearance to cast iron than the J.B Weld.

I'd be interested to know of any of your experiences with metal repair pastes,putties or resins whether homemade or purchased.....Plenty more conversation to be had on this subject as it is a really useful technique to master.......OZ. 

Baking soda & superglue guitar repair link:

     [youtube]slCMkvEfK_U[/youtube]

[RotarySMP]

 

[vtsteam]

Thanks OZ hadn't thought of that using CA and metal filings. Seems like it would be good for filling small defects quickly, and may be interesting as a bearing material too.

I have used JBWeld for larger spots on CI, if painted over. I think an epoxy base would be stronger and more shock resistant than CA for a structural repair, but that isn't always important. And where unpainted cosmetics are primary in small defects, it it's great to have in the arsenal! 

[krv3000]

hi well i did a post sum time back on sum stick type epoxy that had the same shaing as cast you cut a lump off and mix the two together then shuve it in to the hole its only £1 from the £1 shop and its good for that sort of thing but not mutch good for anything else

[Pete W.]

Hi there, Bob,

hi well i did a post sum time back on sum stick type epoxy that had the same shaing as cast you cut a lump off and mix the two together then shuve it in to the hole its only £1 from the £1 shop and its good for that sort of thing but not mutch good for anything else

Some years ago, I had to fit a large pipe to a fibreglass header tank.  The pipe had to be horizontal but the sides of the tank had a draught angle.  Initially, I toyed with the idea of machining a pair of skew washers but wasn't happy with that approach.

In the end I formed two sausages of that stick epoxy, formed them into rings and sandwiched one each side of the tank wall round the tank connector and squeezed them up between large washers, the tank connector flange & nut .  The resin deformed to adopt the right skewness and then cured.  Job done! 

[Manxmodder]

Thanks Steve, another thought on increasing the strength could be to include some super fine glass fibre strand all chopped up and added to the metal powder.
Another resin I use for purposes other than what the manufacturer intended is Masonmate,a non styrene polyester paste intended for fixing steel anchor bolts into masonry and repairing cracks.

It also forms a very robust compound when set and can be shaped filed etc.....OZ

[Bert]

Hi All

 I have used a combo of epoxy mixed with steel wool for a down and dirty fix of a stripped screw hole. It has worked well the few time I have done it, however I would not depend on it in critical applications.  Works quite well for wood screws....think furniture!


Bert

[Meldonmech]

   Hi Manx

                         I have used home made fillers very successfully for may years now, using super epoxy, a colourless adhesive.  The fillers I have used are aluminium, brass, copper and cast iron in the form of fine metal filings. The best results have been on iron and aluminium. I don't specially make filings, but carefully clean down my vice after filing metals, and keep the filings in small labeled jars. I mix the filings with the epoxy 2 part adhesive to form a stiff paste, then apply to the workpiece using a knife. When cured it responds well to various cutting and finishing processes.

                                                                       Cheers David

[Manxmodder]

Cheers David. This time I used some iron swarf/chips produced whilst turning a job in the lathe. I gathered them into a small earthenware bowl and used the ball end of a ball pein hammer to mill them to a fine powder. I do also have about a kilo of commercially bought iron powder and two 25 kilo drums of fine brass powder some of which have been used with araldite epoxy in the past.

Just out of interest,I recall reading that foundry men of yesteryear used to make filler cements of ground up iron filings and sal ammoniac.....OZ.

[Manxmodder]

Hi All

 I have used a combo of epoxy mixed with steel wool for a down and dirty fix of a stripped screw hole. It has worked well the few time I have done it, however I would not depend on it in critical applications.  Works quite well for wood screws....think furniture!


Bert

Hey Burt, I would never have thought of steel wool. That sounds another interesting combination to have a play with.  Cheers for that , I'll give it a go......OZ.

[Manxmodder]

I found an excellent video clearly showing the superglue and baking soda being used to produce a reinforced repair to a plastic structural panel.

      [youtube]NEXCeQ_eN-4[/youtube]


......OZ.

[DavidA]

A cautionary tale.

last week I had to take my eighteen year old grand daughter to A&E .  She had been sticking on some false nails with cyanoacrylate glue (part of a kit she got for Christmas) when she knocked the glue bottle over her jeans,
She managed to quickly pull off the jeans but in the few seconds it took the glue had set and she tore off some skin.

We spent four hours in hospital and she ended up with a patch of glue about the size of your palm that will have to be left to come off on its own.

Note, there was no way that the doctors could remove this stuff from her leg without causing permanent damage

Be very careful with this stuff.

Dave.

[vtsteam]

I have a friend who is a modeler and now has sarcoidosis, and will have a lymph node removal and steroid treatments starting this month. There is no direct tie-in with CA or epoxy use, but it seems likely that they may have had an influence, since he did a lot of building with these materials. The cyano in cyanoacrylate is also the same cyan in cyanide. Obviously not free, but with heat it can be. I avoid breathing this stuff whenever possible -- I generally use CA very little in model building, and I use epoxy carefully as well. It's the amine hardeners in epoxy that can cause severe allergic reactions. I've seen that happen to another person when I was an apprentice boatbuilder.

[Meldonmech]

 
     Hi Manx

                    Would it not be easier to mix the powder with the resin for the second application, using a sharpened wooden lollipop stick.
                                          Cheers David

[Manxmodder]

Hi David, if I am making a epoxy based metal paste I always do mix the metal powder with the resin and then activate whatever quantity I need. If making the superglue compound then the technique I use is apply some glue first then apply some metal powder. Subsequent layers I often apply the powder first then wet it out with the superglue (in layers of about 2mm thick) and continue that way until I have overfilled the repair area sufficiently to get it to level when I file and sand to final profile.

Do any of you remember or ever used Belzona chemical metal paste or putty?....OZ.

[mechman48]

'Do any of you remember or ever used Belzona chemical metal paste or putty?....OZ.'

...I still have a tub of Belzona metal with a tub of its activator somewhere in my workshop... 

[Manxmodder]

George,yes I have used Belzona on commercial jobs years ago. As it happens I also have a couple of part used pots of the stuff lying in the adhesives cupboard. Belzona is still available and though it is an excellent product,it is very expensive.

 Good old JB Weld or homemade epoxy pastes with metal powder fillers are a lot more affordable and fit the bill for most of my needs these days. 

Do give the low viscosity super glue and cast iron or brass powder technique a try,it's easy and very quick to do.....OZ.

[rleete]

cyanoacrylate glue...
...there was no way that the doctors could remove this stuff from her leg without causing permanent damage

What?  You don't have plain old acetone in your country?   It will dissolve CA easily.

[vtsteam]

Wouldn't a solvent like acetone soak the glue residue plus acetone into the large patch on her skin, though. Seems like the cure would be at least as bad as the original injury. That might work for a minor bit of skin on a thumb, but I wouldn't want to try it over a large spill like that.

[Fergus OMore]

I thought that CA glues and doctors ability to use them dates back to certainly the Vietnam War.  I suspect that I have still CA packs in the  rather more than than First Aid packs in our three cars! My wife still has the urge 'Never to let the Sun set on undrained pus' and my dentist daughter is doing orthodontic work with the stuff.

Me, I'm merely the silly old fool who wanders around and 'mends things'. Only the other day, I climbed up( at 84+) to CA a bit of curtain rail that fell down and I also patched a piece of gilded plaster beading on a framed tapestry  that had been done by the wife of a bloke( died in 1939) who had the LNER painting contract from Berwick on Tweed to York- and I used CA glue and bare fingers. No problems, a bit of now very old runny Swarfega and followed by plain soap and water.

Again, what's the fuss about epoxy resins in the restoration of worn machinery? The local slideways grinder down the road at Shildon cettainly uses Turcite and there are things like Moglice and Devcon. Haven't used either but I did a repair on wooden clarinet stand with Loctite 660 which had lain -well out of use by date in my desk. Some millions of years ago, I used some metal car bodge on a front shear of an old Myford- it worked and even further back, we used to make epoxies for coating table tops in bars- that needed an angle grinder to remove.

Please- what is the fuss-today? It is OLD( Like me)

[golfpin]

Guys , Belzona surely the king of repair type epoxies back in 1968  I as working for an Englishman who raced Ferraris profesionaly  name of David Piper he bought a Ferrari motor that had been demoted to static display [you don,t find too many v12 ferrari motors lying around ] bought it as poss spares source stripped it found one cylinder block bank badly distorted. It was built up with BELZONA [made by Cieba Geige [spelling] and I presume all was happiness thereafter. Still available, not known by many and very expensive but I believe if I was stll active I would repair eroded aly cylinder heads with this product rather than weld.
My question, has anyone run two epoxy repaired surfaces as in shaft and bearing surface [golfcart this popped into my lap yesterday] min lube very low speed low load thought of using aly  epoxy based  stick on shaft and copper based epoxy stick {Alcolin} on the other part .,,,, any thoughts. Golfpin

[tom osselton]

Had to look that up http://www.belzona.com/en/products/1000.aspx looks like good stuff.

[John Hill]

I find the best source of metal filing is the chip tray under my metal band saw!   Very fine and always mild steel only as I do very little with brass or copper and hard steels I keep away from the band saw too.

[Fergus OMore]

I find the best source of metal filing is the chip tray under my metal band saw!   Very fine and always mild steel only as I do very little with brass or copper and hard steels I keep away from the band saw too.

Ah but a bit of aluminium and perhaps an odd piece of magnesium?  Very illuminating

Norman

[John Hill]

Magnesium, never in my shop.   I cut aluminium on my cold saw