Repair Metal Furniture By Welding

Metal furniture is a piece of furniture that can add great value to the indoor and outdoor areas of the home. You can use it for several reasons in the patio or backyard and it could be a great accessory even in your yard or garden. 

Everyone would love to have metal furniture neatly tucked away in the outdoor region of the home but you may wonder what you should do when the piece of furniture becomes broken partially or completely. Fortunately, this piece of article has provided sufficient information on how you can repair the metal furniture.  

The Importance for Repair Metal Furniture By Welding

Metal furniture can come in different forms; these include stainless steel, aluminum, and alloy metals. They can be found in the balcony, patio, garage, and even balcony. They offer a great practical solution for the outdoors. Metal furniture may come in different forms, including the Iron, Aluminum and stainless steel.

Metal furniture can practically serve as home office furnishing. For instance, if you turn your garage to a home office, you need durable furniture to support your activities. Metal furniture can also provide structural support for stored items such as garden tools and appliances. Nicely painted metal furniture can also offer an environment to relax outdoors in the evening while you read books or newspapers on a sunny day. It can also offer great support for your back when you stand and grill outdoors. 

Welding has become a solution to most damages that affect metal furniture. This is one solution that can make your furniture look like a new one, and you wouldn’t have to spend money to replace it. Even if you have to repaint the furniture, you need to fix damaged parts first and that is where welding solution comes in. If you need to repair aluminum furniture you need a special TIG welder. You can read about types of tig welders for aluminum.

Types of Furniture Breakage Problem

There are wide ranges of different breaking that can occur to metal furniture. The commonest one is corrosion or rust. Corrosion and rust occur as a result of adverse weather effects on metal furniture. The excessive sun and moisture can affect the metal components, causing them to become weaker and eventually break at the point of rust. 

Another common metal furniture breakage is mechanical accidents such as people smashing things on the furniture or when the furniture hits an item. These mechanical accidents can cause dents and bumps that can eventually lead to the breakdown of the furniture. 

Loose bolts and screws may also lead to metal furniture damage. In this case, the holes of the screws and bolts may widen as a result of neglect of the furniture, hence the screws and bolts may fall off, thus making the furniture to wobble or even crumble. 

Reasons Why Metal Furniture Break

Most metal furniture breaks slowly as a result of continuous usage and abuse and as a result of exposure to environmental hazards. Lack of maintenance can cause metal furniture to lose its strength. Also, environmental factors like moisture and sunshine can cause the paint to peel and corrosion may set in. 

Generally, people have different broken furniture problems. The metal joints may break leaving the furniture to shift. Some metal furniture may bend towards the end and some metal furniture may lose their bolts and screws that fasten them together. Outdoor and indoor metal furniture will require repair especially when you fail to carry out maintenance and here comes the solution you have been waiting for. 

Here comes the Solution

For the scratches, dings, flaking paints, and dents, you can simply apply a rust-inhibiting substance and then repaint the affected section.  Welding metals together can be the ideal solution to repairing damages caused by dents, rusting and corrosion. Whatever the damage on the metal furniture is, you need to ensure that the right tools are gathered. You need to ensure also that the damaged area is prepared properly before you commence any necessary repair. 

Take Safety Precautions for Welding

In addition to the fact that you must customize your setting, you need to follow safety procedures when repairing metal furniture with MIG welding. The heat and light generated from arc welding may burn your skin and affect your eyes. You need to wear a recommendable welding mask such as an auto-darkening mask. You need to wear a welding screen to protect yourself from extra-bright light too.

It is important to wear gloves and leathers to protect your body from splattering metal. Wear cotton clothing because polyester and rayon can melt under the contact with molten metal. Avoid wearing open-toe shoes to avoid metal burning your toes. You must weld in an open-ventilated area to avoid inhalation of poisonous gas.

Prepare Your Furniture and Welder for Welding

In most cases, your metal furniture has become rusty at the point of damage, therefore the first step is to strip the rust off. You will need a wire brush, chip brush, sandpaper, acetone and tack cloth for this. Scrape the damaged part with a wire brush then use your sandpaper to sand off the remaining rust and smoothen the part. Use the acetone and cloth to clean the place and allow it to dry before you weld or use any other repair solution. 

Prepare Your Weld

Before you commence MIG-welding to repair metal furniture, make sure the valve of the gas is opened. Make sure you have up to 20ft/hour of gas flowing through the gas regulator. Make sure the welder is turned on and the ground clap is attached to your piece of metal furniture that will be repaired. Choose your wire speed and power setting.

Squeeze the trigger of the gun and touch it to your metal furniture piece. If you want a clean and strong weld, please take a few minutes to clean the damaged area of the metal furniture. Make sure you grind the edges of the damaged part that are being joined. You can make use of an angle grinder to bevel the edges of the damaged area and to ensure the successful repair of the furniture.

Repair Solution by MIG Welder- A Guide to Repair by MIG Welder 

The MIG welder machine has different parts. The welder is the part containing the spool of wire plus the rollers that push the wire out of the welding gun. There is a nut that keeps the spool tighten enough. The Gas tank is the component is located at the back of the MIG. It contains either 100% argon gas or a mix of argon and CO2 gas and it is operated by the gas regulator. You need to open a valve to check if there is enough gas inside the tank.  The tank regulator must be set between 15 and 25 PSI depending on the type of welding gun you use.

The welding gun is the part that comes with a trigger that simply controls your wire feed alongside the flow of electricity. A replaceable copper tip is located at the end of the welding gun. The size of the wire tip will depend on the diameter of the wire to be used for welding. A ceramic metal cup protects the welding gun.

The ground clamp is the negative cathode end that completes the welding circuit. It must be clipped to the piece of metal furniture or to the metal welding table. The clip on the ground clamp must make good contact with the piece being welded.

Repair Solution by Multi-process Welder- a Guide

The multi-process welder will perform more than a single process. Some can do the TIG, STICK and the MIG. The multiprocess welder offers great value for money and you need to customize your settings when repairing furniture with this tool. Make sure you choose a range plug rated at 40 amps and depending on whether you will TIG or MIG weld, you should choose your settings according to the thickness of the metal being repaired. 

Start the Welding

Once the welder is set up, and you have prepared your piece of metal furniture, you can commence the actual welding. You may want to run a bead first if it is your first time of welding broken metal furniture. Do this by taking scrap metal and making a straight-line weld on the surface. You can use this technique to determine the best wire speed that will be suitable for the actual welding.

Keep in mind that too little welding power will create a splattered weld that wouldn’t penetrate your piece of metal furniture. Applying too much power can also lead to melting through your piece of work.

What are the Right Settings for Repairing a Piece of Metal Furniture?

If you find holes in the melting points, it means the power is too high and you are melting through the damaged part of the metal furniture. If your welds are forming in spurts, it also means the wire setting or power setting is too low.

You should know your weld settings are right when your welds automatically become smooth. You can also distinguish a good quality weld from a poor one by the way it sounds. You should hear a continuous sparkling sound.

Weld and Repair the Metal Furniture

If you have already ground down the edges of the damaged part of the furniture, you should begin to weld. Weld from the bottom up and push the weld forward with the tip of the gun. It may not be smooth in the beginning but with the furniture clamped properly, you will complete the work eventually.

If there is any bump after the welding and repair of the furniture, you can apply the filler appropriately. If the weld doesn’t penetrate properly into the metal furniture, it means you need to increase power and weld from the bottom upward. Adding more power also means using more wire to fill in the weld. Make sure you redo the weld until the broken part of the furniture is properly joined.

Metal Furniture Maintenance

It is important that you maintain your metal furniture to reduce the risks of damages and constant repairs. You may want to cover the furniture with thick leather material when left in the open and unused to reduce the effect of environmental conditions. You may need to repaint outdoor metal at least once in a year. Pay attention to corrosion and physical structure issues such as bending and repair them accordingly. 

Conclusion

Welding the piece of broken metal furniture is not the end of the job. You need to grind down the weld. Do this by slapping some grinding wheel unto the angle grinder and use this to grind on the weld part until it becomes smooth. Remember, the smoother your welding, the lesser the grinding you will perform. It is important to keep your welds neat in the beginning to avoid spending too much time grinding. MIG welding is a simple and straight forward procedure that can help you repair any damaged metal furniture in no time.