Welding Tips and Tricks

I was bored today and was looking around at zalk josephs fabricators, took a tour there a month ago, and saw their project at 150 north riverside in Chicago. It weighed it at like 18.8 million pounds of steel and had some steel 10 inches thick so I was wondering whats the biggest stuff you guys have worked on?

https://www.zalkjosephs.com/projects/15 ... riverside/

I bet they never burn through that steel!

tungstendipper wrote:I bet they never burn through that steel!

They run 3/32" flux core wire mostly and sometimes 5/32"

Haven't worked on it yet, but bought a piece of 10" W x 38" L piece of 1" thick plate recently. It weighs about 100 lbs. Not very big actually but it is the first piece of 1" plate I'll be working with and the biggest I've worked with to date.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ronald_Reagan

I was just doing general construction at the time, but that was a pretty big project.

In the early 1970's I worked on a concrete silo building crew. For winter layoff my boss got me a job with a friend of his who owned a welding and fab shop to keep me over for spring when construction started up again. As luck would have it he landed a contract to place and weld all the deck beams and pan decking for the roof deck on a new factory, guessing at roughly 50,000 sq. ft. I had 2 great helpers to place the pieces and I welded it all together. Being used to construction jobs where you moved around a lot being stuck in one place for so long took a bit of getting used to. Don't remember how long it took but I sure was glad when it was done. Winter was cold and always some breeze to boot up on top. Froze my ears a bit until I finally got a decent insulated helmet liner. Took a long time before my ears liked the cold again.

homeboy wrote:In the early 1970's I worked on a concrete silo building crew. For winter layoff my boss got me a job with a friend of his who owned a welding and fab shop to keep me over for spring when construction started up again. As luck would have it he landed a contract to place and weld all the deck beams and pan decking for the roof deck on a new factory, guessing at roughly 50,000 sq. ft. I had 2 great helpers to place the pieces and I welded it all together. Being used to construction jobs where you moved around a lot being stuck in one place for so long took a bit of getting used to. Don't remember how long it took but I sure was glad when it was done. Winter was cold and always some breeze to boot up on top. Froze my ears a bit until I finally got a decent insulated helmet liner. Took a long time before my ears liked the cold again.

You must have balls of iron to build silos. Screw that man.

USS Ronald Reagan is pretty dang big if you ask me. It's basically building a town.

All I know is big stuff is fun if you have big power sources. Ran dual shield flux core the first time the other day. Ran 1/16" and 3/32" wire only and I've never seen 1/4" steel gouge so easily.

Farmwelding : Actually it was a great job if you didn't mind working like a horse and didn't mind heights. On those hot summer days at 80ft there was always a great view and a nice breeze while you looked down at the earthbound newbies sweating buckets shovelling into the skip mixer. Of course you had to earn you chops on the ground detail before you got promoted topside. In " The Good Old Days" sans safety harnesses and even guard rails you soon learned to tread very carefully. Crazy but pretty normal in a lot of jobs back in the day. I too am a farmboy and in good shape back then but went from 230 to 180lbs in 6 weeks of slugging with a lot of fun mixed in.

Roundhouse and fab shop. N&W RR 1977-81 in Roanoke was a piece of work
Turkey Point nuke plant.......85-ish-90 and back and forth between card and contractors.55 fl Centrust was at the same time.Lotsa bolts.
Had a buddy sail off holding a sheet of plywood---and lived ! Fun stuff.