0.2 mm stainless steel bellows - Page 2

Agoo · Sat Sep 27, 2014 11:10 pm

dsmabe wrote:From the original pictures and the video that was posted, I have a question. Are you only having to weld the .2mm material to the thicker material or do you also have to make .2mm to .2mm welds?

Yes as you can see from the pictures I posted 0.2mm sheets should be edge welded together both from inside and outside edges.

Agoo · Sat Sep 27, 2014 11:24 pm

awill4wd wrote:Another thing is that the machine welding shown in your video is actually plasma welding and I suspect the hand held welding is plasma welding as well. I just couldn't get a close enough look at the head of the hand held torch.
Regards Andrew from Oz.

Which machine do you mean? The one welds the inside periphery or the one welds outside edges?
Anyone else confirms the machine in the video is plasma welding?

dsmabe · Sun Sep 28, 2014 12:06 am

I looked around some and the hand welding and the welding if the outside I believe to be plasma. The inside I'm not sure either way but I'm thinking it may possibly be laser welding.

Just welding the thin and thick material isn't too hard I believe. But welding the thin to thin would take some prep.
Getting a plasma or laser welder would be incredibly expensive as far as I know. Tig welding would be possible, but you would need a machine that can go down to 1 or 2 amps.
Mr. Tig on YouTube welded aluminum foil together. The way he done it is the way you would have to do this. Clamp the material intended to be welded where only a fraction of the material is showing. Then when you make your weld, the exposed thin material would be welded in a controlled manner.
To do this, you would probably have to get precision pieces made just to clamp the thin material and act as a heat soak.

Sun Sep 28, 2014 12:22 am

I finally went and watched the video. I see nothing at all in that video that a "newb" could do, with any sort of home equipment. Unless you like to tinker with 747 engines or do heart surgery on your kitchen table.

Mick

dsmabe · Sun Sep 28, 2014 12:36 am

I looked around on YouTube and found the video I was talking about. This is the only way I could see making consistent welds with what you are wanting to do.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... SpzMitP-ug

dsmabe · Sun Sep 28, 2014 6:05 pm

Im going to try some welds to see if this is even possible with tig, I found some .006 steel that I will try welding together and try welding it to some thicker material to simulate the flange. Hope to try it tonight on the way home.

Superiorwelding · Sun Sep 28, 2014 8:44 pm

I anxiously await your results. I have my thoughts on this but will hold off until I see some results.
-Jonathan

Agoo · Sun Sep 28, 2014 10:34 pm

I am also waiting for your results.

TRACKRANGER · Sun Sep 28, 2014 11:25 pm

I'm keen to see the results too, success or otherwise. Personally I think this will be quite challenging.

dsmabe · Mon Sep 29, 2014 2:15 am

......and the results are in! This was definitely a challenge, but I don't know if I proved it possible or not since I didn't make the welds as good as I was hoping.

First I tried grinding a ledge into a piece of 1/4" flat stock. What I found was it took so much heat to try to puddle the steel, as soon as I got close to the .006 steel, it melted away before I could make any weld.

I had some 20ga stainless so I tried again with that, this time I was able to make welds. I actually tried twice because the first wasn't anywhere near what i was hoping for. Surely after the first attempt I could make a solid weld.

Well the second attempt was more controlled but like the first, several spots were blown away. At least one hole because of accidently hitting the foot pedal.

Then on to welding the two thin pieces together. I already knew how I wanted to attempt this, the same way Mr. Tig welded aluminum foil together. I sandwiched two pieces of .006 between aluminum and had 1-2mm sticking out. It left a messy edge but the two pieces are securely welded together.

dsmabe · Mon Sep 29, 2014 2:19 am

: The first attempt; 20140929_010431.jpg (34.73 KiB) Viewed 1236 times

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dsmabe · Mon Sep 29, 2014 2:23 am

: What I eventually set the welder on; 20140929_011446.jpg (39.2 KiB) Viewed 1238 times

: Failed attempt; 20140929_011931.jpg (39.02 KiB) Viewed 1238 times

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dsmabe · Mon Sep 29, 2014 2:25 am

: 20140929_013045.jpg (38.85 KiB) Viewed 1239 times

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dsmabe · Mon Sep 29, 2014 2:27 am

: 20140929_013316.jpg (39.49 KiB) Viewed 1242 times

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dsmabe · Mon Sep 29, 2014 2:34 am

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So there is my attempt, I'm not a professional welder or anything. I make a few welds at work, other than that I'm just a hobby welder that is willing to try a challenge. I do think that with some practice I could get a solid bead on the test piece I was using. Although I noticed the even with several tacks, i still had severe distortion in the .006 steel.

TRACKRANGER · Mon Sep 29, 2014 3:38 am

Congratulations for making the effort!

dsmabe · Mon Sep 29, 2014 1:59 pm

I was surprised at how many amps it took to make the welds and how tight of a arc length I had to use.
Definitely the most unforgiving weld I've ever tried.

Rick_H · Mon Sep 29, 2014 11:00 pm

What were your settings? I haven't been able to locate anything at work yet except my feeler gauges. Lol I want to give it a shot as well. I'm thinking I could get some pulse settings right to make it work just need some scrap.

I just did some .012" spring steel at 13 amps, I did basket with a piece of bronze

Agoo · Mon Sep 29, 2014 11:12 pm

Guys Mr. TIG has shown a nice micro torch in the following video. welding is not anything close to welding 0.2 mm tickness steel sheets but it looks with such a tiny micro torch one can do a lot.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0pCir2hmhk

dsmabe · Mon Sep 29, 2014 11:39 pm

I started with the welder set at 10 amps and just didn't have enough. So I set it at 20 and controled with the foot pedal. 3/32 e3 needle sharp. About 15 cfh argon.
The .006 steel is actually shim material.

RichardH · Tue Sep 30, 2014 3:52 am

Something to know at these power levels, the HF start may be higher than the welding amps, so it's easy to blow a hole right off the bat.

When fusing wire frame using 0.045 wire, I found that pulsing helped a ton on the thin stuff, and I was working in the 7-amp range. But I also discovered my Everlast 210EXT was set to like 35A for the HF arc start - it was adjustable, but in a hidden menu.

Cheers,
Richard

awill4wd · Tue Sep 30, 2014 8:16 am

Agoo wrote:
awill4wd wrote:Another thing is that the machine welding shown in your video is actually plasma welding and I suspect the hand held welding is plasma welding as well. I just couldn't get a close enough look at the head of the hand held torch.
Regards Andrew from Oz.
Which machine do you mean? The one welds the inside periphery or the one welds outside edges?
Anyone else confirms the machine in the video is plasma welding?

At about the 4.42 min mark it clearly shows the torch head welding the outside and it's a plasma torch head definitely not Tig.
The pic below shows a similar plasma torch head.
Regards Andrew from Oz.

TRACKRANGER · Tue Sep 30, 2014 9:42 am

Andrew, good pickup on the plasma torch.

In addition to the process controlled welding system that is in use, that change in technology gives the subject matter of welding the materials with TIG quite a different direction.

Trev