Welding Tips and Tricks

Awesome welding as usual Zank. Your "trip" looks better than my "cruise".

Zank, do you have those shots available as hi-res framed posters on satin finish art paper?

Considering a couple for the wall of my lounge room.

Good grief.




Kym

Haha. You guys are too kind.

I vote fro zank too , excellent

Added tie down points to the trailer bracket . Cut up and shaped some 304 SS , welded it to the 0.125" mild steel box tubing . I used 1" thick Alum chill blocks as jody suggests , I got no sugaring on the unshielded back side. Also welded on the "C" channels for the bike tires to sit in ...They are a cut up jeep bumper. Had to weld backwards, left handed , looking down welding uphill ...really got around this thing today. This is getting to be a real good TIG lesson .

https://youtu.be/ofrKBbb0C6I

Your trailer is looking good. If those are backward left-handed welds, it doesn't show.
Cheers.
Eldon

I did some left-hand in the mirror today.

I'm NOT sharing the pictures....



All passed NDE, but still, some things are best not shown.

Everyone has that day, now and again.

Steve S

I welded a few of what could possibly be considered beads on practice stock... Possibly be beads, if you close one eye, and the other is gummed up, and you have a hangover, and....

I also learned that cheap Chinese torch heads like to leak. A lot... I really figured out what was going on when the tungsten rapidly evaporated up into the cup, and made interesting arcs that looked almost like the Northern Lights, and ended up with an erratic arc spattering about 1.5" away from the cup!

After troubleshooting it, including the trick someone here mentioned of using a pair of caps, I found that it doesn't have enough insulation or thread depth in this head to allow the collet body and the cap to meet the head of the torch, and still both thread into the head. The collet body alone will only barely seal against the insulator and the torch head, and then only allows 1-2 threads of the cap to thread in.

New CK26 air cooled torch head on order...


Like Steve just said, no pictures being shared of mine either. Entirely different reasons though!

I worked at finishing a desktop wire model of a Grumman Gulfstreamer G-550. It's going to one of my corporate customers. It's been a while since I posted anything on this forum so I thought I'd better let everyone know that I'm still alive and kickin...

Mike,
As usual, very nice work. Glad to see you back here.

Len

The wire air plane is Awsome.

First try at these , done with my Everlast 250 EX
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the backside

Frame repair, upper pivot pin supports.

subwayrocket wrote:First try at these
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Razor1.jpg

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the backside

Razor2backside-2.jpg

FIRST try? Sheesh!



Kym

I need to give the razor thing a try.

MosquitoMoto wrote:
FIRST try? Sheesh!

Kym

Poland308 wrote:I need to give the razor thing a try.

These were alot easier than the pop cans ...tacked with 16 amps then welded with 20

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Rick H , what is that a frame to ? Nice welds !

subwayrocket wrote:

MosquitoMoto wrote:
FIRST try? Sheesh!

Kym

Poland308 wrote:I need to give the razor thing a try.

These were alot easier than the pop cans ...tacked with 16 amps then welded with 20

----------------
Rick H , what is that a frame to ? Nice welds !

It's to a product dumper at work, upper pins for hyd cylinders slide through them. They wear out and get mis shapen, I cut them out, put new ones in a fixture I made and blast them in quick. I used my Miller arc time tracker in my new Digital Infinity helmet, welded 4 of those about 3" od in 12 mins. Worked on the job for over 2.5 hrs total...

Greg H by Mike Zanconato, on Flickr


David A by Mike Zanconato, on FlickrGreg H by Mike Zanconato, on Flickr


Greg H by Mike Zanconato, on Flickr


David A by Mike Zanconato, on Flickr

I always enjoy looking at your work Zank. What are you using for balance, EP and EN?

John

Thanks, John!

I'm currently running 180 Hz, 75% balance, 240 amps EP, 200 amps EN.

Interesting settings. I really don't have time during the day to play with the Aspect and with Adult classes in the shop every night but Friday and weekend access almost forbidden it's tough to find time to play. I went out last Friday and was messing with pulse on 0.055 SS, 0.020 filler and 3/32" rare earth tungsten. https://goo.gl/photos/eQe9ACxcr56DfLht8 I'm hoping to get out there tomorrow night and try those settings on some aluminum.

Thanks for the info.!

John

Finished up my first for pay arbor/trellis. It was my first project with my new blue 211 MIG (transformer version). Most of it is 1" sq, 1" bar and 1/4" rod hrs. The rod I bent in circles using a plywood template (PITA). I've already got an order for another of similar design and I would rather use a rod roller if I can find one that works and is reasonable in cost. I made it in three parts. The top has small 3/4" sq tube chunks welded down that sit inside the end pieces. Next time I think I'll TIG those connector pieces on so I don't have so much weld to grind down to make the fit up cleaner. The vines don't care but I do. Next time I'll get close ups of the welds.

In my far past I stick and MIG welded stuff on the ranch. Generally thick anything when you are repairing tractor implements. Learning to do thin steel was a lesson in patience for me along with lots of practice.

I like that trellis. I can picture my grapes growing all over it.

Have you considered making them modular so they could be shipped flat on a pallet and put together by anyone. Some sort of pin and socket joints maybe. Imagine you could sell lots of them it looks nice.

I repaired this abortion today....