What Filler for lead keel scrapes

[Habebty]

I managed to gain a couple of anchor chain gouges in my lead keel last season. What is the best filler to bond with lead (that can also be sanded)?

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[ShipsWoofy]

plastic metal? web page

Does it need a repair, you don't see it after all?

 

[RobinBirch]

lead?

 

[Habebty]

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lead?

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OK......how would one fill the gouges with lead and get it to stick without pouring molten lead into some form of crucible stuck to the keel? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[sailorman]

epoxy filler

polyester paste will absorb water

 

[nimbusgb]

Epoxy with glass balloon filler. Tough , easy to sand, water resistant.

 

[DavidTav]

Lead used to be used for car body repairs before plastic padding etc. I remember finding that the door on my first car (63 mini) had been filled with lead. Might be worth trying to find out how it used to be done.

 

[Strathglass]

Just use the International Watertite two part epoxy filler.

Easy to use, easy to sand, sticks well readily available.

I found it went very well when fairing my lead keel.

Iain

 

[earlybird]

For my keel, I'd definitely go for epoxy, taking care to get good adhesion. For filler I'd suggest colloidal silica, but the type is probably not too important.
I wouldn't think lead is feasible, but a competent, old fashioned, plumber might manage with plumber's solder, which has a long pasty stage, enabling "wiping". Seems hardly worth the trouble though.

 

[dmayes]

Don't use lead. This is done with eutectic solder, it has a slightly lower melting point than lead and it goes through a plastic stage before it melts, plumbers could "wipe" the joint to shape it while in the plastic state. It is dificult to do and you need to keep the area at a contant temperature to maintain the plastic state, slightly too much heat and the whole lot will melt into liquid and fall to the floor.

 

[DinghyMan]

Using lead as a body filler is not that difficult, when I did my apprenticeship I was lucky to be taught by an old guy that did restoration work and had to learn how to lead panels.

Have a look at Frost's site here for an explanation.

 

[Norman_E]

I have done it, with tinmans solder. My Velocette Venom had a dent in the petrol tank when I bought it. After completely eliminating all petrol and vapour I stripped the enamel, roughed the bare metal with coarse emery, fluxed it and heated it with a blowlamp until the solder would melt on it, fill the dent and form a pool which surface tension raised up above the surrounding surface. After it cooled I filed and sanded it to the right profile.

That would not be practical on a lead keel as there is far too much metal to heat, so epoxy filler is the way to gto.

 

[earlybird]

I think that the "lead" used for body filling is usually a lead/ tin alloy. It melts below the temperature for pure lead and is not unlike plumbers's solder, so it can be wiped. I really wouldn't recommend putting a blowlamp flame onto a lead keel, esp. near a fairly thin trailing edge, unless you know what you are doing.

 

[Heckler]

All the guys are being very kind in talking about what solder/lead to use and melting points etc, trouble is you need to get the keel bit at near melting point for the filler metal to bond. Its an impossible task!! the keel is that big that it will absorb any heat you can chuck at it with the tools at your disposal and I wouldnt want to try an oxy acetylene torch, too much localised, so only option is a filling material OR grind the gouges out and is a few scratches worth it?
tu

 

[ytd]

use epoxy. I learned how to wipe lead telephone cables to seal them many years ago. You need a special leather wiping tool and a lot of practice.

 

[rogerdog]

Epoxy is the easiest will balloon filler added, however when lead 'burning' is used as its known in the trade the only tool to use to heat it is oxy acetylene you play this on the surface to be heated until it sweats (little beads of molten lead) - and a filler rod, made by scraping a piece of lead sheet clean is used to gradually fill up the area -if the surface is horizontal its not too difficult - if vertical its much, much harder but still possible with time and quite a lot of practice.

If you want to go this way find an old, old steeplejack / roofer who is used to working/remaking lead roofs - my grandfather taught me this technique when I was a young boy - and said that it was being used very little then - so the skill needed and the techniques still will exist somewhere but will be difficult to find today.

 

[stephenh]

If you have very deep holes / scores there is another way:

Undercut the lead back so that the hole is wider at the bottom than the top ( like your dentist does with fillings !)

Take some lead wool (from plumbers merchants - similar to coarse steel wool) drench it with fast setting epoxy ( no filler needed , the wool is the filler) and tamp it hard into the hole - you will not be able to overfill on a vertical surface so finish with epoxy filler.

It's very messy - don't forget loads of epoxy cleaner for your tools afterwards !

and use gloves......

Don't bother with lead burning or wiping ( two very different techniques) on a vertical, or even worse an overhead situation, that's a Master Plumbers skill and not many of those about these days...