doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com welding a small part ??????

the release lug on my shotgun has broken in half.

I could probably make another from scratch but it would be a lot quicker to weld it. What do you recommend for welding procedure and equipment.....?

can I mig weld it...?

thanks in advance

Sean

First, I'd try to figure out why it broke - because a repair is rarely stronger than the original and whatever broke the old will brake the new that much faster.

mig would be my very last option, it typically has very little penetration and very little strength. It is the weld of sheet metal and not that of structural and machine components.

Lugs are glued on by the usual methods of silver solder and brazing. Those methods would be in my first train of thoughts, way before anything electric.

Don't think about saving short term time, think about safety first and make it last.

Best of luck.

thanks sixbears....

i'm probably not using the right terminology. the parts that broke is a 1/4 inch piece with a hole in it about and inch long and 1/2 inch wide that moves back and forth to disengage the action when you move the thumb lever oraction lever. clearly I can see that it was already stressed with very little actually holding it together. when I took it pidgeon blasting yesterday ........it let go after a box and 1/2 of number 6.

Sean

Is the shotgun a single barrel or a double? what make and model.

MIG is an acronym for a process; metalic inert gas. means that the electrode is consumable (the wire) and is fed automaticlaly while maintaining an arc and is sheilded by a type of inert gas, C-25, M2, etc. these are different concentrations of argon, CO2 etc. MIG is used for sheet metal but many of the MIG processes have high amperage and hi penetration for heavy duty applications up to and including pressure hulls on submarines. There are a number of MIG processes; short arc, spray arc, pulse arc and more. I was a structural and nuclear welder on Trident submarines for three years and we used all of these processes.
Th eprocess that you are thinking about that is suitable for gun parts is TIG; tungsten, inert gas. The lectrode is not consumed, it establishes an arc and wire is fed into the puddle and it is all shielded by a mostly Argon mixture (95% argon) with this process you have excellent penetration, can control the heat and puddle and keep the weld small with lots of control. There are guys here who can recite all of the technical aspects of TIg, I am going off of my head and thirty years ago.

But TIG is the way to go for nay serious welding on firearms due to the small heat affected zone, control and penetration.

Hitting clay birds is often easier than hitting the right mental picture -- Oooo -- I see things.

Anyways, if the crack is not where the solid closing strength needs to flow, I think you could most easily braze the crack shut. If there is space, ?, you can also add on some brazed on braces on the sides. This way, you keep all the geometries intact whereas electric welding will do a neat job of distorting everything.

Make a new part first before arc welding so that you have the dimensions right. Then mess around with a repair to test yourself. And if the part is heat treated to begin with it will not be weldable (not within common practice) while it will still be brazable and the side effect will be loss of temper.

It's only suggestions and hope it helps.

I should have done this at first.





by the file marks and the inside raw metal I would say this is mild steel.

It comes out of a 1960'2 belgian shotgun double barrel.

Sean

Since I'll assume the part already broke on you at the crack and you're still here to post, we can guess it's ok if the part breaks again in future. Gluing the two halves with silver solder or brazing (anything you will think is high strength) will be the most easy thing to do. Flux galore to get a good clean sticking surfaces and chances are the part might even be stronger than before. And if and when it breaks again you can glue it back together once more.

The cut out gorge on the underside provided the sharp angle gash to start the fracture. A tiny radius would have saved the world. Permanent grease on all the rubbing surfaces would have helped. Oh well. With the brazing you'll get that sharp angle relief.

File off the little gobs of excess metal and you're done. The strength of this repair will outdo anything you can achieve with base metal melting repair welds. Whether you get your heat from an open flame or from a TIG arc does not matter much to me - you're just dealing with iron and you don't need the super neutral gas atmosphere you can get on TIG, also, you can't beat the practicality of an open flame - you don't need to worry about the ground connection.

We've wasted more time typing than actually working. A lazy day.

I'd go with lazer welding ............... fwiw

In my shop I would TIG it. I have had several in my shop that had been silver soldered and were still holding up fine. Many options really......

Good input and advice- nice to know MIG is recognized as a AWS code process-right settings and wire dia. and shielding gases- MIG will penetrate for root pass as well as SMAW (stick electrode). Any metal, ferrous or non-ferrous can be welded with the TIG process. But let's remember here the critical temps- silver solder, brazing, then welding, even with the "Blue Tip Wrench"- and filler rod. A sprak test of the parent metal that fractured, and an analysis of the mating parts in the mechanism that may have caused the fracture might also be in order. I love to shoot barn pigeons-best practice bird going- "Airborne *&^%wagons"- I often find my dead birds (I pick them up as I do my empties-the birds go into the farmer's "Turd Hearse- aka- manure spreader--with those leg barns-must be hold overs from the WW1 messenger pigeons. Now if we only had a legal dove season--