Just picked up a large free standing Montgomery ward "heavy duty blast blower" good condition with the stand, does any one have any info on these are they decent blowers?

If it blows air well, and can put out the pressure needed, then it is a good bllower. Test it out and let us know! Also, what does it look like? Pictures might help us determine if it is a good blower or not.

No Stuart the one I bought is rather large and freestanding, it puts out great air and I will try to get a pic on here this evening

Here is the blower, and yeah the case is cracked but I figured for $15 for the blower I could fix the crack

It looks like a Buffalo...then, as now, a relatively small number of manufacturers often made products for the "box stores" of the time, like Sears and Wards.

Oh, and yes, the crack is worth fixing - brazing is probably best.

I figured I would braze it, but didn't know for sure, I have never messed with cast much so I didn't know if I heated it up pretty warm and hit it with the TIG with a little filler if that would work as well? Any and all thoughts would be helpful! Thanks in advance

If you are going to tig cast, use high nickel filler. I've had decent results on some cast items tigging short beads to keep things cool and using 99 nickel filler rod. I didn't have access to an oven to do a decent preheat/postheat. It also helps to peen the welds as they cool. I'd weld maybe 1-2" and then wait until I could put my bare hand on the weld bead before running the next one. Nickel  is more ductile than E70 filler and is less likely to cause cracking.

 

 

Given a choice I'd personally lean towards brazing since there's less chance you'll have issues. I don't see any practical reason to need to do an actual weld on your blower. It shouldn't get hot enough you'd need to worry about the braze melting like it might if this was a forge pan.