Cast Iron Boiler Repair Made Easy....

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Hey guys,Had a fellow bring in this cast iron boiler segment for a fix. His mom bought it to replace the tired hot-water system in her house. The fellow said he was cleaning the inside scale & tapped on the inside corners with a ball-pean hammer to loosen the scale, & guess what??????  Yup...... a hole.He asked if I could fix it....... Yup. Gave him an estimate & procedure I felt would be the best for the particular damage & he was satisfied & pleased it could be fixed. The area is the ash section of the firebox & surprisingly, the cast was in quite nice condition. I cleaned the area & found extended cracking under the residual scale. I called him to tell him, explained that the cost was gonna be higher than the original estimate of time, & I never do a job without insuring the customer understands the reason & accepts the additional cost. He said to go ahead & fix it as it was worth it to his mom & the rest of the unit was in great condition.After removing the scale, CAREFULLY, I took a med-grit cone stone & lightly ground the scale to bare, clean metal. The under-surface was very nice & cleaned up well. Made a small template for a plug to fill in the hole. I knew silver-solder would be the best for this job as the capillary action would fill the cracks nicely & I wouldn't have to do any beveling. I drilled stop holes at the ends of the (2) larger cracks & warmed the cast slowly. I liberally brushed into the cracks the Lucas-Milhaupt sil-sol flux & started to fill in from the hole to the inside corner. It went well. Placed the plug piece into the hole, held it with a tip magnet, & started adding the sil-sol to get a bind. Again, went well. Finished the balance of the smaller cracks & wrapped the entire corner in an asbestos blanket to cool slowly.Got up this morning, removed the blanket & wire wheeled the area with a SS dense 1" dia. brush & put my small pin light into the water jacket to check for any light. Nope..... no light anywhere. Looks like a good penetration of the sil-sol & no issues with the cooling on the entire application. Here's some pics......gonna need (2) posts as there are (8) pics.WAIT TILL I GET BOTH POSTS ON!!!!............... Thanks...Denny Attached ImagesComplete Welding/Machine/Fab. ShopMobile UnitFinally retired*Moderator*"A man's word is his honor...without honor there is nothing.""Words are like bullets.... Once they leave your muzzle, you cannot get them back."
Reply:Here's the 2nd group....Denny Attached ImagesComplete Welding/Machine/Fab. ShopMobile UnitFinally retired*Moderator*"A man's word is his honor...without honor there is nothing.""Words are like bullets.... Once they leave your muzzle, you cannot get them back."
Reply:Nice repair yorkiepap!  I assume that was an oxy/acet repair?Rick V 1 Airco Heliwelder 3A/DDR3 CTC 70/90 amp Stick/Tig Inverters in Parallel1 Lincoln MIG PAK 151 Oxy-Acet
Reply:yorkiepap  -  Thanks for the post.  This gives me options for repairs I have turned down in the past.  My only question is; how the metalswill behave when subject to repeated thermal shock.  Please post again on follow-up performance.   Opus