Friction welding

[Frank Elder]

I watched several vids last night on friction welding, one was about a huge truck axle, attaching the spindles to the axle tube ends. Never knew such a process existed, You tube never fails to either entertain or educate me.......can't post links yet haven't figured out yet how to do it on this IPad I inherited, and my lap top spread feces all over itself and I lost everything....bummer.

Anyway if you hadn't seen it in action before I highly recommend it for your viewing pleasure.

[P15-D24]

Many years ago I working the booth at a trade show and the company next to us did explosive welding. Didn't think much about it until I started looking at the samples on the table (It was a really slow show) and a sample of aluminum welded to bronze caught my eye. Wait a minute, how did you do that? He explained the process and and noted production days were a lot of fun with all the explosions! Customers were mostly military contractors who needed weird hybrid materials. 

[Frank Elder]

2 hours ago, P15-D24 said:

Many years ago I working the booth at a trade show and the company next to us did explosive welding. Didn't think much about it until I started looking at the samples on the table (It was a really slow show) and a sample of aluminum welded to bronze caught my eye. Wait a minute, how did you do that? He explained the process and and noted production days were a lot of fun with all the explosions! Customers were mostly military contractors who needed weird hybrid materials. 

Wow......now I gotta look for that one, thanks for giving me homework Boss....lol.

[Tooljunkie]

There is also friction drilling. Often used in thin wall tubing. 

[HotRodTractor]

I've done friction welding making custom CV axle shafts in the past (weird stuff like Artic cat ATV insides and Bombardier ATV outsides......) 
 

I also do quite a bit of friction drilling - also known as flow drilling. We make thin walled manifolds at work and the flow drill gives enough material that a 12ga steel tube can have NPT threads. 

 

Another cool technique I have tried in the past is thermite welding. I helped repair a piece of cast for a traction engine and did it the "way it would have been done" when the engine was in use.