Old aluminum is always hard to weld, no matter where the metal comes from. This is either cast or extruded aluminum. Neither welds well. It requires heating at around 400F for around an hour to burn the contamination out. Either way it’s done, it’s a pain. I usually wave the tungsten over the surface to see if any more gunk comes up first. Then it’s just a matter of dabbing carefully and using a bigger cup, probably an 8, with more argon, maybe 30 cubic feet per hour, or however that translates to metric. I suspect that the pulley alloy is a higher magnesium alloy than your welding rod, that’s why it looks that way.
I think the rods were for extruded but have worked well on god cast before . Bigger cups i have to get , No 7 was the biggest one i had . A friend of mine who welds ally all the time said to try waving the torch over the area first as well . Cheers 👍
This is the sort of video, that shows how spending time in coming up with good workholding solutions pays back in spades in the final product. Lovely job.
Nice job welding that busted pulley and subsequent machining. Looking forward to to seeing the guts of the slotting head, I can't recall ever seeing one opened up...
Hi Max, Just watched the latest video. I do a fair bit of alloy welding here in the UK. You may already know this, I use a Miller Dynasty 280. The AC balance setting starts at 50 and goes to 100, the standard is 75. I have found when welding castings or poor-quality alloy, the best results are when I have the AC balance closer to 50 which gives more cleaning, If you find out which way your AC balance goes for more cleaning, it may help in the future. Cheers Dave
I used a 2.4 rod but i think they are for welding extruded . AC balance was about 30 % . Their are better rods for cast but that was all i had on the day . But even building up on the filler rod , i was getting mixed results . More than i can remember seeing before . I am going to do a few tests on other material but i do suspect the Argon gas may be the issue as a friend of mine was welding with bad gas the other day & having similar issues . Cheers 👍
More likely to be contamination in the weld joint than bad argon gas I suggest Max. I’m no aluminium welder but about 20 years back welded a 16 foot aluminium Barra boat kit together that passed a hull survey for commercial use. The biggest issue was super clean aluminium (6061T6 3mm in this case). When cleaning the joint you can’t use mild steel rotary wire brush, or bronze rotary wire brush etc. Has to be a 316 stainless wire brush. Same with sanding discs, can’t use the standard brown sanding discs made from garnet, these a special green flap wheel disc made specifically for grinding aluminium that is to be welded. Anything else and the metals contaminate the alloy & the weld gets porous and just won’t join properly & get full penetration. Just a suggestion, might help next time, no doubt you probably already know all this. If you’re using filler rod, make sure it’s also completely free of external corrosion and also not contaminated with dissimilar metal. Brilliant repair job on that pulley, looks better than new. Wish I had 10% of your skills. 👍👍👍
I totally understand your frustration. 40 years ago I opted to machine a new 5 grove pulley for my Cincinnati Drill Press. It took me a whole day on an engine lathe Without digital readout 👍 I mounted it on. 1 1/2 HP Baldor motor, It still works perfectly after all these years 👍
That was a nice repair Max. I noticed the fridge in your think tank looks alot like mine. Different brands inside but the effect would be the same. One thing I've noticed over the years is that the solutions that come out of those fridges at night seem to lose some of their lustre by the next morning. Ken
Thanks Max for the great tips. I can't wait to try out some of your superb pointers as to adequate work piece fitment. The weather here has warmed and I can get back to more shop hours. I am enjoying the posts. Washington State, US. M.
G'day Max, great stuff as always buddy, very nice solution and save, as always I enjoyed learning a little something too, thanks for sharing buddy, best wishes to you and yours
Very good repair. I'm in the USA and really like how you intermix imperial and metric units. Of course all my machines are imperial, but a lot of stuff I repair are metric. A job well done.
Welding looks great from here Max. Nice machining, that was a lot of setups, not an easy workpiece to hold. Looking forward to the assembly. Cheers....
Hey Max, good job. Don't stress with welding the Chinesium pulley, I welded up a cracked C12 cat sump the other month. That was fun being cast crap which I think your pulley would be as well. All the best from Brisbane.
Been running a similar lathe after retirement got tired of the lack of degree marks so I lined up zero and put marks on compound at plus and minus 30 degree on both sides with stamped + - to differentiate from originals. Ps good repair
Great work, Max. I would like to see how you get on with making the keyway in the next video. I know how keyways are made, but on a project so small and making it on a press fit, we'll, that could be challenging. See you next time, cobber. 👍⚒️🏴
Max likes doing things the hard way - welding aluminium, much turning, broaching a keyway to be done using a broach purchased for the job. I would have simply bought a new pulley on eBay. A number of sellers offer drill press pulleys with various numbers of belt positions and various shaft sizes. The same pulley Max repaired is currently offered on eBay for $19 US. Most Chinese sellers ship to Western Australia (Max's location) within a week, with very low or no shipping cost due to Australia Post classing China as a developing country needing export encouragement. (I've never understood that one - it's due to a UN-sponsored international treaty. Nobody exports like China does.)
@@swanvalleymachineshop Perhaps. But while you waste hours of time repairing something that you can buy for 20 bucks, you loose the time to work on something you can't buy for 20 bucks. Professionals know their time is money and go for the quickest solution. Hobbyists make things they could cheaply buy.
@@swanvalleymachineshop Look it up for yourself. Various sellers list 6-step pulleys available with 14, 18, and 21 mm bores; a couple list 22 mm. I forget what you said your motor shaft is, but it should conform to the IEC standard (19 or 24 mm). You might need to bore it out, but that would be a lot simpler than repairing the old broken pulley. I would have hand-made a keyway broach out of a bit of tool steel, or even just mild steel, seeing as it only needs to cut soft aluminium - that would take 5 minutes on the bench grinder. Note when searching on ebay and elsewhere: they are called "pagoda pulleys".
@@keithammleter3824 Yes and they are 5 step pulleys not six . In plain English , way more expensive . That would mean i have to buy 2 of them to match . The smallest bores are 14mm they both would have to be sleeved & keyed to suit a 7/6 bore .
Well that pulley repair has turned out nice. If you only had a working slotter you wouldn't need to buy a broach to cut the keyway in the slotter pulley.
Lol . Years ago when i was working up in Wyndham i was wondering why everyone drank Swan Gold , i still drank Export & used to get these wicked hangovers . Soon found out the brewery put extra arsenic in as a preservative so the beer would survive the 3000 km trip up there on a truck ! 👍
G'day Max. The welding eventually turned out good, considering the amount of sediment & grime that would have been impregnated over time. That sort of job is Tedious at best of times. Great overall job. Well done.
> nice going there max. the beer o'clock armchair machinist commentary here? spritzing that thing with wd-40 just increased its value 10x; coat of fresh paint should hide the multitude of sin in that part and best thing about machining chinesium is sweeping up the resulting swarf and stuffing it down the tip. take care amigo.
Nice job. I was surprised to see you werent reinstating the grubscrew, as there now appears to be nothing to stop the pulley assembly floating on the motor shaft. Do you have a plan for that ? I was also curious as to why you didn't leave your round stock long (with a skim cut for concentricity), and use it for all work holding, including the pulley clean-up ? Then part off when youre all done ? Love your work, especially the freehand mill stuff, that blows me away . . . Incidentally, im just up the hill from you, and in fact, I can see Dayton out of my workshop window as i stand at my lathe ! Keep the awesome content coming mate ! Cheers (but not with Bush Chook ! Coopers for the win !)
Because i forgot about the grub screw , still have to do it when i do the keyway !!! Had to cut the bush to length to be able to access the small bore for finishing . 👍
For the second bore of shrunk in boss, I noticed the bar held in chuck wasn't cleaned up. Did you mark jaw 1 position to get it back in chuck same as when mandrel was made? May have been running true without bumping it around? As soon as I saw the grey box I knew it was a Mitutoyo dial indicator. The very first one I bought was Mitutoyo, 0.01-10mm in 1974. It got used far less than expected so still have it in original case, working like new after 50 years. Very low serial number and model number (NO. 2046) Don't remember why I got a second one in 1980, maybe because it had zero adjust? (guess I'm getting old and memory is going?) 🤪
Aren't the small Noga arms with the adjustment at the base a pleasure to work with. I almost didn't buy one because of the price but after using it the first time I would pay twice as much for it. Cheers. Dave
Nice job on the step pulley, just wondering it looked to me like the mounting bracket was made to go on top of the ram rather than under it. With it mounted under neath it will not be able to rotate without hitting the side braces.
I thought it goes under so the slotting forces are on the ram not the mounting bolt . I think the Bridgeport mount goes top & bottom for maximum strength . The clapper on the slotter can turn 360 deg for side work . Cheers 👍
There was enough material that you could have left the bushing long so that you didn't have to make an arbor. Then just part it off when your done drilling the shaft bore.
@swanvalleymachineshop I'm speaking of the second arbor at @34:43. Leaving a bit stick out past the repaired small end would give you something to hang onto while you finished the motor shaft bore.
Hi Max, Great vid mate. Can you please share how you pressed out the last arbor? Did you press from the 7/16 end? Or did you hold the arbor from the other side and press on the pully? Thanks
Hello Max. Very interesting repair. Better than tossing it and buying a replacement. Perhaps you will allow a stupid question. I sometimes have trouble figuring out what measurements you are using. Things go back and forth between bananas and monkeymeters. When you mention "a few thou", may I assume that you are referring to bananas? I follow several "down under" channels and this is somewhat common. Just in passing, as a machinist, I'm a pretty good blacksmith.
Good job. I have been eyeing off a set of expanding mandrels from LPR Toolmakers in Victoria to save a little work. Won't work for all jobs but if you NEED an excuse then....