Aluminum filler?

[cayman shen]

I have a Darth Maul saber with tool marks on the sides of the fins. I'm concerned that when I sand them smooth a lot of material will be lost, and there will be an unattractive gap on either side of them when they're in the slots. Is there anything I could do to fill that gap that will more or less look like the surrounding aluminum? I'm doing a battle damaged, so it doesn't have to be perfect, but it ought to be pretty darn good. Thoughts?

 

[REL]

I use these aluminum rods for aluminum repair.

http://www.aluminumrepair.com/

I repaired a cracked aluminum car part with it, saved the person $80 for the new part. Since they're made of aluminum, all you have to do is sand it down to the original shape, then polish it.

You can use a regular blowtorch to do the work.

I also use them to weld these parts on my Ent D armature.

Here's a few video's showing how to do it.
http://www.aluminumrepair.com/video/EarRepair.html
http://www.aluminumrepair.com/video/Crack.html
http://www.aluminumrepair.com/video/ThreadRepair.html

 

[cayman shen]

Cool stuff, but phew, it's half the cost of what I paid for the whole saber! Any alum.powder glues or anything?

 

[cheech9898]

You could see about finding some USC All-Metal filler at an auto body supply store. But I don't think it will buff & blend in fully.

 

[James Kenobi 1138]

What about Lab-Metal ? It's resin with Alu in it.

 

[cheech9898]

Lab Metal and USC All-Metal are both aluminum filled car body fillers. The difference is Lab Metal cures by air/moisture exposure and USC All-Metal is a catylized product. I've used both and had problems/issues with Lab Metal's taking too long to cure.... that's not an issue with USC's product if you mix it right. USC being catylized also helps with adhering of other car body filler topcoats or catylized paints.

The only advantage to Lab Metal over USC is Lab Metal takes higher temperatures (seems to expand with steel base substrates better) and not pop/fall off thus allowing you to powdercoat over it... USC All-Metal doesn't like powdercoating high heat levels very well. When applied to steel, I've seen it telegraph lines around the edges of where the filler is or pop off substrates due to differences in material espansion weakening the mechanical bond of the filler to the substrate at those heat levels.