Welding Tips and Tricks

got another project on the bench at the mo, a stand for a pump.
got the frame sorted but need to weld on the mounts.
the question is is it better to drill the mounting holes in the mount, eg in the drill press, then line up and weld the mount on and hope it doesn't shift to much. or weld the mounts on first, then drill the holes free hand which is less accurate.
which would you do?

Drill the mount. Pass a large bolt through then tack. Remove the bolt, weld it solid.

I may not be understanding, CJ, but it sounds like the mounts will hold the pump, and to do what you are suggesting, he'd have to drill holes to bolt the mounts to the frame before welding them on. Or he'd have to have the pump and stand in their assembled positions when he welded this up. I'm not sure that's feasible since I don't know if we're talking a 20lb pump or a 2000lb pump.

Tweak,
I in addition to the size of this, how are you joining the mounts to the frame, and are they going to be tapped, or just bolt holes. Are the pump mounts getting a butt/T weld to the frame, or a lap joint. If it's a lap joint, can you clamp the pre drilled mounts in place, test mount the pump to make sure location is correct, and then tack? That seems ideal. If you are butt welding the mounts and this needs to be very accurate due to tapped holes, I don't know the answer. Kind of depends on whether you can do what CJ suggested. If not, I'd do the butt welds and drill after if the metal isn't super heavy. I'm a rookie and my post weld accuracy is probably lower than my drilling accuracy. I'm just brainstorming while listening to a conference call.

Maybe more details will get you suggestions from more knowledgeable members.

You could also pre-drill the mount holes in the drill press a bit undersized, and then drill to final size once welded. Makes it easy and accurate with a hand drill.

sorry, this is a fairly small pump. tho bit of a struggle for one person to pick up.
i have drilled the holes in the mounts first and used the old base to line the holes up and tacked it all in place.
its on the bench at the mo ready for weld out.
going to have to do a bit more testing of the mig settings first. its been a long long time since i've used the mig.

tweake wrote:sorry, this is a fairly small pump. tho bit of a struggle for one person to pick up.
i have drilled the holes in the mounts first and used the old base to line the holes up and tacked it all in place.
its on the bench at the mo ready for weld out.
going to have to do a bit more testing of the mig settings first. its been a long long time since i've used the mig.

let's see some pics!

LtBadd wrote: let's see some pics!

wait untill i can do some blurry out of focus pics that hide all the welds

tweake wrote:

LtBadd wrote: let's see some pics!

wait untill i can do some blurry out of focus pics that hide all the welds

No, no, no....stop prolonging the inevitable

ok, about the most non-blurry one i can do at the mo. camera keeps focusing on the background.
which is good cause i might grind out a redo a few welds. some are just ick especially after painting.
if in doubt i'll fire up the stick welder.

Might not be worthwhile on this project anymore but if you're going to do this kind of thing in the future I would highly recommend you buy yourself a set of transfer punches as well as a set of transfer screws. Obviously you'll need a whole bunch of sets of transfer screws. Those are really nice when you're doing this kind of thing.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/7-PIECE-TRANSF ... Sw29ZeSFtQ

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Machinist-Tool ... SwzJ9fAToh

BugHunter wrote:Might not be worthwhile on this project anymore but if you're going to do this kind of thing in the future I would highly recommend you buy yourself a set of transfer punches as well as a set of transfer screws. Obviously you'll need a whole bunch of sets of transfer screws. Those are really nice when you're doing this kind of thing.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/7-PIECE-TRANSF ... Sw29ZeSFtQ

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Machinist-Tool ... SwzJ9fAToh

thanks for that.
more tools to buy !
i knew about transfer punches but i had never heard of transfer screws. so many thanks showing me that.

No problem, always glad to help somebody else get rid of their money.

I'm sure you probably see intuitively how they work. They obviously go into threaded holes in an item , you left a point stick out a little bit and then you flip the thing on to whatever needs mounting holes. Then you whack it with a dead blow hammer or something just once so it puts all of the center punch holes in simultaneously. If you look close at the points, they are a tiny little hex. The container they come in has a tiny socket on the front end to fit them so that becomes the wrench for setting the depth.

I have a whole box full of Starrett ones in different sizes. They don't come up on eBay used very often. I use them all the time.

Pretty neat, I'm gonna buy a set too, even though I don't need them at the moment.

They're indispensable. And they even work when you're trying to locate using an existing hole. Let's say you have a flat chunk of Steel that has a hole in it and you want to mount a reduction gearbox with four holes. Put 3 transfer screws in, line up the fourth hole with a bolt that's just in place and loose, and then whack it to get your other three hole locations. These also work with blind holes where a transfer punch only works with a through hole.

Transfer punches are one of those things you don’t think you would use much, but once you have them you use them all the time. There one of those tools that adds to the accuracy and quality of your finished product.

Oscar wrote:Pretty neat, I'm gonna buy a set too, even though I don't need them at the moment.

What he said [emoji4] I'd never heard of em either

Sent from my SM-G970W using Tapatalk

good to see this thread is useful for others to.
tho i have now got another frame to hack apart and modify. could do with transfer punches on this one to.

BugHunter wrote:They're indispensable. And they even work when you're trying to locate using an existing hole. Let's say you have a flat chunk of Steel that has a hole in it and you want to mount a reduction gearbox with four holes. Put 3 transfer screws in, line up the fourth hole with a bolt that's just in place and loose, and then whack it to get your other three hole locations. These also work with blind holes where a transfer punch only works with a through hole.

Transfer screws are very nice to have, I have about 7 or 8 sets of them. They come in sets of 4. I bought a bunch of tools from a retired Caterpillar tool and die maker and they were in one of the toolboxes. The sets are not cheap so it pays to only buy them when you need them, unless you get a bunch like I did. I've used them on a few projects, but they're much more specialized than transfer punches.

When I bought the tools from the retired tool and die maker, I tried to talk him out of selling them to me. I asked him if he was sure he didn't want to give them to his son...

The problem with transfer screws is that you need a set for each size screw you need to match. and if there are more than 4 holes you might need 2 sets of the same size. Transfer punches are a different beast all together. Transfer screws are much more restricted to the task at hand. My $0.02.

These are real handy.

https://www.google.com/search?ei=WVI6X6 ... CAw&uact=5

https://www.rlspellmanmfg.com/products/ ... tter-sets/

kiwi2wheels wrote:These are real handy.

https://www.google.com/search?ei=WVI6X6 ... CAw&uact=5

https://www.rlspellmanmfg.com/products/ ... tter-sets/

I have made things like that before, but never kept a set of them. With 3 milling machines here and the ease of measuring thru-holes, I usually just drill in the mill.