Muggyweld.com.....

[Run-em]

HAS SOME INTERESTING SRUFF THAT WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO USE ON REPAIRS FOR OUR RIDES. Didn't mean to yell--sorry.

Anyone ever used their stuff?

[567chevys]

Hi Run-em,

If it works as good as the videos then they have some great stuff .

Sid

[chevynut]

I bought a couple of their kits for welding aluminum at SEMA this year. They gave me a demonstration of welding two pieces of aliminum together with a propane torch, then tried to break them apart. The aluminum broke, not the weld. I was impressed. I thought I could find uses for the stuff, but haven't tried it yet. I may do it in a week or so on a project I'm working on.

[chevynut]

Well I tried using this stuff, and it doesn't work for shit. I used their "Alloy 1" to try to weld 2 pieces of aluminum together. I tried it 3 times, and the stuff just doesn't wet the aluminum. I watched their videos to see if I was doing something wrong. They say to sand or blast the pieces before welding....so I sanded both of them. They say to apply the flux with the rod, then melt the rod into the interface, taking care not to overheat. I thought the first two times I overheated the flux, so I was careful not to the third time.

The flux boiled, then turned brown like it's supposed to. The rod melted, then just sat there. It would NOT flow into the interface and I got ZERO bonding. When I watched them use it at SEMA, it flowed completely under the part making a beautiful weld and nice fillets. This is what I got.

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Maybe I should have gotten the Alloy 5 for welding aluminum, but I told them what I wanted to use it for (welding aluminum) and they sold me Alloy 1. It's also supposed to be for welding aluminum, although it's not as strong.

[Rick_L]

First thing, this process may not be welding, it may be brazing. Not that it matters if it doesn't work.

I know you've done at least some tig welding of aluminum. As you know, cleanliness of the metal is far more important with aluminum than with steel or stainless steel. What kind of pieces were you trying to weld? Were they old parts, scrap, new metal, what? Were you using a gas torch?

I think a lot of this kind of thing is either snake oil, or very narrow in application relative to possible success.

[chevynut]

New metal, propane torch, cleaned by sanding. I posted on their FB page and they said I didn't get it hot enough. So I tried it again, and kept heating it...the metal never flowed. In fact, I put some flux on a clean section of aluminum, heated it, and applied the solder.....it never did wet the aluminum no matter how hot I got it.

I saw this stuff work amazingly well at SEMA with my own eyes. Either there's something wrong with the flux I have, or ????

[chevynut]

And welding versus soldering/brazing....I think welding means you are using the same filler rod as the base metal, and soldering or brazing means you're using metal that's different than the base metal. I'm pretty sure the difference between the terms soldering and brazing is the temperature. Soldering is lower temperature than brazing. But maybe brazing implies that you're using brass filler rod?

[chevynut]

Wow, what a jackass. I posted my problem on the MuggyWeld facebook page asking for advice. I tried what they suggested, and it still didn't work. Today I got an e-mail from FB that said:

"Muggy Weld, LLC wrote: "We don't sell at SEMA, so I'm not sure why you're contacting us about this. You should be calling Cecil N Muggy, at the number on the tube, because he sold this to you, we didn't. Cecil N Muggy Co is not affiliated with Muggy Weld, nor are his welding alloys the same formulation as ours."

And my posts were all deleted.

So I called Cecil Muggy Co, whose phone number is on the tube of rods. The tubes look IDENTICAL to the ones MuggyWeld sells, and the bottle of flux looks identical, down to the red labels and even the names of the products are identical...."Super Alloy 1" and "Super Alloy 5". If you Google Cecil Muggy, the MuggyWelds website is the first to come up. So it's easy to confuse them....I thought they were the same company.

Cecil Muggy told me that MuggyWelds is owned by his son, but he wouldn't say much more about it. I told him I felt the reply I got was rather rude, and instead of trying to help I was told to get lost. He didn't say anything.

I did find out something nobody told me....the Super Alloy 1 will NOT work on any aluminum alloys containing magnesium....which is almost all of them. They demonstrated it on 3003 at SEMA, but never told me it only worked on that alloy and didn't work on 5052 or 6061.

I tried to go back to MuggyWeld's FB page to ask a question, and he's now blocked me from posting for some stupid reason, and has even blocked me from sending a private message to him. I tried to ask if HIS "Super Alloy1" works on aluminum alloys with magnesium, but I can't.

What a way to run a business, eh? I don't know what's going on between father and son, but it didn't feel good.

[Rick_L]

Your comments about welding, brazing, soldering, etc. are in line with what I think about those.

Welding means that you melt the parent metal as well as any filler. To me the difference between brazing and soldering, whether it's aluminum, steel, whatever - is that brazing is a higher temperature process than soldering - but with either one you don't melt the parent metal.

But maybe brazing implies that you're using brass filler rod?

Certainly the origin of the word "brazing" implies a brass filler rod.

But there are industrial processes referred to as "brazing" that apply to aluminum. Technically they may be more akin to soldering.

My first and primary experience with aluminum brazing was when I worked on radar equipment back in the 70s. We would assemble waveguide pieces in a fixture with flux applied to the joints - then dip the fixture and parts in a molten bath of metal. The process was called "dip brazing". I don't know the chemical composition of the bath, but it was primarily aluminum. Dip brazing was a nice process for certain things, but it was easy to have a failure. It was like fairy tale porridge - too hot, too cold - or it warped.

As for your experience with the "Muggy" family products, did you get out the OA torch and try a bit more heat?

[chevynut]

As for your experience with the "Muggy" family products, did you get out the OA torch and try a bit more heat?

No Rick, I was told it was already too hot, and I was burning the flux if it got black. The Super Alloy 1 melts at only 350F, so heat isn't the problem. The rod melted fine...it just didn't flow and wet.

Then I tried it with better heat control, and it still didn't work. Cecil Muggy told me today it doesn't work on aluminum alloys with magnesium. Pretty much wasted my money on this stuff.