www.techno-weld.co.uk

Has anyone got any good/bad experiences of this stuff??

I am looking at inlet manifold construction

Cheers

Looks to be a good alternative to welding. In theory that should make intake manifold which are less likely to warp. The rods are a bit pricey but you never know, it might just work.
I'd love to try it myself

I attempted to make a lightweight battery cradle for my Streak Shadow.using technoweld I gave up, and gave my effort to a fabricator to use as a pattern. He was impressed by the strength of the welds.

It works quite well. I have used it to fabricate a few bits and, once you get the hang of it it is quite easy. Think of it like soldering - you need to put enough heat into the workpiece so that the filler rod will flow nicely. You can encourage it to go where you want it with the stainless steel rod provided. Don't forget that ali has a high heat capacity so it will seem to take ages to get the thing up to temperature, but once there, no problem!

I believe that some inlet stubs are "welded" to their plenum chambers using similar techniques, but I would be very careful to minimise the strain on any joints you make.

Graham T

I have used it a couple years ago.

My car is a deviant 'locost morgan' and I had one or two short overlaps on folds at the rear of the car that I needed to join together, basically short welds of approx 1 inch long each.

It works, but its a bit fiddly. Essentially, it goes on a bit like coreless solder. You heat up the work, and when at temperature, you poke the technoweld stick at it. It doesnt flow or stick that well at first - but you aid it with a 'prodding stick' that comes with the kit! Essentially, you move the pool around and heat it until it eventually takes on the metal.

Seems to create a nice result, but you do have to 'work the pool' or it just falls of in a blob. Its worth buying a starter kit and trying it out.

atb

steve

[Edited on 23/1/06 by steve_gus]

Would a good weld be achievable with a disposable Propane canister type torch ?

thats what I used........ and it was the corner of a 4 ft sqaureish sheet of alu - thats a pretty big heat sink! Beware that too much heat might melt the alu, and the metal around the weld will soften. Not perhaps a problem if its a manifold, but if its 1mm sheet for example, it loses some of its rigidity.

One way to make alu easier to work is to heat it up. it stays soft for months afterwards.

atb

steve

[Edited on 23/1/06 by steve_gus]

I repaired my fuel tankl with it after I drilled my sender hole in the wrong place

It worked ok but not as neat as TIG by a long way

there was a dutch geezer at one of the LR showing demonstrating this stuff. Like has been said, if you are skilled it is a piece of cake. Aluminium is a very good conductor of heat so you need a big torch on sizeble objects and doesn't change colour before it melts so you need to be careful. The stainless steel rod pokes away the oxide - you could use a stainless steel brush too.

I have used it twice. First was to repair taolgate on land rover - this didn't work as when the metal cooled, is was under tension so the "weld" broke".
Secondly was on a thermostat housing to tidy uo the edge, that went ok.

there is lumiweld too - google for both; same stuff but one is a bit cheaper

I have used it quite a bit.

I would summarise by saying it is great for building stuff like castings up and filling threads in ally for redrilling, but not so good for actually doing welds. For these it's much easier to get somebody with a tig to do the job.

I used it to shorten a gearchange extension housing. V strong but fiddly to use - I used a large blowtorch to get enough heat in. Only drawback is it looks shit.

Housing been in use for a year now and still aint broke