Every weld a nonwelder wants is a Quick weld LOL

If I had a nickel for every time I've been told by a prospective customer that, "it will take you longer to roll your leads out than it will to weld it"

   A job like this is where You suggest that the guy get some low temp aluminum solder from the farm store & fix it Himself with a MAPP torch. ALL YOU GOTTA DO IS...

Yep, BAD news every time with those kind. You feel your guts churning when they say the words "Quick & Fast" in the same sentence.

Bad every time my friend. STAY AWAY!

BTW, It probably had a hole the size of a bowling ball in it. No problem, you could just "quick weld" it. :-) S.W.

Hello Griff, sounds like everyone has already called it on this one. I do believe you are fortunate not to have ended up working on that one. Those "few small holes" are likely the result of the elusive and often hard to deal with "Aluminum Cancer", and if this boat has been in salt water any at all, those holes or other issues that might require welding repair are that much worse. For those on or visiting the forum that aren't familiar with aluminum repair, it has to be one of the more difficult to diagnose and deal with issues for any welder. Aluminum being porous as it is and also the various grades of this material that are out there, is sometimes very difficult to work with. If you hear back from her you'll have to give all of us "the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey always says. Best regards, aevald

I believe just this week I got a stern warning from my teach about people wanting their aluminum boats welded. His advice was this, in a nutshell...... "RUN", lol. Unless you REALLY like them, like they're you're dad, brother or best friend, and it's not about the money.

It isn't ever going to be clean, it won't be a small hole like they say, it's most likely going to have paint on the inside, they're going to want it in a hurry to go fishing now, and they're not going to want to pay you for all the hassle. (and they probably won't leave you alone while you're doing it either)

So I really chuckled at this post, because I just heard this no more than a day or two ago :)

FWIW
Jenn

LOL..."quick weld"....well, I found out that machine shop work is the same way...to my unskilled eye, I had a quick project for my F-I-L's end mill, and asked him if he had a couple minutes to drill 4 holes and then spot face off the top so the underside of the bolt heads would sit 90* to the holes in the slightly beveled surface of this aluminum casting. Well we ran into obstacle after obstacle with the setup(due to the shape of this casting) from what I thought would be a few minute setup, when it actually turned out to take several hours to complete. Now I understand why he had that look on his face when I described what I was wanting done and asked if he had a few minutes.....LOL

You probably did yourself a favor by missing out on that "quick weld" job.