Hi All Has anyone, tried to repair chrome pitting on hydraulic cylinder shafts. (Weld, paint, solder, tin, lead etc.) Cheers
Yes I bought very special rod for small chrome flaking and polished it afterwards. It’s just a bandaid to finish the job until a proper job can be done with spray welding at a hydraulic shop.
If it's just the thickness of the chrome, sand the edges smooth and polish it up. If it's deeper pits, Jbweld, TIG stainless, SS or nickle stick weld it, or even nickle plating is not that difficult. Anything that sticks up, use an oiled file the long way on the rod and it will slide right over the good chrome to smooth down the weld, then polish.
I'd say a lot depends on the particular rod. What its function is and how much use it gets.
Thanks all
I knew a place that used a stainless stick electrode to repair an elevator cylinder. They had a die grinder with a threaded head and made a special jig with small rollers for grinding the weld down. The last little bit they hand filed.
Backyard you say?,
Seriously, I’ve seen good temporary permanent repairs done with 60/40 acid core solder, or silver solder. I’d be worried about the solder falling out and contaminating the system on a high pressure, expensive machine.
ROFL, notice when they are straightening in the press the press operator has the sense to at least try to hide behind the press uprights. Meanwhile the camera operator is just standing there ready to be a target should the dodgy extension piece come flying out. Now that's dedication to getting the right shot. But the next group, working with chrome fumes like that, their health is going to be stuffed.
Or getting “shot” by the loose piece as it comes whistling out under load at twice the speed of sound……
I think after using heat and that much of a bend the rod is going to be slightly stiffer than a wet noodle. Maybe that's why it bent so much, it wasn't the 1st time it was straightened.
I grew up fairly close to C.B. Bumper in the 80’s-90’s. This dude started a chrome plating business and restoration company in his barn. It was great for the local hot-rod and car community. Not so good for the neighborhood. He dumped the waste on the ground or in his septic tank. He skipped town and abandoned the 40 acre parcel. Left Thurston County on the hook, for the cleanup and Wa. EPA. Eventually it became a Super fund site. https://apps.ecology.wa.gov/cleanupsearch/document/108383
The Giant mine closed and has thousands of shipping containers full arsenic leaking out. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/arsenic-waste-leaked-from-container-at-giant-mine-last-summer-1.3095520
Also notice how wallowed out the pin eye on the rod is. Amazing that a poorer country can neglect expensive machines so much. I wonder where the money comes from to buy them in the first place? You'd think they'd really take care of them.
A lot of their stuff is just older stuff they import from places like the UK, USA etc where no one wants them. Old dozers in the USA really are dirt cheap or used to be compared to other parts of the world where there are less of them. Even here in Australia for decades we have had dealers who buy used machines in the USA and import them and sell them for profit. I know a contractor/cattle owner who got a D9G freshly imported in the late 1990's, they were pretty obsolete even back then. In the UK for the past decade or longer there has been plenty of people from India buying up manual lathes, mills, borers, grinders that would sell for scrap at UK auctions, stuff them in shipping containers and send them on their way. From memory when Australia shut down their entire car manufacturing industry the mains parts like big clearing presses and other lines of machinery went to a third world country.
I’ve read somewhere, probably on this site, where someone suggested to use super glue to fill in pits.. let it sit and sand it down when dry.. I thought it was a good suggestion..
A similar suggestion could be made using 2-pack epoxy.
I’ve always been concerned that epoxy would come off and contaminate the system
Please note I did say "suggestion". I was not advocating actually using it....... I suppose it all depends how rough the rod surface could be made in order to that the epoxy bonded to it well.
Devcon and others make epoxies for building up wear surfaces but not sure how well they would stick when in a small spot. On things like shafts they recommend turning them down, however some people have had success with epoxy on pitted cylinders. I guess it's kind of a take your chances kind of thing.
The epoxies for wear surfaces are made with very hard fillers, typically ceramic. You would not want that in any hydraulic system.
I was more thinking of good epoxy would stick to the cylinder rod. You wouldn't want any kind of hardened epoxy floating around in the hyd. system.
When I was a apprentice fitter and turner, the crane driver left the hand brake off an old tractor crane and it rolled into the workshop and dented the 6" hollow hydraulic ram on the buildings UB cross beam. A old blacksmith turned boilermaker pressed it round and filled the hollows with lead it worked well with only a little leak as it past the seals