Best "No Welder" Aluminum Welding Rods? Let's find out! Alumiweld vs Bernzomatic vs Hobart

one of the things i like most about youtube is i get the chance to help people save time and money and one area that people have commented on and told me that they wasted a lot of time and money are these aluminum brazing rods apparently some of them work really well but a lot of them do not so today we're going to be testing several different brands and we're going to find out once and for all which products you should buy and which ones you should avoid in the first test we'll compare the melting point of each of the brands then we'll do some welding and compare tensile strength we'll see if the weld peels away from the test material when placed under load finally we'll slice through a cylinder head and make a repair to see if it can survive the heat and combustion pressures of an engine at a price of only 9.99 for 60 welding rods or 17 cents each is this icy brand easy to use just simply clean the base metal and heat the base metal not the aluminoid rod until the temperature of 716 to 752 degrees fahrenheit then rely on the parent metal heat transfer welding wire to form welds and wait for it to naturally cool off after welding made in china these welding rods are very close to two millimeters in thickness the welding rod only weighs 1.49 grams in the first test let's see if the welding rods actually melt at their advertised temperature okay the temperature of the aluminum is around 760 degrees fahrenheit so each one of these welding rods should easily melt on the surface of this aluminum the melting point for aluminum is around 1221 degrees fahrenheit and the welding rods are supposed to melt around 730 to 750 degrees fahrenheit a lot of the comments from viewers mention problems with some of the brands requiring excessive heat making it very challenging to heat the work piece enough to form a weld so let's first make sure the welding rods melt at the advertised temperature okay after a minute we did not make any progress melting this welding rods this welding rod definitely has a higher melting point than advertised at 23.65 for a pound of welding rods or a dollar and eight cents per welding rod is this blue demon brand blue demon is made in usa according the information sheet stronger than aluminum harder than mild steel excellent corrosion resistance no flux required well zinc based metals braised aluminum the blue demon rods weigh 21.56 grams the blue demon rods are not perfectly round at the widest part it's 1 8 of an inch at its most narrow part 13 128 the blue demon is around 736 degrees fahrenheit let's see how it performs okay it only took about 10 seconds to melt the blue demon at 730 degrees fahrenheit at two dollars and eight cents per brazing rod or four dollars and sixteen cents for this pack of two is this burn zoomatic brand it claims to have a tensile strength of thirty 000 psi working temperature 720 to 750 degrees fahrenheit we're going to test that made in usa one eighth of an inch 13 128 11.65 grams burns-o-matic did a good job at about 10 seconds at a price of 16.99 for eight welding rods or two dollars and twelve cents is this a lima weld brand these welding rods are sold at harbor freight stronger than aluminum harder than mild steel low working temperature no flex or fumes excellent corrosion resistance low cost the rockwell b hardness is 55 to 60. the ultimate tensile strength is up to 40 thousand psi working temperature 730 degrees fahrenheit harbor freight one eighth of an inch 22.94 grams took a little bit longer to melt than the burn at 21.95 for 10 welding rods or 2 dollars and 20 cents each is this simple brand the surface to be welded should be metallurgical clean aluminum forms an oxidation layer on its surface thus protecting the lower layers from oxidation brush it with a stainless steel brush or sand with sandpaper until shiny use a heat source to heat the base metal according the instructions you can use an lp gas torch but map gas is a better choice in case you're wondering you can always use oxy acetylene as well when the temperatures reach 728 degrees fahrenheit you can begin working the simple brand is 1 8 inch the most narrow part 13 128 12.34 grams the simple brand melted in 10 seconds just like the blue demon and the burns-o-matic at 22.95 or and 30 cents per welding ride the third most expensive brand we'll be testing is made by masterweld made in usa 17 128 1 8 of an inch 22.19 grams the master weld is melting at approximately 740 degrees fahrenheit the second most expensive brand we'll be testing costs right at 25.99 for 10 welding rods or 2.60 cents each and is made by saker the second brand does come with a pretty good set of instructions on how to properly use their brand the saker brand is made in usa the melting temperature is 385 to 410 degrees celsius 3.5 grams 1 16 of an inch unlike the other brands the saker has a flux core and it definitely took more heat to melt than all the other brands except for icy and the most expensive brand we'll be testing is made by hobart at a price of 18.90 for just seven rods or two dollars and 70 cents each made in usa heat based metal to 700 degrees fahrenheit do not heat rod allow base metal temperature to melt the aluminum rod hobar welding rod is 1 8 of an inch 13 128 19.85 grams the hobart is melting at the advertised melting point for the next test i'll be plug welding some 5 16 inch washers to some quarter inch hex nut aluminum bolts in order to measure the tensile strength of each product i'm going to first sand down the head of each bolt using a drill press and a belt sander to remove any oxidation and to create a uniform abraded surface i'll clean each of the test pieces with some non-chlorinated brake parts cleaner definitely non-chlorinated the extra washers will serve as spacers we don't want the weld to stick to the washers only the bolt so i'll be using some metal washers propane will work fine but i'll be using some matte gas which will heat up the metal much faster to keep from melting or weakening the shaft of the aluminum bolt i'll be pouring heat into the top of the metal washer and the head of the bolt i'll be using a blue demon welding rod to improperly use this welding rod what i'm gonna do is actually heat up the welding rod itself instead of the metal and we'll see how much strength we get i'm leaving a lot of weld overlap on this plug weld to serve as a fastener since the low temperature welding rods won't stick to the ferrous metal okay only heated up the welding rod and not the metal itself and unfortunately it didn't hold no surprise it's definitely not the problem with the welding rod it was the technique i used let's go ahead and test ic first [Music] there's no doubt that the bolt is at least 800 degrees fahrenheit and the icy brand just won't melt after a couple minutes of adding heat the head of the bolt has definitely reached at least 1131 degrees the melting point for aluminum okay the welding rod finally melted but the head of the bolt is also melting to avoid destroying the bolt from excessive heat i'm just going to melt enough welding rod to overlap the top of the washer as you can see the head of the bolt did melt so the temperature had to go above 1131 degrees fahrenheit which is way higher than the advertised melting point let's see if blue demon can do any better absolutely no problem heating up the metal enough to melt the blue demon welding rod and to form a good bond bernzomatic seems to flow very easily and doesn't seem as viscous as the blue demon the overlap at the top of the washer isn't as thick as the blue demon either burns thematic definitely seems a little bit easier to use just like burns-o-matic the harbor freight aluminum weld is very easy to use i was able to form a much thicker overlap weld on top of the washer with the aluminum weld i didn't have any challenges with the simple brand melting and flowing it provided plenty of overlap weld on top of the washer masterweld seems somewhat like burns-o-matic it flows very easily and left a very thin layer of overlap on top of the washer the sacred welding rods have a flux core and they definitely don't melt as easily as most of the other brands by the time they began to melt the test piece had cooled off just too much definitely knotty pretty weld but there's plenty of thickness to the overlap weld on the washer hobart and burns-o-matic definitely seemed to melt and flow very easily hobart left a nice thick overlap layer on top of the washer in the next test we'll be pulling this bolt off of this washer we'll see how much force it takes and this will tell us how much strength we're getting from our weld we've got clearance for the head of the bolt and what we'll do is pull up until this separates well let's go ahead and test the tensile strength next beginning with the icy brand so 554 pounds is the number to beat i had a lot of problems getting the metal hot enough for the icy to melt and unfortunately it weakened the bolt to the point where the bolt failed and not the weld blue demon moves into the lead over icy with 730 pounds of tensile strength pretty impressive when you consider the weld area is just five sixteenths of an inch or just under eight millimeters amazing job by the burns of matic putting up one thousand one hundred and nine pounds of tensile strength the burns-o-matic did not become detached from the bolt head but instead tore away from itself this is the type of failure i was hoping to see the harbor freight aluminum weld did very well at one thousand and eleven pound performance but that won't be enough to take away the lead from burns-o-matic this is exactly the type of failure i was hoping to see the aluminum weld did not become detached from the bolt but instead tore away from itself and simple moves in the lead over burns-o-matic with a 1 177 pound tensile strength performance the bolt broke and not the weld so the weld is obviously capable of even more tensile strength than the numbers indicate wow only 88 pounds with the master weld unfortunately the master weld just didn't stick to the aluminum bolt very well so let's try this again with a new sample 348 pounds is a lot better than the first sample but still nowhere close to the competition in both instances the weld failed at a relatively low weight compared to the competition 186 pounds with sacred just isn't very good the biggest challenge i had with saker was getting the metal hot enough in order to melt the rod because of that i overheated the bolt the bolt filled and not the weld let's try saker again 316 pounds on the second sample is better than the first but still not as good as a competition cobart did an amazing job at 1 237 pounds taking the lead from simple just like the simple brand the bolt broke and not the weld using price per welding rod probably isn't a very good way to compare value since there's a huge difference in weight and length of the welding rods that we'll be testing if we factor in the weight of the welding rods looking at price per gram blue demon is the least expensive brand then a limo weld master weld icee and hobart respectively both hobart and simple were stronger than the bolts with the bolts breaking at 1237 and 1177 pounds respectively bernzomatic came in third at 1109 and harbor freight's a lima limousine fourth at one thousand eleven i have to admit these low temperature welding rods are a lot stronger than i'd anticipated since icy has a very high melting point we'll leave it out of the test this time and begin with blue demon we'll first butt weld two pieces of aluminum together the test pieces were first sanded and cleaned with non-chlorinated brake parts cleaner the thickness of the weld has a huge impact on strength so the objective of this test isn't to measure the strength of the weld but rather to see if it peels or if it breaks i made quite a bit of an overlap weld on each sides of the test pieces all the welding rods melted at the appropriate temperature but sacred definitely took longer than the other brands purpose of this next test is to see if the weld peels away from the aluminum or if the weld breaks i'll use vise grips to hold the test piece in position the blue demon weld broke instead of peeling away which is exactly what we want the burns-o-matic weld broke instead of peeling so great job by the burns-o-matic brand just like burns-o-matic illuminewell did a great job with the weld breaking instead of peeling the simple weld wasn't as thick as some of the other brands so it didn't take as much weight before failing the weld did a great job sticking to the aluminum master weld also performed well in this test with the weld breaking instead of peeling unfortunately i just did not have very good results with sacred some of this was probably my fault the weld just did not stick to the test piece i laid down an extremely thin weld with hobart and it held up just fine as you can see the weld broke and did not peel away from the test piece up next let's change the test a little by using a single v weld blue demon did an amazing job with the aluminum pending at 127 pounds and the weld held up along the main part of the weld though there is some cracking that's begun very impressive job by burn zomatic forming a very good weld and proving to be stronger than the aluminum very impressive job by limbo weld with the aluminum bending instead of breaking there is a crack in the weld but it's still held up simple didn't do nearly as well at 24 pounds unfortunately it just didn't have very good results with simple again some of this is probably my fault for the application technique used well did not stick to the test piece as well as some of the other products did [Music] at 20 pounds masterwell just didn't do nearly as well as some of the other brands reaching melting point with saker is pretty tough and filling in this large v well is going to be very difficult with sacred so i'm going to go ahead and skip it very impressive job by hobart the weld held up very well in the aluminum bed this is a cylinder head for a six horsepower briggs and stratton engine and as you can see i've cut all the way through the cylinder head so up next we're going to test to see if the best product we've tested at least the best in my opinion hobart strong enough to take the heat and the pressure of the briggs and stratton engine the best way to make this repair is to weld it on the inside which gives the product a lot better chance to survive but instead i want to really see just how well this product can stick so i'm just going to weld the outside of the cylinder head it took around seven minutes to heat up the cylinder head to around 740 degrees fahrenheit the hobart welding rod did a terrific job patching this hole let's take a look on the inside the low temperature welding rod did not flow into this cracks it's gonna be very interesting to see how long this cylinder head can hold up [Applause] very interesting according to the thermal imaging camera the repair area is a lot cooler than the surrounding cylinder head material i'm impressed i ran this thing for 30 minutes and it held up just fine wow check out the silver head and held up incredibly well and did not fail i have to say i'm really impressed with these welding rods it's hard to believe that that cylinder head held up for 30 minutes with such a thin repair area very impressive job by the hobart brand in my opinion hobart is the best brand a blue demon burns-o-matic and limbo weld also did very well in this showdown all the videos on this channel are viewers suggested so if you have a video idea i hope you'll take time to leave a comment thanks so much for watching and please take care and look forward to next time

Channel: Project Farm

Views: 1,552,110

Rating: 4.9429493 out of 5

Keywords: Seafoam, project farm, Alumiweld, Aluminum Welding, bernzomatic, master-weld, saker, simple, Aluminum Brazing, harbor freight alumiweld, alumiweld, harbor freight aluminum, harbor freight 44810, how to weld aluminum, how to braze aluminum, how to weld aluminum without a welder, weld aluminum, welding aluminum, aluminum weld, aluminum welding rods, welding, aluminum repair, how to braze aluminum tubing, aluminum repair epoxy, aluminum brazing, low temp aluminum welding, hobart

Id: fKIKsDfRAcs

Length: 13min 57sec (837 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 05 2020