Welding Tips and Tricks

Lately most of my welding is removing broken bolts or taps. Welding is also one of the easiest ways to remove valve seats from a cylinder head. I must say that I would not have attempted the bolts before viewing Jody's video, and the tap would have been sent to the EDM shop. Although, I have been removing seats this way for years. In the old days before I had a tig welder we would do it with stick arc.

You definitely earn your pay removing broken stuck stuff like that.

Alumike wrote:Lately most of my welding is removing broken bolts or taps. Welding is also one of the easiest ways to remove valve seats from a cylinder head. I must say that I would not have attempted the bolts before viewing Jody's video, and the tap would have been sent to the EDM shop. Although, I have been removing seats this way for years. In the old days before I had a tig welder we would do it with stick arc.

Sometimes the tap my not come out, but you gotta try. And the small ones, smaller then 6-32 are a real PITA

What rods do you guys use for broken taps ?

309
there is a video here some where about tap removal
craig

In my former life as a heavy equipment field mechanic I often had broken bolts in caterpillar undercarriages and the like. I usually used 3/32 LH90 to remove them. If they were broken much below flush, I would put a small piece of tubing in the hole and weld inside that. On larger and particularly stubborn ones, I would drill in the center if possible then weld the hole in. This will shrink the bolt. It was my good fortune never to break any small taps.
Cheers.
Eldon

At work we use a welding rod especially made for removing broken bolts/studs. We buy them from Lawson, it really saves our bacon with the Sterling trucks, they break exhaust manifold studs like crazy. And almost never flush or proud, always break below surface ugghh!

Brake is done and works like a charm. Little overbuilt but only wanted to make one unit... has enough bite to clamp down on a 3/16" edge of 5" x .050" molly sheet stock and bend a 90 no worries. 3/4" split shaft for eccentric clamping action. This thing should last beyond my lifetime of use....can accept 8 inch wide stock. Added a piece of angle spanning the underside of the table to kill a small amount of flexing. Heim's are leftover race parts. Cant quite bring myself to paint it though.

Beautiful!

Wow
When I saw the pictures in the first post, I imagined it was much larger than it really is.
Nice job all the same. Will certainly handle a lot of work.
Trev

nice project
one more reason why we all weld.
craig

Very nicely done!

I see there's horizontal adjustment on the clamp, to allow different radii for different thicknesses. Excellent planning, so it's not a "one-trick pony".

Paint it proud!

Steve S

I've looked through all 74 pages of this thread and there is some outstanding work in here. I wish I was able to post pictures of some of the things I have welded at work, but I'm not allowed to take pictures of anything at work. I'll try to post pictures of some of the things I've done in my shop. I've done some roll cages and frames for drag cars and pro street cars. I've also done a intake manifold for a 8-71 blower that went on a small block Chevy. Really too many things that I can't even remember. I've got a Miller Syncrowave 250 in my shop and a Syncrowave 350 at work. I do a lot of 304 and 316 stainless, a little titanium, some 6061 aluminum and a few other materials at work. I also have to do some repairs on A-2 and 4140 tool steel. Some of my stuff looks pretty good, but I wouldn't want anyone to see some of it.

motox wrote:309
there is a video here some where about tap removal
craig

massacre wrote:At work we use a welding rod especially made for removing broken bolts/studs. We buy them from Lawson, it really saves our bacon with the Sterling trucks, they break exhaust manifold studs like crazy. And almost never flush or proud, always break below surface ugghh!

xwrench wrote:In my former life as a heavy equipment field mechanic I often had broken bolts in caterpillar undercarriages and the like. I usually used 3/32 LH90 to remove them. If they were broken much below flush, I would put a small piece of tubing in the hole and weld inside that. On larger and particularly stubborn ones, I would drill in the center if possible then weld the hole in. This will shrink the bolt. It was my good fortune never to break any small taps.
Cheers.
Eldon

Thanks gentlemen, that gives a good range of options.

Well today was mostly paper work, but managed to get my hands onto next project too.
So I started with this Anyone want to guess what that thing is?

Markus wrote:Well today was mostly paper work, but managed to get my hands onto next project too.
So I started with this Anyone want to guess what that thing is?

Ummm, not trying to be smart, but could it be a jig for making something with 4 arms and a circular centre piece? Anyway, after you tell me, that would have been my very next guess ( )

Markus wrote:Well today was mostly paper work, but managed to get my hands onto next project too.
So I started with this Anyone want to guess what that thing is?

Fixture for a gravflux vortex manifold for the next generation of X-wing fighters??

LDB

ldbtx wrote:

Markus wrote:Well today was mostly paper work, but managed to get my hands onto next project too.
So I started with this Anyone want to guess what that thing is?

Fixture for a gravflux vortex manifold for the next generation of X-wing fighters??

LDB

Everyone knows the nex gen X wings have vortex injectors the manifolds proved unreliable

I with Trackranger on this one

Good guesses guys

I have noticed that we always seems to have too few pipe stand around at work. Instead of paying 500 € from one decent stand I decided try do those myself. So I drawn one and I'm about to do 10 of those now. For a start at least

As I will do these all by myself, I thought that jig would be very helpful thing to have. It took 30-45 min to wrap up that jig, but I believe that it will pay itself back with ease. Also I'm sure that it will help a lot to prevent distortion as pipe stands will be made of 304 stainless.

I will do a new topic of making these and will give all dimension of the stand etc.

object lesson in matching parts
craig

LtBadd wrote:

ldbtx wrote:

Markus wrote:Well today was mostly paper work, but managed to get my hands onto next project too.
So I started with this Anyone want to guess what that thing is?

Fixture for a gravflux vortex manifold for the next generation of X-wing fighters??

LDB

Everyone knows the nex gen X wings have vortex injectors the manifolds proved unreliable

I with Trackranger on this one

LtBadd, it's times like these I wish the forum had a "Like" button. Well played, sir.

LDB

@Markus if they are solely for pipe, are they for rotation of the pipe? Or moving it back and forth for Cutting, if they are the latter, maybe use two roller, tilted down at the center, to keep it on line, if they are for rotation only, two discs for rollers will do, also consider a screw type arrangement for height adjustments, so you can do very small ones.

I always wanted to try it. My first attempt:

Untitled by Taz00, on Flickr

Never mind the choice of cans. I rarely drink soda and my favourite beer (Paulaner Weiss) comes in a bottle. This was given to me as a promotion item though I have to admit it was not that bad.

That's awesome, Taz. It took me many many tries. Mine is not that pretty either. What settings did you use?

Cheers
Eldon

ALCOHOL FREE?? Me and you gotta talk Nice job...now I gotta try it. Gotta wait til I'm alcohol free though