Aluminum Welding Near Oakley??

[DeltaDan]

I recently purchased this "new" to us boat.

I wish to clean up this swiss cheese effect on the transom properly....

Can anyone point me in the right direction to getting this done correct? and about how much should I expect for cost?




Thanks,
Dan

[CHUG BUG]

don't know of any shops nearby, but have a friend that found a neat product called alumaloy. had an old tracker boat that had rubbed a hole in it, banging on the dock all season. he gave it a shot, and said it works great. worth a shot. www. alumaloy.net. claims you can do instant repairs with only a propane torch!

[Dan McKenzie]

A little advice, don't weld on your transom, you'll run the risk of stressing the aluminum around the welds and risk cracks down the road. The aluminum is contaminated with both a pre-paint treatment, paint as well as silicone, you would have to take a lot of that stuff off there and get it down to "brite" aluminum on both sides of the transom and even if you do all of that the aluminum has age hardened, if you weld on it, it will "pull and suck" from the heat, creating the stress that could lead to cracking. I would recommend a patch of somekind, I would also get all the steel hardware removed and chaged to stainless steel.

[Mikey]

Hey Dan, I am a metal contractor here in Oregon, so I couldn't do the repair,but I'll tell you aluminum MUST be very clean to weld. The photo of this area has alott of contaminates on the area and would take more time to prep than to weld. You could have it welded and it would look much neater than some goop slopped on there. I would fix this for aprx. 75-100$ if there is nothing burnable behind.

[DeltaDan]

Thanks-

Access behind it is very limited and tight.

For now I will just replace the hardware with stainless and cut the excess off for a better look.

Come next spring I want to replace the floorboard in the bottom and if I can afford it- redo the covering on the whole deck.

Thanks again,
Dan