A friend of mine mentioned she was trying to get rid of an old aluminum boat that she and her husband had. She said it had a leak and they didn’t think it was worth fixing and they just wanted to get rid of it. I told my husband and he thought he could get it fixed pretty cheap. He knew somebody who did boat repair work and was certain he could get it seaworthy again. I called my friend and made arrangements to pick up the boat the next day.
My husband picked up the small aluminum boat and took it to his friend who looked it over. I thought it was difficult to repair aluminum but my husband said his friend has a special type of aluminum welding that fixed aluminum stronger than new. We got the boat for free so I guess it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try. We were really hoping we could get this boat repair done so that we could use the boat on the small lake that is just a half a mile from our house.
I had no idea what aluminum brazing was or how it actually worked but my husband seemed to think it was going to work just fine. He left the boat with his friend and told him to call when it was finished. The next day his friend called and said the boat was ready to pick up. He had fixed the leaks and put it on water to make sure he had gotten them all. The boat was watertight and good as new.
That was three years ago and after many, many fishing trips, the aluminum brazing has held perfectly. My boys have spent countless hours in that boat that would have ended up at the dump if we hadn’t salvaged it. It was after that boat repair that my husband looked into aluminum welding as a side business to fix old boats and resell them. Over the last couple of years he’s done pretty well keeping busy fixing up old boats and even some cars to make a little extra money on his spare time. It really is amazing how easy it is to weld aluminum and how quickly a job can be completed. He even taught our oldest son the aspects of aluminum welding so that he can also make extra money on the side doing aluminum repairs.
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