I've never had it successfully hold anything together.  The leftovers dry into a very pliable, weak substance.  How can it properly hold anything together?

I have tried to use on cast aluminum several times and it always fails.  It definitely doesn't work on polyolefins.  What do people use it for successfully?

JB WELD is great.

I have been able to grind it and drill and tap it .  strong as steel.

two questions. 

1 - did you read the instructions?   
2- did you follow them to a T?


If your end result is not rock hard, I bet you could answer no to one of these.

If not, then the stuff is bad. maybe old. although I doubt it can expire.

My first use of it on the GS was to seal the crankcase cover.  I cracked it on a low side and used wire mesh and jb weld to bridge/seal the huge gaping hole.   I had a very slight leak develop over time, but by then the new case cover had come in.

try to get your mix better. thats my guess.  I love the stuff.

Let's see.... I just bought it a couple of weeks ago, the surface was clean and rough, equal parts as accurately as possible given the tubes it comes in.  It was JB Qwik, so it cured overnight.  Broke immediately.  None of the mixtures I've made with this stuff was anywhere close to hard, even after several days of sitting. 

4f

Quote from: Egaeus on April 03, 2006, 02:24:48 PM
I've never had it successfully hold anything together.  The leftovers dry into a very pliable, weak substance.  How can it properly hold anything together?

I have tried to use on cast aluminum several times and it always fails.  It definitely doesn't work on polyolefins.  What do people use it for successfully?

whats it good for, i dunno, fixing a broken bong? lol

I know a guy that fixed a window crank and a windshield wiper with it...  Lasted at least a couple years. 

JB Weld is good for about damn near everything. There is even underwater/water proof JB Weld available. Seriously, it bonds just about anything.

I had a crack in my bathrub by the drain. I put some JB Weld on it, and bookyika, no more leak, no need to buy a new bathrub. 

Maybe I'm just trying to use it in the wrong situations.  Most recently, it was my clutch lever which was broken at the base.  I was trying to get a couple of days' use out of it before the new ones get here, so I JB Welded it, put it on the next day, and it broke before I could even get the bolt in. 

Quote from: Egaeus on April 03, 2006, 05:07:20 PM
Maybe I'm just trying to use it in the wrong situations.  Most recently, it was my clutch lever which was broken at the base.  I was trying to get a couple of days' use out of it before the new ones get here, so I JB Welded it, put it on the next day, and it broke before I could even get the bolt in. 

Yep, that's asking too much of JBW.  You wonder why they call it 2-ton epoxy when you can break it with your bare hands.  Haven't had any luck repairing stripped threads with it either.  It crumbles.  Applications where it's useful on a motorcycle would be to seal cracked cases (as stated), tuners use it to recontour ports in the head, I've successfully used it for cosmetic repairs such as rebuilding my instrument cluster housing after crashing and welding a chunk of broken cooling fin back on the cylinders.  At home I use it to reinforce my outdoor nylon faucet handles where they would otherwise split along the female splines. 

But, I have no reason to think that JB Weld is any different than other epoxies.  It may have just been the first tradename on the market.   

Quote from: Egaeus on April 03, 2006, 05:07:20 PM
Maybe I'm just trying to use it in the wrong situations.  Most recently, it was my clutch lever which was broken at the base.  I was trying to get a couple of days' use out of it before the new ones get here, so I JB Welded it, put it on the next day, and it broke before I could even get the bolt in. 

You can weld levers...my dad used aluminum rods and welded my brake lever..held up pretty good until i dropped the bike and it broke on the weld

Quote from: Egaeus on April 03, 2006, 02:24:48 PM
I've never had it successfully hold anything together.  The leftovers dry into a very pliable, weak substance.  How can it properly hold anything together?

I have tried to use on cast aluminum several times and it always fails.  It definitely doesn't work on polyolefins.  What do people use it for successfully?

If I were trying to repair something like a clutch lever or brake lever, I would use JB Weld for the epoxy, but I would first drill a couple of small holes into the broken edges and insert some small metal pins (even the shanks of small nails would do) into the holes. You want something similar to the dowel pins used to keep the timing cover, the crankcase cover, and various other parts in position (though much smaller) to give the two parts something to use as anchor and alignment points. Welding is great if you have access to the equipment, but when it isn't an option, you have to be willing to improvise. I've had good results with JB Weld for all types of repairs to metal; once you understand how to make it work for you, you can use it to fill in gouges (in the timing and crankcase covers, or Alpha's scarred case-savers, for example), or build up a weak or highly-stressed area (the mounting tabs on the OEM Suzuki case-savers), or just about any way imaginable. Though I wouldn't want to subject it to a lot of stress, you can build it up thick, then sand it down to shape it, drill it, grind it, and paint it, all without a lot of heartburn. It WON'T perform miracles, such as holding the two pieces of the broken lever together WITHOUT "pinning" them internally... use it properly, and you won't want to be without it.

Are you all sure any attempt whatsoever at repairing clutch/brake levers is a good idea? be it with JB or anything else for that matter. Personaly I WOULD NOT contemplate it for an instant, it will never have the strength and integrity of the original part and if the lever fails at the wrong moment the results could be fatal. Cracked, badly damaged or repaired levers are an MOT failure here in the UK for the above reason and if the bike wont pass the MOT test its ilegal to use it on the road.

I wouldn't even attempt a brake lever.  However, a clutch lever isn't as bad.  I can drive without one, but it's hard on my starter motor, and does, eventually, wear on the dogs.  I ordered two new ones (just in case), but I just wanted to ride before they got here. 

I feel the need to note that my brake lever was broken off on the very end...all he did was weld the stupid little ball end back on it was fully functional the way it was and its still fine...

4d

So you're saying the stuff you used never hardened?  That doesn't sound right.  I don't have any experience with the Qwik-Weld but the original JB Weld has always worked great for me.  Maybe your stuff sat around too long in the warehouse and started breaking down.  I would toss it and try the original formula.

-M

I have no experience with JB weld whatsoever...

I have a small dime-sized dent in my fuel tank. On the right side just under the 'S' of the Suzuki on the edge where the tank tapers in where your knee comes up against it... would JB Weld work better to patch it up or should I stick to Bondo?

As a general rule, I wouldn't use JB Weld for this type of repair; it dries really hard, and you'd have to grind it (or sand the HELL out of it) to work with it, and that won't give you a smooth finish to work with. Body filler is much easier to work with when you NEED a really smooth finish to the surface...

Check the dent to see if there is a sharp crease in the metal, or if it is just a minor "push-in" dent. Creased metal should be worked back into shape if at all possible before any body filler is applied; you always want to keep the amount of filler material to an absolute minimum. The more you put on, the more problems you can encounter over time; the filler can shrink, crack, split... any of which ruins your paint job.

OTOH, Bondo is MUCH easier to shape and conform to another surface; JB Weld would be OK if you used it where it couldn't be seen much, or where appearance is secondary to the strength of the filler material, but since you'll want to make the dent repair blend into the surface of the tank, Bondo is the right stuff. Once it dries, you can sand and shape it much more easily than JB Weld, and if you still have some surface imperfections in the Bondo, you can fill them in with spot putty (use a single-edged razor blade as a "squeegee" to remove any excess putty before it dries); take the time to get a perfect surface with the Bondo and spot putty, follow that with primer, wet-sand the primer smooth with 400 / 600 grit, then paint and wet-sand again with 1000 grit paper to get everything as nice as possible. Do it once, and you'll have a much better understanding of the entire process...

When I mentioned repairing clutch and brake levers in my previous post, I referred to installing pins into the levers for internal support, though repairing a lever is more of an exercise in the proper use of JB Weld than a practical use of the stuff; levers are so cheap, I'd much rather buy a new one than go to all the trouble of fixing one. Still, it would provide excellent training; getting everything aligned in three dimensions before the JB Weld cures is one thing, but KEEPING it aligned until the JB Weld dried would be a real accomplishment for someone who had never worked with it previously.

I've used JB Weld to fix a broken weld on a bed frame (what can I say? she wanted to spend a cold, rainy weekend under the covers, and things got kinda crazy...); I've used it to repair cracked / broken clutch and crankcase covers, damaged side covers, gouges in metal surfaces... under the right conditions, it is incredibly useful. Whenever possible, I use it to build up a damaged area on the inside of a cover (as long as it won't interfere with fitment, or anything else), and use it on the visible areas to fill cracks up to surface level. I've even used small amounts of it like spot putty; I apply it to previously repaired areas when I'm ready to paint them... again, a single-edged razor blade comes in handy for this...

Anyway, I hope this helps you understand why Bondo is the right material for a surface that has to look close to perfect (under paint, for example), and JB Weld is better suited for glueing crash-damaged fragments of metal back into one useable component...

Hey Cal .   BONDO called, they said "the check's in the mail". 

having used Bondo and JBweld. I concur 100% with Cal Amari. right on the money.