Cast iron welding clip. Anyone ever tried it?

[jakeru]

It's "Aluminum Bronze A2":
https://weldingsupply.securesites.co...:terms::PE#E05

I tried laying some more 6013 stick beads on the cast iron yesterday and realized, the cast is indeed very crack sensitive. I can see why people to go great efforts to reduce the expansion and contraction forces with this material.

I am still working my confidence up to trying the expensive Ni-Rod, but learned it is Harris "NIC-L-WELD 59", basically 59% nickel and the rest essentially Iron.

[jakeru]

OK guys - I had a break through just now with my cast iron welding experiments I wanted to share.

I tried Harris "NIC-L-WELD 59" 1/8" diameter stick electrode (the only NI-ROD my local welding supply had in stock), TIG welded with the flux scaped off, using a clean prepped cast iron surface, and (not sure if this is necessary) AC welding mode (with 20%EP AC balance) just for a little extra insurance towards getting good fusion.

To scrape off the flux, I just used a utility knife and scraped it off similar to how you'd peel a carrot. I didn't go crazy getting every last bit of flux off there, and didn't solvent wash the scraped electrode or anything either.
Attachment 1746
I didn't do any pre-heating. Welded the same piece of gray cast (old automotive intake manifold) I did as in above experiments, in one welding pass. I just sliced through the wall using a cutoff wheel, did not bevel for this experiment. I did prep the front side clean and bright with a flap wheel. Back side was left rusty/dirty.

No pre-heating, no post-heating, no cracking. On the back side, I fully penetrated near the end of the weld bead, and it even looked decent (no notable porosity on the back side)
Attachment 1745

And here is what it looked like underneath the surface - if you held it against the light just right, you can tell the weld material wasn't a perfect color match. (But it was pretty close)
Attachment 1748
Attachment 1747
No discontinuities underneath the surface were noticed.

[welderdude]

That looks awesome Jake! I have played around with welding ductile iron with dcen tig and 312 stainless filler. it seemed to work pretty well. It took a large hammer to get it to break. It broke in the HAZ though. I didn't do any post heat treatment either.