[Farmall] O-12 chores

[James Moran]

A bit of an "outside" message, here.  Have you ever read "Zen and  the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"?  There is a brief but  wonderful passage which involves the city-slicker author making a  cross-country trip with his son and the chain guard of his bike  cracked.  He stopped at some mid-west shop run by an old geezer  who welded the metal to "rights" and the author was marveling at the  quality of the job and tried to impart his appreciation of the welder's  competency.  The old fellow looked at him as if he had just come  down from Mars, as there is/was only one way to do such a task and that  is correctly.
 Anyway, the theme of the book is the pursuit of  quality and, if any of you are so inclined, I would suggest trying  it.  It is a great read and, to some extent, an eye-opene.
  OK...off topic but I could not resist sharing this.
  JM

olmstead at ridgenet.net wrote:  I agree that I have little to lose, John.  And welding cast iron is
certainly a talent that I would like to have.

What scares me is the guys who say "I've welded lots of cast iron, just
zapped it with the MIG, and it worked fine".  That goes against everything
I've ever read about what happens in the iron adjacent to the weld, which
gets very hot and then chilled by the base metal.  It winds up being very
brittle and under a lot of stress.  In order to do a lasting job on cast
iron, the whole part needs to be virtually red hot while you are welding,
and then cooled very slowly.

Then there's the problem with porosity, contaminated metal, warpage,
cracking and so on.  Doing it right is not a simple matter.  I figured
that I might be able to learn to braze a lot quicker than to weld.

Brazing and soldering are also magical techniques.  In order to do what
the experts do, you need to control the temperature of the pool so closely
that you can keep it in the 'mushy' stage, where it doesn't liquefy and
run right off the work.  I've never been good at that.

Gotta obtain some 2" round stock before I can start making crank
supports....  none in my scrap pile.

-Karl

----------------------------
> Great read Karl. Definetly a good play by play for anyone resurrecting an
> old machine for the first time and not certain what to watch out for.
> Likewise a good reminder for the rest of us.
>
> Got a challenge for you. Learn to weld cast iron. It's something I can do
> on
> my own projects but don't really want to do for others. Then again a lot
> of
> pros refuse to give a guarantee on some repairs. Breaks are easier to fix
> than cracks. If you are already planning on remaking the part anyway, no
> big
> deal if you screw up, right? Whats the worst that can happen, you get good
> at it? Lord knows I haven't gotten good at it but I've made a couple of
> decent repairs on my Titan that are working just fine thus far. As with
> anything, you need to know when to call in a pro instead of try it
> yourself.
> However these days finding a pro that can weld cast is getting to be
> difficult.
>
> Having said all that, I still can't solder and braze worth a flip. There
> are
> going to be some repeirs on the Titan to be made with either lead or
> solder
> and I hope to learn how. That tractor had the intake broke off at the head
> once. It was put back on with the prettiest brass work I have ever seen.
> To
> top it off the guy wet around the flange and built it up for added
> strength.
> I have never seen brass with swirl marks in it like welding but this guy
> did
> a flawless job. And this repair took place before the mid '40's. The only
> thing I did was to make a spotface for the bolt head and face off the
> bottom
> of the intake.
>
> John


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