j-b weld it

break out the j-b weld .... as they say on the website ... "don't scrap it, j-b weld it", and we did. on tuesday morning, an electrician for one of our clients brought this elaborate wall sconce to us with one of the arms separated from its little ball joint (arrow #1).. it had a plastic coated wire in the pipe so we couldn't weld it normally, even if we could have figured out what kind of metal it was. probably some kind of cast brass. the thin wall curved pipe was originally threaded with fine threads into the little brass ball, but, after, (rumor has it), taking a hit from an indoor football throw, it looked pretty hopeless. click the photos to enlarge them ..

sam instructed us in the fine art of 'jb welding' and we set it up on the bench in the finish room and had at it. the key, according to sam, is to mix up the 'cold weld epoxy', figure out how to put some light pressure on the immobilized pieces and then DON'T TOUCH IT !! for 36 hours or so. it says four to six hours on the package, but hey, what's your hurry? in the top photo above, you can see that we cobbed up some rubber bands, a couple of props to get it on the right angle and then left it until about 11:30 this morning. will touched up the gold paint around 8:00 this morning, and by the time that was dry, it was off to its old home wall ... i'm pretty sure it will be fine ... next time you have some brolen metal parts that won't be subject to torque, stress, or flying footballs, give it a try ... works for us ...