# Muggy Weld vs Dura Fix



## TC1OZ (Apr 23, 2010)

Muggy Weld :





https://www.muggyweld.com/5clip13.html


Vs.

Dura Fix




https://www.durafix.com/


From what I can tell they are the exact same thing, except that Muggy Weld requires a separate flux while the Dura Fix has the flux in the rod... I assume.

Does anyone have experience working with either? Which is the superior product?


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## Loggerhead Mike (Apr 23, 2010)

ive baught a few diff. brands of them brazing rods. if you can get threw the oxide layer and actually get the rod to stick to the aluminum w/out burning a hole threw the boat your doing good

you really gotta know what your doing w/ that stuff. id recomend just getting it welded


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## TC1OZ (Apr 23, 2010)

Loggerhead Mike said:


> ive baught a few diff. brands of them brazing rods. if you can get threw the oxide layer and actually get the rod to stick to the aluminum w/out burning a hole threw the boat your doing good
> 
> you really gotta know what your doing w/ that stuff. id recomend just getting it welded



From what I've read the temperature you are using for the rods isn't hot enough to melt the aluminum. I guess that's a lie?


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## huntinfool (Apr 23, 2010)

TC1OZ said:


> From what I've read the temperature you are using for the rods isn't hot enough to melt the aluminum. I guess that's a lie?



I think it depends on how well you can work with the torch, but some propane torches will melt aluminum.


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## TC1OZ (Apr 23, 2010)

huntinfool said:


> TC1OZ said:
> 
> 
> > From what I've read the temperature you are using for the rods isn't hot enough to melt the aluminum. I guess that's a lie?
> ...



Thanks! I'm wiling to give it a shot. Maybe I'll buy with the company that offers the propane tip. (I believe its the size of the tip that controls the flame/heat for the propane torches)


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## Loggerhead Mike (Apr 23, 2010)

```
From what I've read the temperature you are using for the rods isn't hot enough to melt the aluminum. I guess that's a lie?
```

no thats true they just forget to mention what temp you need to get threw the oxide layer. anyhoo i hope it works out for ya brother, and if it does could you post a how too on it?


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## TC1OZ (Apr 23, 2010)

Loggerhead Mike said:


> ```
> From what I've read the temperature you are using for the rods isn't hot enough to melt the aluminum. I guess that's a lie?
> ```
> 
> no thats true they just forget to mention what temp you need to get threw the oxide layer. anyhoo i hope it works out for ya brother, and if it does could you post a how too on it?



Yes sir! I'm hoping more people chime in telling me its garbage... thus making me not want to try it. But so far its 50/50 tie lol.


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## zackn (Apr 26, 2010)

I'm kind of afraid to try it, but I'm really tempted too. I might just take the easy way out and use 5200 sealant along my seams instead of trying to weld. In your case, since you have sections that need to be patched, I think the welding would make more sense that it does for me. I figure I can always scrape out the 5200 sealant if necessary and replace, but the welding is forever if something goes wrong. And my skill level for that kind of thing is definitely a "beginner". Maybe you could get some scrap aluminum and practice on that?


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## arkansasnative (Apr 26, 2010)

i used a similar product made by Hobart (they make welding/brazing equipment) on my boat... i practiced on a scrap piece of aluminum first and really had no problem once i got the base metal heated to the proper temp (around 700 degrees) but the boat is a little trickier. mainly because the boat was alot thinner aluminum so i had to deal with warping. all in all i was able to make a watertight seal but its not super clean looking like i wanted. its not that hard as long as you give the base metal time to heat but not heat it so much it starts warping badly. if it does warp you can always hammer it out. to finish it out im gonna grab some 5200 sealant and coat the inside of the boat with it around the tear


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## tamiholly (Aug 6, 2010)

Muggy Weld and Dura Fix are not the same product--they are both aluminum welding rods but that's where the similarities end. It's the same concept as saying a Pinto and Lamborghini are the same because they're both cars. 

Dura Fix, Allumalloy, HTS-2000 are all the exact same chemical composition--these rods are sold worldwide under about 40 different names. Muggy Weld rods are our own specific formula--the rods and flux work synergistically. Our rod *actually* melts at 618 degrees before the melting point of aluminum because the flux flows the inert gases in the rod. So you actually won't melt your aluminum unless you put a torch on your base metal and leave it there until you hit 1200 degrees. The flux turns liquid at 600 degrees, indicating it's the right temperature to add the rod, so if you watch the flux you should have no problem brazing aluminum without damaging the part.

I responded solely because people make this erroneous assumption all the time, that every aluminum rod is the same product as ours. Many are the same formula, ours is not....


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## perchin (Aug 7, 2010)

tamiholly said:


> I responded solely because people make this erroneous assumption all the time



uhh.... nope. You responded just to bolster your buisness. Maybe you should pay to sponser this site if you want to advertise. Most of what is posted on this board is based off our actuall experience with something... not just throwing around erroneous opinions, so save it for your next commercial. [-X

Oh and by the way I consider a WELD to be when the two like pieces bond and penetrate eachother.... not just a puddle that can be knocked off with a ball peen....welding rods :roll:


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## Howard (Aug 7, 2010)

I have recently used a aluminum brazing rod. First, to my surprise I was unable to burn a hole through my tin. I even went as far as holding the torch in the same location for 10 minutes just for curiosity sakes. I could not burn through the aluminum. However as stated it will start warping. Small holes where rivets had come out I was successful plugging them with the brazing rod. Went very easy. Other similar places I just was not able to get the base of the aluminum to heat up to temperature thus not being able to melt the rod. This was a little perplexing. I could not heat aluminum up to temperature anywhere near a existing rivet, rib or solid material. I also practiced on a piece of extruded aluminum from a sliding glass door and it worked like a charm. So, I believe it just depends on one's skill set and mostly the application. I would however recommend as I did to get anything structural or significant tig welded, its 100% just MHO


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## perchin (Aug 7, 2010)

Howard.... what is the thickness of your boat??? I am guessing here but I bet you were using a propane torch. Try using a Map gas torch (yellow can, not blue) It will heat up much quicker, and will burn a lot hotter. I could walk out to my boat with a map gas torch and burn a hole through it fairly quickly. Using the map gas torch might get you the results your looking for.


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## Howard (Aug 7, 2010)

Yes, using propane because it was sitting on the shelf and I have a propane torch head. Considered using Map gas but was reluctant because of the possibility of burning a hole through the aluminum and I don't have the torch for Map. Thickness, not sure, its a 1993 Alumacraft 1648. I knew heat source was the problem but I just now used 5200 and self enclosed rivets. Will water test in a bit to compare the two applications. Weigh out time, labor and cost.


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## bassboy1 (Aug 7, 2010)

Howard said:


> I have recently used a aluminum brazing rod. First, to my surprise I was unable to burn a hole through my tin. I even went as far as holding the torch in the same location for 10 minutes just for curiosity sakes. I could not burn through the aluminum. However as stated it will start warping. Small holes where rivets had come out I was successful plugging them with the brazing rod. Went very easy. Other similar places I just was not able to get the base of the aluminum to heat up to temperature thus not being able to melt the rod. This was a little perplexing. I could not heat aluminum up to temperature anywhere near a existing rivet, rib or solid material. I also practiced on a piece of extruded aluminum from a sliding glass door and it worked like a charm. So, I believe it just depends on one's skill set and mostly the application. I would however recommend as I did to get anything structural or significant tig welded, its 100% just MHO



Biggest issue you had is the size of the weldment. Aluminum has some tremendous heat absorbing capabilities, and as such, on a large weldment, like a boat, it is able to suck the heat in, and dissipate it through the entire boat faster than the torch can put more heat in. 

For example, when I'm TIG'ing something small on the bench, say .125 square tube, I can usually set the machine to 130 amps, and rarely give it full pedal, so my actual welding through most of the piece is a bit less. But, once I start adding stuff to it, and my assembly is suddenly 8 feet long, I've got the machine up to 165 or 170 amps, or the work takes too much heat away from where I'm working. Were I welding on the piece long enough that the entire piece got hot, I would suddenly have to back off the amps significantly, or really up my travel speed. This really is more of an issue on long continuous welds on sheet.


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## Howard (Aug 7, 2010)

> Biggest issue you had is the size of the weldment. Aluminum has some tremendous heat absorbing capabilities, and as such, on a large weldment, like a boat, it is able to suck the heat in, and dissipate it through the entire boat faster than the torch can put more heat in.



Yep, I agree, simply not enough heat consentrated in one area quickly enough. All depends on the application you are using these rods. Might try Map gas for the fun of it


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## tamiholly (Sep 12, 2010)

perchin said:


> tamiholly said:
> 
> 
> > I responded solely because people make this erroneous assumption all the time
> ...




Perchin, the original post erroneously assumed:

From what I can tell they are the exact same thing, except that Muggy Weld requires a separate flux while the Dura Fix has the flux in the rod... I assume.

I was noting that it's not my opinion that the rods are not the same as DuraFix, it's a scientific fact. So no, I wasn't bolstering my business, I was educating the author since his assumption was wrong. You might want to scold the author for his erroneous opinion. 

None of this thread is based on actual experience. Not one person on this thread has actually used Muggy Weld rods, every statement on here has been a guess, an assumption, or an opinion. And they've been wrong.


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## perchin (Sep 12, 2010)

tamiholly said:


> Perchin, the original post erroneously assumed:
> 
> From what I can tell they are the exact same thing, except that Muggy Weld requires a separate flux while the Dura Fix has the flux in the rod... I assume.
> 
> ...



Tamiholly....

Your only two posts on this forum have been to bolster buisness and too argue it further..... thank god for google's capabilties to search what the rest of the world thinks of your so called WELD rods. Maybe nobody in this specific thread, but I've read about your products use from other members more than once............ search, its at the top right.


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## tamiholly (Sep 12, 2010)

perchin said:


> tamiholly said:
> 
> 
> > Perchin, the original post erroneously assumed:
> ...





My business is making over $200k a year in sales, we have 20k viewers per month on our site. I don't need to go on the tinboats.net bulletin board to bolster business. My posts have been to educate people who are making false statements about a product they have never used. READING about something doesn't make you an authority on it, and assuming something doesn't make it true. Yes Google does show what other people say about our products, people who have actually used them. The Department of Defense and NASA are using our products. Caswell plating just added us to their catalog. Anheuser Busch ordered yesterday. We wouldn't be in business 20+ years if our product didn't work. 

Your statement:



> Most of what is posted on this board is based off our actuall experience with something...



Makes no sense to me, because the entire thread is a group of guys who has never used this product making erroneous statement and claims. 

I'm not sure why you're getting so worked up at me simply giving accurate information when this topic was asking a question about my product. Since no one on the thread had any accurate information or experience with my product, I answered the questions posted. You don't have to agree with me, but I'm basing my answers on fact and scientific testing. 

The internet is a great tool, very helpful in many ways. But it's not helpful to people reading your post if you're spreading disinformation and opinions disguised as experience. If you've never used our product, it doesn't make much sense for you to talk about it as though you're knowledgeable. 

And yes, Super Alloy 5 is a WELD. The alloy fuses to the parent metal and becomes part of its molecular structure--which is the definition of weld.


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## Usmctanker (Sep 12, 2010)

i know by posting in this thread i am jumping into a dog fight but if you are confident in your product then lets conduct an experiment. i would like to patch a few small holes in my boat but i do not have the ability to tig weld. if you would like to donate 1 or 2 of your products i would be glad to test them as someone who is a novice welder at best, and i will write a nonbiased article about them. i bwlievw that is called putting your money where your mouth is.


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## tamiholly (Sep 12, 2010)

Usmctanker said:


> i know by posting in this thread i am jumping into a dog fight but if you are confident in your product then lets conduct an experiment. i would like to patch a few small holes in my boat but i do not have the ability to tig weld. if you would like to donate 1 or 2 of your products i would be glad to test them as someone who is a novice welder at best, and i will write a nonbiased article about them. i bwlievw that is called putting your money where your mouth is.




Actually, I'd be happy to post 20 or 30 professional repair shops that use our products, with their contact information, and you can contact them and ask all the questions you like. I know our rods work, our customers know our rods work, people on this board don't know if our rods work or not because they've never used them. 


I came here to state that no, our products are not the same chemical composition as Dura Fix. Go buy Dura Fix if you like, I'm not here to try to sell my products. I'm here to educate. Muggy Weld and Dura Fix are not the same, they're not even close to the same. You can buy or try either or none, it doesn't change the fact that Dura Fix and Muggy Weld are not the same. 

If you'd really like to put your money where your opinions are, I'd love to hire an independent lab to test all the aluminum rods on the market. If Muggy Weld is indeed the same composition as any other rod, we'll pay for the testing. If it's not, you pay for the testing. That's the only way the testing is truly unbias.


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## Zum (Sep 12, 2010)

Maybe give acouple sticks away to some people here that need them?
Sounds like your doing okay?
You donate product,they pay shipping?
Might be good advertizing,hopefully they/he would give a fair unbaised review.
I beleive most people are honest.
I don't need any,sounds like tanker does and I don't know anyone here in person.
Maybe even a contest,contact an admin,donate as prize?


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## perchin (Sep 12, 2010)

Maybe hire a known welding shop picked by the members of this forum. That shop can test them and tell us how well they work. Figure a welding shop would be the best for testing a welding Rod.....


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## playall8 (Sep 12, 2010)

I was wondering if anyone hade tried fiberglassing a hole in there tinboat. They use it in cars will it work on a Jon?


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## tamiholly (Sep 13, 2010)

perchin said:


> Maybe hire a known welding shop picked by the members of this forum. That shop can test them and tell us how well they work. Figure a welding shop would be the best for testing a welding Rod.....



Actually, there are plenty of unbiases articles out there about our product. Lamborghini did an article not too long ago and asked me to demonstrate at their next convention (which I did), Low Rider magazine just ordered last month to write an article about our rods. We've been around a long, long time.

We're in the process of rebuilding our website, and one of the interesting things we found in all this was a video clip of Steve from Alternative Automotive doing his first ever aluminum boat repair--on the same boat you see in the video clip shown here. Mike walks Steve through the entire process, and you can hear the back and forth from Mike & Steve, with Steve asking questions anyone would ask while attempting their first aluminum repair. At the time we shot this video, the internet wasn't quite the vehicle it is now.... the video is like 8 minutes long so we never put it on our site because technology hadn't really caught up with our video--it would have taken 20 minutes to load a clip of that size. So now, as we're rebuilding we find this clip, and it's a wonderful tool honestly for any new welder because this is 100% Mike out in the field teaching a shop one on one how to use our rods... we will be adding this clip to the new site October 23.

The reason we chose the clip you have posted on this thread this was because I *had* screwed the weld up by not heating the base metal enough. It balled up. We wanted to show that even as an amateur welder you can use this rod and even if you screw it up you can recover from it. Not everyone is a master welder, I'm certainly not. But I can weld aluminum boats. And heater cores. And all sorts of things I would have not guessed I could repair. And I've taught many people how to make the same repairs, before the internet came along we used to do demonstrations at NARSA shows and allow people to practice welding themselves (a liability nightmare nowadays).

It's not in my best interest to manipulate the truth to sell welding rods, because ultimately I'm here for the long haul. Our business survives because of our reorder customers... and yes, we do give back... we donate to schools and organizations every year. It wasn't my intention to argue the merit of Muggy Weld products, I simply wanted to say they are not the same as DuraFix.

I'm guessing Lamborghini is unbias:

https://www.northwestlambos.com/Newsletter%20Images/Northwest%20Lambos%20Newsletter%20Summer%20I%202006.pdf


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## tamiholly (Sep 13, 2010)

https://www.lamborghini-talk.com/vbforum/f42/my-ruined-weekend-3340/


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## Jim (Sep 13, 2010)

Anyone have any issues or comments PM me instead of this display of happy forum friendliness.

Thanks!


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