Welding Tips and Tricks

Does anyone know of a welding positioner / rotary table that has an open bore that I could insert a part from one end, through my lathe chuck and it could hang out the back side (supported depending on weight)? Hoping to have the ability for 2ish inch bore.

I thought I saw Jody mention a particular brand in a video that could do this but now can't find it.

It would be great to be able to have this ability

I don't off the top of my head, but why not weld it while it's in the lathe? I've done this hundreds of times without issue. Chuck in freewheel, turn by hand unless you can set the rotation slow enough for rotary timing.

I know they exist but the ones I’ve seen are usually big. Like chuck up 48” pipe big.

A chuck with a large through hole is going to be expensive and typically really big and heavy to deal with. I would probably opt for something with rollers instead, and that way it'll handle much larger parts. No diameter restrictions on those. You'd need to do all the tacking in advance, but that's mostly true with a chuck as well.

BugHunter wrote:A chuck with a large through hole is going to be expensive and typically really big and heavy to deal with. I would probably opt for something with rollers instead, and that way it'll handle much larger parts. No diameter restrictions on those. You'd need to do all the tacking in advance, but that's mostly true with a chuck as well.

Truth to this ^^^

One option I have used when the material is larger than the headstock bore (mine is 2.60) is to use the chuck to grab it but the steady rest mid-length to hold the larger diameter material and weld on that end. Allows for pretty robust handling. And as I said, I've done this hundreds of times without issue.

rollers is the answer. Like buggy stated, a thru hole chuck is going to be heavy and expensive and you'll be limited to size. You can get a set of rollers for cheap and set them up.

You can get steel wheels meant to go on a cart from most hardware stores. Mount them upside down and you get rollers on the cheap.

awesome, many thanks guys