Muggy Weld

[Horseplay]

Anyone try this stuff? Been meaning to order some of their Super Alloy 1 to do some repairs on some pot metal pieces. Seems like its tailor made for headlight bucket repairs, etc. I have extra quarter louver pieces of which one has the common crack on one side that I want to repair before selling. Thought I might give this a try.

http://muggyweld.com/pot-metal-repair

 

[Fst Blk]

Anyone try this stuff? Been meaning to order some of their Super Alloy 1 to do some repairs on some pot metal pieces. Seems like its tailor made for headlight bucket repairs, etc. I have extra quarter louver pieces of which one has the common crack on one side that I want to repair before selling. Thought I might give this a try.

http://muggyweld.com/pot-metal-repair

Interesting. Looks easy to use.

Bill

 

[Ponyman66]

While I've looked at it NUMEROUS times, I've just never gotten around to ordering some. I await any comments as well. Not only do I have a headlight bucket to do, but I also have a cracked frame for a 65/66 side louvers (vents...whatever you wanna call'em!).

 

[mert]

Basically a low temp solder. I bought some long ago and it worked pretty well. Did have a few issues getting it to flow right, but probably due to not doing a lot of this type of work. It seemed to be a good product. But as with most repairs will not be as strong as the original part.

As the headlight buckets crack in part due to poor design, high stress area, if you do repair be sure to attempt to repair and replace it in such a way as to minimize the stress on the part (good fit).

 

[Horseplay]

Finally got around to ordering. If it performs as advertised I can see a number of immediate uses for it and would expect more down the road. I will post up a follow up and some pics when the stuff arrives.

 

[Horseplay]

So my Muggyweld Super Alloy 1 arrived Friday. Found sometime on the weekend to try it out. Not having any junk pot metal pieces to play with I went ahead and bit the bullet and decided to try my first repair on a cracked 65 fastback louver I had on hand. I bought it off E-Bay from a guy as part of a pair and sure as crap he lied and one had the common break. He had put it back together with what appears to have been some kind of epoxy. Maybe JBWeld. It kept it together but allowed it to flex which cracked the primer he sprayed on it to try and hide the repair.

I sanded the area to the bare metal and used a small flat file to cut a groove across the length of the break in a "v" shape. I also filed the surrounding surface metal down a bit to allow an area for the weld material to pool and give a broader area of weld when finish sanded. I left the epoxy in place on the backside initially to hold the two pieces together. After I had laid the Super Alloy 1 into the prepared front area I went back with a my Dremel tool and ground out the epoxy and prepared a groove on the back side of the crack. This time as I heated the surrounding metal I filled in the back rather heavily which allowed the solder to flow through to the front as well. The result being a nicely pooled amount of alloy on both sides of the piece. I used a fine hand file to cut the metal back to surface height and then used 320 and then 400 paper to sand it smooth. I left a few mils thickness of allow on the back side for added strength. It won't show when mounted and was lower than the edge that sits flush against the car body. The front side surface (since I had previously taken it down a bit below the original surface height also has a wide pool over the previously cracked area. I will use a very thin layer of sandable filler to fill any low spots.

Overall my impressions are quite favorable of the product. Works just as advertised but you need to know how to use it for proper results. Like the videos show, keep the heat away from the flux and heat the surrounding metal to bring the area up to temp. As advertised, when the flux turns caramel colored its time to go! My main concern with the stuff was whether it provided enough structural strength to really fix something like a piece of trim broken in half. I can tell you for sure it has amazing adhesion properties so using it to fill in pitted pieces etc. is a no brainer. As far as structural strength goes all I can say right now is the repaired piece does not flex. If you try to flex it with moderate effort it feels really strong. I have no doubt t5hat once this piece were mounted it would not break in it's intended application. I would have reservations on something like say a broken headlight bucket until I tried it myself. I think if one were to place a thin piece of metal across the normal break area and drilled a couple holes like you would to plug weld and then used the Super Alloy 1 to fill in the holes and bonded the edges of the two I bet it would work.

A few pics of the process as required

 

[swpruett]

Terry,

Great review and thanks for posting the pics! It looks like there was a small crack to the inboard side of the major repair. Was this repaired in the same stroke as the large breach?

Thanks!

 

[Horseplay]

Sven,

Yes, that crack extension was eventually repaired as well. I played around a bit with the repair while testing different methods before finally fixing it for good. That's how I ended up with the final plan of sanding a bit deeper and filling from the back side as well. My playing around with different approaches led me to what I found to be the strongest, most probable long lasting repair.

 

[Ponyman66]

Thanks also Terry. I've had muggy weld on my "things to buy" for quit a while now. Specifically to perform the same exact repair you made. I had the same thoughts as you regarding using it to repair a headlight bucket (adding a reinforcement piece). Guess I'll have to finally pull the trigger on some.

BTW, what did you end up using as your heat source (oxy-aceytl, MAP, propane)?

 

[Horseplay]

I used a small propane torch. I bought the 3/32" 7 rod starter kit. The rods are 18" long. I ended up using almost three inches off one rod but if I had just made the repair straight away and not tried all the other methods playing around I would have used less than half that. I have a lifetime supply now!

 

[Ponyman66]

Thanks again Terry. I have a few projects I think I can use it on. Sounds like it can be pretty handy stuff!