# JB Weld for Aluminum Rail ?



## bnsfconductor (Jan 3, 2008)

I'm in the process of building a #9 turnout frog, and need to glue the two pieces of aluminum rail (code 215) together. Is JB Weld a good product for this? I've never used it before so I'm wondering about the holding power to aluminum. Anyone have experience doing this? My two pieces of that make up the point of the frog fit really well to each other, but I want to glue them together before I spike them to the turnout ties. Does JB Weld bond to styrene at all?


Thanks,
Craig


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## Nutz-n-Bolts (Aug 12, 2010)

JB Weld is great stuff. I'm sure the aluminum is clean since you would have just filed it to shape. Also is you can make the finish of the tow surfaces being glued a bit rough that will help the epoxy bite. Run them over some coarse sand paper to scratch them up a bit. I think you will be very pleased with JB welds abilities.


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## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

The thing to remember about JB Weld is it doesn't have a whole lot of strength in tension, torsion or shear. (It's good in compression and for filling stuff) Can you put a screw or two (or even simple pins)in for rigidity before applying the epoxy?


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## Big65Dude (Jan 2, 2008)

Another thing to remember about JB Weld is that it contains ferrous metal powder, so it is electrically conductive and subject to magnetic influence.


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## bnsfconductor (Jan 3, 2008)

I'm using battery power so I'm not to worried about the conductivity, but its good to know. I don't think the JB Weld should be under too much tension being a frog so that shouldn't be a problem. Any other ideas for gluing rail together? 

Craig


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

My thought was with a long frog, like your 9, there might could oughter be enough for 2 rivets where the web is filled/ground down. I like making rivets, but you could also use some hex head screws and nuts, for those I'd suggest plastic sleeves and washers to keep the different metals apart. 

John


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## bnsfconductor (Jan 3, 2008)

I'm thinking about just using JB Weld to hold everything together. I would have liked to use some actual nut/bolts, but the flange of the wheels are too deep, and would end up hitting the bolts. I think JB Weld will hold it fairly well, and I'm planing on eventually casting a copy of this, so if JW Weld does hold for some reason that's okay too. 

Craig


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## Amber (Jul 29, 2011)

You could make a wedge block to put in the back side of the "V" to give the point of the frog a bit more strength. You could cut o\r file it from a piece of aluminum flat stock from the hardware store. If you could get it to fit into the web area between the head and the foot of the rail and then epoxy it there with the J B Weld, that should give you a lot of strength, and I would look a bit like the wedge blocks that the 1/1 railroads use on their frog points. Depending on the depth of the wheel flanges, it might also work for spacers for the frog point guard rails.


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## bnsfconductor (Jan 3, 2008)

I'm planning on adding some wedge blocks as detail, but I wanted to get the two pieces of rail together first. 
I've got it drying right now, so I'll find out tomorrow how it holds/looks... 

Craig


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## denray (Jan 5, 2008)

Craig 
I would use Magic Sculpt, a 2 part epoxie, easy to work with and very very durable. .with a couple hour drying period would allow plenty of time to shape it how you want it, I have not used it on making switches, but plan to when I try my hand at making a switch. In our club I am refered to as the Magic Sculpt guy, I use MS for so many different things, as shown here many times on structures, but it works great on mounting Kadee couplers to odd cars and engines, it will adhere to almost everything except wax paper and face powder.


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## Allegheny (Jan 2, 2008)

How about turning the frog assembly upside down, clamping it into alignment and TIG welding it? It would never move after that!

Brian


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## bnsfconductor (Jan 3, 2008)

If I had a welder! 
I ended up using JB Weld to hold the frog together. It seems fairly strong. 
Here's the turnout build and you can see the complete frog after I used the JB Weld and cleaned everything up. 
http://www.mylargescale.com/Communi.../123060/afv/topic/afpgj/2/Default.aspx#243920 

Craig


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## ConrailRay (Jan 2, 2008)

From my understanding, JB weld will hold up to high heat and glue just about anything, haha!

Anyone ever try that special aluminium rod and flux that they advertise for patching aluminium radiators? Looks pretty easy with a torch in the videos, but would it work on al rail (and/or build aluminium bridges), or is it just the standard "as seen on tv" product??

-Ray 
@import url(http://www.mylargescale.com/Provide...ad.ashx?type=style&file=SyntaxHighlighter.css);@import url(/providers/htmleditorproviders/cehtmleditorprovider/dnngeneral.css);


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

I have both the "as seen on TV" "Alumaloy" and a similar brand that I bought at a Threshing Reunion from a guy that claimed to have sold Alumaloy for years but gave it up when he found his present product to be better.

My son tried to re-attache a mounting ear on a snowblower motor casting using Alumaloy. He said it was very difficult to get it hot enough to melt the rods and make them stick. He finally got it attached and then decided that he had done a poor job at the surface and tried to reheat it to clean up some blobs and fill a gap he missed. The whole joint suddenly turned liquid and ran off onto the floor in a splatter. He did finally get the ear attached and it held fairly well, but the snowblower had too many other problems and is no more.


I worked very hard at drilling a blind square hole in an aluminium (6061) bar to use as the handle to flip the foot rest up on my easy chair. Chain drilling the sides and then broaching off the scallops between holes and then lots and lots of filing!

Then I discovered that I had drilled it at the wrong angle!







ARRRRGH!









I put the bar of aluminium on a cinder block outside and heated around the hole with a propane torch. Took a long time to get the large chunk of metal hot enough to melt the rod, but once it started to melt it filled the hole nicely. After it started to cool it shrank a lot and formed quite a dimple in the top, so I re-heated it and added more to the pool to form a high mound. The hole was a bit over 1/2 inch x 1/2 inch and about 3/4 inch deep. I made the mound about 1/8 inch high. Then when it shrank in cooling it was almost even with the surounding surface. I let it cool for about 2 or 3 hours while I went to do other things.

Then I ground off the surface of the added material and sanded it smooth. The filled hole was smoother than the surounding material and either darker or lighter depending on the angle of the light. Then I drilled the new square hole at the correct angle. I noted that the new material was just slightly harder than the original aluminium, but drilling it was a bit easier (if that makes any sense! Sometimes a drill takes a better bite in a harder material). The new hole crossed the original hole, so I could inspect the joint between the two materials easily and I could not find any air holes or cracks even though I could definitely see the joint between the two materials.

I am very pleased with the outcome in that situation. The handle has outlived 2 chairs and is on a 3rd one.

From those two experiences, I figure it is probably good stuff if you can contain it while liquid. My situation was a "cup" to hold the liquid and it worked extremely well. My son's situation was much different. He thought it would work like solder where it would melt at one place and flow to another and solidify there, but it didn't it just kept on going until it dripped off. It would not melt at all until the whole area was hot enough and then it left very little in the way of a "tinning" behind (like solder does) when it flowed.

I wonder if one could make a mold for a frog and melt the sticks into the mold to cast a frog, instead of trying to use it to attached pieces of aluminium rail together. I don't know how well the metal would wear in a switch frog. I think it would be a very expensive frog, too. That stuff is very expensive... usually around $30 to $40 per pound.

I suppose you could use it to attached pieces of rail together if you put a mold around the rail and heated the whole thing together to just hot enough to melt the Alumaloy or that other stuff (I will have to go down in the dungeon to find the paperwork that came with the other stuff, but will do so if someone really wants the name... I know there was a web site for buying it on-line.)

They tell you to first wire brush the surfaces to be joined, and I know my son did that, but I could not do it in the small blind hole, though the hole was "fresh" so maybe that made a difference.


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## bnsfconductor (Jan 3, 2008)

This is what I was thinking of using. Or the next size up in temperature. 
http://www.micromark.com/casting-metal-type-160-8-ozand135-cubic-inch,8330.html 
It would be interesting to see how long the metal would last on a frog. The real railroads have this problem too. Welders have to rebuilt up the frog point quite often. 

Craig


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

I just happen to have a Spec sheet for Aluminum Brazing Rod and while yes brushing with a stainless steel brush is recommended, the first steps are cleaning/prep with a grinder, sanding and filling. 
It's darker because it has some copper in it. 
Don't work the whole piece, concentrate the heat/flame where needed and scratch the rod on the surface keeping it out of the flame. The host metal must melt the rod. 
Use of a steel plate or a sand box to hold odd shapes is recommended. 
I doubt if you can cast with it by a simple pour and expect it to fill corners with out vacuuming or centrifical force (spin casters). 
Propane and MAPP gasses are recommended, melts when base metal is between 725 and 800 degress F. 

John


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