Welding Tips and Tricks

It's one of them battery operated johnsons too...

Bill, nice work.

big gear head wrote:Bill, nice work.

Thanks. This one came out better. I was in a rush on the first one and had the heat screaming hot. You kinda get tired of looking at these after you weld 30 or so.

Looks good. Another roll cage in the works. Still working on aluminum welding. Thanks John.

Looking good Hollywood.

Damn you guys can weld.

Had a few days off to hang in the shop. This is some kind of stainless steel cover that slips over a table. It's 0.030" , neighbor had it bent, just had to weld the 4 corners . I have a few clamps holding small chill blocks I cut to fit up inside the corners, a long clamp that the vise grips are on for a prop , and two ground clamps far left and right. 30 amps , 1/16 Thoriated . Also just got my welder cart done...finally ! Except for the wheels, it's all from the scrap yard, some 1-1/4" and 1"square tubing, also some 3/4" angle under the alum , black pipe and elbows for the handle.
I Had to fill a few holes in the diamond plate where you could see them.
Short vid walk around my new cart----> https://youtu.be/MYazUOAZBXo
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subwayrocket wrote:Had a few days off to hang in the shop. This is some kind of stainless steel cover that slips over a table. It's 0.030" , neighbor had it bent, just had to weld the 4 corners . I have a few clamps holding small chill blocks I cut to fit up inside the corners, a long clamp that the vise grips are on for a prop , and two ground clamps far left and right. 30 amps , 1/16 Thoriated . Also just got my welder cart done...finally ! Except for the wheels, it's all from the scrap yard, some 1-1/4" and 1"square tubing, also some 3/4" angle under the alum , black pipe and elbows for the handle.
I Had to fill a few holes in the diamond plate where you could see them.
Short vid walk around my new cart----> https://youtu.be/MYazUOAZBXo
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Nice, are there still tubes available for that receiver?

Thanks and yeah , they are pretty popular in guitar amplifiers , EL34 are the large ones ...the little ones are military new old stock JAN 5654w , JAN = joint army navy

A motorcycle helmet holder with a hanger area for hanging a couple riding jackets (slotted portion) and a shelf for gloves and keys etc. Mounts on the wall. Need to get some cedar to mount a block on the tab sticking out for the helmet to sit on and some paint.

Customer ordered in a replacement heat exchanger from Germany took 8 weeks to get. But he failed to tell them what kind of connections he needed on it. It's body is 316 SS brazed plates. The flanges are 409 SS there brazed on to the body and the stub in the pictures is 304 SS also brazed on so it's filled with water and was welded in position to keep from over heating the plates or any existing braze joints.

The existing flanges are 409 SS welded to 2-1/2 in sch 40 carbon with 309. The old flanges that had to get put on are some kind of cast steel and of very poor quality metal. That was a 70s2 joint. The other stubs are 304 to 316 using a 308 rod and the finishing touch was the OA braze joint to copper for the refrigerant side. It's 316 to copper with a 45% silver braze rod.

Big step today, finished the second strut bar so I now officially have an 8pt cage. Now on to the door bars. My first cage project is going as well as I hoped, if not better.

Had to weld, (actually fuse no filler) the 135 degree bend was not possible. Made this this week. Also enjoying some horse shoe art.

Looking good BigD. Did you do plinth boxes or drop the main hoop bars through the floor?

-Sandow

Sandow wrote:Looking good BigD. Did you do plinth boxes or drop the main hoop bars through the floor?

-Sandow

Thanks! Neither, I did it the hard way. I had a friend weld in the rollbar for me before I knew how to weld. The car has been getting crazier and crazier and I'm no longer comfortable tracking it without a full roll cage. So I've been working on a plan to build the rest of it without cutting out the roll bar. That was my main excuse for getting and learning the TIG. I was able to fully weld the forward bars to the hoop using a microtorch and a mirror.

The foot plates are 3/16" steel, welded to the floor and the sill, and the leg is welded to both.

Just built one side bar. Getting pretty comfortable with fitting and notching. I still can't believe how good a flapper sanding disc is for shaping 120 wall steel tubing. I learned from this guy on youtube called the fabricator, and he final shapes his tubes with the flap disc. I thought it was just for the final finish but I tried it anyway and wow, it chomps the steel better than the grinding discs and leaves a very nice finish

BigD wrote:

Sandow wrote:Looking good BigD. Did you do plinth boxes or drop the main hoop bars through the floor?

-Sandow

Thanks! Neither, I did it the hard way. I had a friend weld in the rollbar for me before I knew how to weld. The car has been getting crazier and crazier and I'm no longer comfortable tracking it without a full roll cage. So I've been working on a plan to build the rest of it without cutting out the roll bar. That was my main excuse for getting and learning the TIG. I was able to fully weld the forward bars to the hoop using a microtorch and a mirror.

The foot plates are 3/16" steel, welded to the floor and the sill, and the leg is welded to both.

Just built one side bar. Getting pretty comfortable with fitting and notching. I still can't believe how good a flapper sanding disc is for shaping 120 wall steel tubing. I learned from this guy on youtube called the fabricator, and he final shapes his tubes with the flap disc. I thought it was just for the final finish but I tried it anyway and wow, it chomps the steel better than the grinding discs and leaves a very nice finish

I got into welding to a great extent due to the need to support our lemons team. We had our cage put in for us and the expense was such that I figured I could buy equipment and take a semester of welding and still be in the black when it came to our next car. I got with another lemons driver/welder and helped him cage his new car. Learned a ton doing that but one lesson was really clear. Doing the fit up work with someone else that can weld rather than just an assistant makes things infinitely easier.

Oh yeah, the flap disks are the way to go without a doubt. When I was introduced to them I was like, why didn't anyone tell me sooner? On that note, there are a few other things that make cage work a lot easier.

This is especially handy if you need to do dissimilar pipe diameters:
http://www.metalgeek.com/static/cope.pcgi

This is the pipe master which makes compound angles and clusters sooo much easier.
-Sandow

Awsome lay out tool does it do more than one size of pipe?

Poland308 wrote:Awsome lay out tool does it do more than one size of pipe?

No. They make them in a few common sizes though.

http://www.pipemastertools.com/viewall.html

Made a slide out step to fit an existing frame the guys were standing on till the safety officer saw it All out of stuff I had laying around, install tomorrow...

Sandow wrote:I got into welding to a great extent due to the need to support our lemons team. We had our cage put in for us and the expense was such that I figured I could buy equipment and take a semester of welding and still be in the black when it came to our next car. I got with another lemons driver/welder and helped him cage his new car. Learned a ton doing that but one lesson was really clear. Doing the fit up work with someone else that can weld rather than just an assistant makes things infinitely easier.

Oh yeah, the flap disks are the way to go without a doubt. When I was introduced to them I was like, why didn't anyone tell me sooner? On that note, there are a few other things that make cage work a lot easier.

This is especially handy if you need to do dissimilar pipe diameters:
http://www.metalgeek.com/static/cope.pcgi

This is the pipe master which makes compound angles and clusters sooo much easier.

-Sandow

I have a harborfreight tubing notcher that I use for simple cuts but I found the notching tips from the Fabricator guy to work like magic. Line it up, draw your face line, throat line, draw the triangle, chop, chop with the saw, and it pretty much fits right away, just a few zips with the flapper disc and done. I'm just a beginner and it takes me no time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHBanmfn_CA

roll cage looks good

Got it all installed

Nice stuff Sandow , BigD and RickH !

Screen repair...in most cases I'm making the wire or gap up with filler.