welding old light gauge railway track

[Thrashsmith]

I've been asked to make dining room table legs from scrap light gauge railway track dating back to the 1930s.

I have no idea what's in the stuff, all I know that it's tougher than mild steel and it's that it's rolled, not cast.

I don't know much about welding but guessed E312-16 dissimilar rods might be the way forward.

Can anyone better my guess? Any advice would be appreciated. Cheers

 

[Paul G]

Rail track is manganese steel. It's surface work hardens ( to martinsite ) with the constant contact with
the train wheels but softens back to its original state when welded.
For table legs just weld as steel. Rail lines are thermit welded using the chemical reaction between aluminium
and rusty steel in simple terms. ( oxidation & reduction )

Paul G

 

[BrokenBiker]

6013 will do it. There are parts of an old railway line on the farm i weld on and we used one to repair a cattle shed gate. Welded fine, no cracking. To be honest i thought it was just mild steel so used 6013. One of those suck it and see moments that's worked quite well

 

[Robotstar5]

Do the original owners know it's missing?.....

 

[Thrashsmith]

To be honest i thought it was just mild steel so used 6013.

I've had a variety of gauges and ages of track from this light railway and the stuff I have a.t.m is probably the oldest and softest so far, though I have forged, hardened & tempered a piece from the 1940s into a decent blacksmith's hot cut (cutting tool). In short I know it isn't just mild steel but I'll definitely trial some 6013s on some off-cuts as suggested.

 

[dannyp]

like a lot of special steels it'l probaly weld fine for some things with just about any rod if you dont want or need it's special propoties.

i keep getting given part boxes of a rods that are identyfied as KV3L from a guy i know who works on railways as a welder. not the eaxyet rod to weld with but they give a really strong weld i ted to use them botching up flat lifts and other agri stuff

 

[Jan]

Stuff of that age (I've worked with it) will be of variable quality, but will not have been made with thermite welding in mind. In those days all rail sections were simply bolted together using nuts, bolts and 'fish plates' to hold them in alignment. Depending on how many tonnes of strain you're putting on them almost any kind of weld that penetrates/sticks should be more than strong enough.

 

[Bill Edwards]

I have no idea what age/era it was from but using railway line I made a leveler that is dragged along roads behind a tractor using normal 6013 rods with no problems.

 

[Dimitri De Spiegeleer]

Railroad tracks do have a high % of carbon (around 0.7%), with some other alloying elements (Manganese) which makes it have a carbon equivalent of around 1
Preheat should be applied from, lets say, 0.4 onwards, so you should definitely preheat. WPS's for railroad track repair welding state preheat upto 660°F, with a minimum interpass temp of 570 °F.
Slow cooling preferred, no PWHT necessary.

For repair welding, special rods are available, also some special FCAW exists. I'd say for a dining room table, 7018 should suffice. 6013 will also work, but it'll fail more easily.

 

[Thrashsmith]

Thanks for the guidance folks. Running 6013s a fraction hotter than normal did the trick, though the commission fell through which is a shame. At least I now know that 6013s do the job in case something like this comes up again.

I also annealed a piece by heating it to red hot and leaving it to cool slowly in the forge, this morning I drilled and threaded the foot, (another element of the now redundant design), amazing what a bit of heat can do.