Welding Tips and Tricks

iii sennnndd youu the address s when I quittt shiverinnn

bbbustrddds diopped me innnn tee ccold tankkk

Franz© wrote:iii sennnndd youu the address s when I quittt shiverinnn

bbbustrddds diopped me innnn tee ccold tankkk

I’m guessing you’re not a fan of Russian ice swimming then?

I bet you’d do anything for my hot coffee pot NOW eh

Turns out there was a spare contact in the bag with the waivers/manuals/waste of trees. Got 96 pieces done. Not a bad day. The forklift is my work table. Infinitely adjustable height, The upright plate goes between the forks, blast on the studs and stack. And repeat. And repeat. Ground clamp on the fork instead of on every single individual piece. And yes yes I know I’ll get heck for that. But it works good.

In fact my mig welders aren’t even grounded to the table. I ran battery cable from the table through the floor and up along the wall behind the welders and connected to a long piece of copper flat bar. So I’m not tripping over ground cables all day.

And yes. I did disconnect the forklift battery just in case

The old infinite height adjustment welding fixture trick.

These days we got a bunch of college matriculated fellows in hard hats with little green cross stickeers and HiVis vests that will write you up for employing that fixture and want the forks replaced. Lot of people claim them crosses are where you center the rifle scope. My preference goes to lighting a safety vest and leaving it half cooked on the deck. That really puts fear in their little educated hearts. Whoever made them vests out of rapid igniting cloth had a sense of humor.

BTW, I had my photo Interpiter guy put a trained eyeball on that framing square you photographed. Blind Anthony says you milled the square down so you can cheat.

Franz© wrote:The old infinite height adjustment welding fixture trick.

These days we got a bunch of college matriculated fellows in hard hats with little green cross stickeers and HiVis vests that will write you up for employing that fixture and want the forks replaced. Lot of people claim them crosses are where you center the rifle scope. My preference goes to lighting a safety vest and leaving it half cooked on the deck. That really puts fear in their little educated hearts. Whoever made them vests out of rapid igniting cloth had a sense of humor.

BTW, I had my photo Interpiter guy put a trained eyeball on that framing square you photographed. Blind Anthony says you milled the square down so you can cheat.

Trust me I know the hard hat high vis wearing $?$@!?&s. Tater business is very different than grain farming as you’re under contract with McCain’s and/or Simplot. And to protect themselves and for food safety you have to pass a self-audit every year, with an on site audit every 4 years. AND they select 4 growers at random every year for random unannounced audits, and I had the blessing an good fortune to experience the latter last year.

She showed up without aforementioned HiVis artwork which did puzzle me but I didn’t think to much of it. After the audit she said it was MY responsibility to make sure visitors get proper safety gear. And dinged me for not supplying her with a vest.

This was during harvest and I usually rent an RV for the clod pickers on the unloading to have lunch in, have a washroom, wash hands etc. Anyways this lovely safety lady (oh believe me, my head is calling her some other not so nice names) selected one of the clod pickers and asked him to demonstrate “proper hand washing procedure”. He did, but used a cloth towel they had by the sink. Lovely lady they promptly dinged me for that too, since apparently only paper disposable towels are safe and hygienic.

I also have to have safety signs plastered everywhere including my favourite in the washroom, reads, “ used toilet paper goes into toilet. NOT garbage can!” Well yeah of course!! No shit Sherlock!! Pardon the pun

One of the forklift forks has a hole cut in for moving small trailers and conveyors around. Really simple and handy but would for sure get the forklift condemned by said safety officers. So i might as well keep using it as a welding table

As for that milling machine I used, I wasn’t aware I had one! Thanks Franz for the heads up I’ve always wanted one. Lemme go look for it now

And do NOT. Make me return these

Been to every one of them parties. Princess was going to ding me anyhow, so I politely had her stand perfectly still in a safe area While I grabbed her safety vest from Waste Management, the garbage haulers, hard hat with new head gear and bottle of water with ice chunk floating therein. I even assisted Princess with her vest in a gentlemanly manner. Then I politely informed her she couldn't go one inch farther in her flipflops. She whipped out her opera glasses.

Not sure what your recording laws are there, but in NY it's single party concent. I can't speak without my pocket recorder. NY Labor Dept Blubberette dinged me for 4 violations she wrote I had discussed with her and agreed to remediate. OK. Neither she or her supervisor were pleased to learn of the recording. That's why they have Inspector Generals in Departments.

You paste reflective tape over the hole in the fork when the inspector comes because you're looking into the idea it might increase safety.
OSHA here has a voluntary inspection program, you call them in to do a safety evaluation. The lag time till the inspector shows up is around 18 months. Then you have 2 years to correct what he finds.

The milling machine is with the lathe and saw behind the locked door labeled Executive Lavitory. Thought you knew.

Now I gotta figure out where the McCains warehouse is so I can afford shipping. Do those grow with the taters up there?

You'll be needing a Packaging Engineer to generate an Autocad plan to stack them things when the studs get stuck on.
Maybe an old tater bin with sides might save you. Or just turn them 90° and go with thick cardboard between layers.[/quote]

Ah Mr Franz. There you go underestimating me again. My packaging career is very much alive and well without Packaging Engineering PHDs and such

Woke up to a light sprinkle of snow this morning so I got to take the morning off to finish off the plates. Just over 3 hours arc time according to my 9400i hood display. And went through at least a dozen contact tips. The suckers got so hot sometimes they drooped down and melted onto the nozzle. No I’ve never been accused of being easy on my equipment

Got the shed site laser levelled last week and started seeding and planting right after. So my welding career is now officially on hold till after seeding

Wow! That's a lot of work and more to come!! Bet'cha you can weld those things with your eyes closed. Have any idea what those pallets weigh?

tungstendipper wrote:Wow! That's a lot of work and more to come!! Bet'cha you can weld those things with your eyes closed. Have any idea what those pallets weigh?

Yeah pretty much. I’d be happily welding away, fall asleep, and when I wake up I’d be pleasantly surprised to find out I sleep welded 30 pieces while I was out.

I think around 1,800 lbs each. I’ll know for sure later. Taking them to get galvanized on Friday and they charge by weight. Yes a LOT more to come, the rest is all longer pieces so it’ll be a bit harder.

Spring planting season is pretty much officially over now, along with cultivating and hilling the taters. I had enough rainy days and such to just about finish up cutting. Went through a bandsaw blade an hour till I’d used up my stock of cheapies and bought half a dozen Lenox blades and haven’t changed 1 since. Set up a jig today to weld the cross pieces to the wall plates, welded up one and instantly started reminiscing of the cooler much more comfortable Canadian winters. Anyone have a good jacket for mig welding in the heat?? I use the Miller cloth ones with leather sleeves and they’re pretty expensive. And hot

Also got the base plates back from galvanizing

Appreciate the photos, been following your post. Seems you keep busy...

Just buy the elastic arm sleeves. Or a set of good leathers there open up the back but protect real good.
https://www.bakersgas.com/JOH322120.html

LtBadd wrote:Appreciate the photos, been following your post. Seems you keep busy...

Thanks for the interest! I appreciate that, always nice to have a pro interested in what a newbie is doIng:)

Yeah it’s impossible to not stay busy on a farm. I put 98 hours on a tractor from Monday to last night. Farming isn’t often HARD work as much as it is a LOT of work.

Poland308 wrote:Just buy the elastic arm sleeves. Or a set of good leathers there open up the back but protect real good.
https://www.bakersgas.com/JOH322120.html

I’ll for sure look into getting that. Thank you!

I love how you keep you shop and farm. Was the galvanizing expensive?

tungstendipper wrote:I love how you keep you shop and farm. Was the galvanizing expensive?

Not ridiculously, I would say. $2,000 for those skids. $0.40 per lb I believe it was their rate

JayWal wrote:Picked up my plates today. If any of you wanna come up to Canada for vacation and weld for a couple days you’re sure welcome!!

230 T joints and 250 plates welded to 5 inch channel.

Getting the stud welder end of this week I believe, looking forward to that

Julian

JayWal, I wish I could come up !! if for no other reason to escape this florida heat and humidity but I am afraid I couldn't produce up to your standards and you would make me drag up

Granddaddy wrote:

JayWal wrote:Picked up my plates today. If any of you wanna come up to Canada for vacation and weld for a couple days you’re sure welcome!!

230 T joints and 250 plates welded to 5 inch channel.

Getting the stud welder end of this week I believe, looking forward to that

Julian

JayWal, I wish I could come up !! if for no other reason to escape this florida heat and humidity but I am afraid I couldn't produce up to your standards and you would make me drag up

What kind of temperatures do you have down there? It’s around 80 here. If I did my C to F conversion right lol.

JayWal wrote:

Granddaddy wrote:

JayWal wrote:Picked up my plates today. If any of you wanna come up to Canada for vacation and weld for a couple days you’re sure welcome!!

230 T joints and 250 plates welded to 5 inch channel.

Getting the stud welder end of this week I believe, looking forward to that

Julian

JayWal, I wish I could come up !! if for no other reason to escape this florida heat and humidity but I am afraid I couldn't produce up to your standards and you would make me drag up

What kind of temperatures do you have down there? It’s around 80 here. If I did my C to F conversion right lol.

80 DEGREES!!! I was coming to help, but that's too hot!

80 DEGREES!!! I was coming to help, but that's too hot! [/quote]

Lol what were you expecting, polar bears and igloos??

80* is hot? Come on down to south FL. Was 89* and raining all day.

Demented wrote:80* is hot? Come on down to south FL. Was 89* and raining all day.

It was probably more steam than rain

Granddaddy wrote:

JayWal wrote:Picked up my plates today. If any of you wanna come up to Canada for vacation and weld for a couple days you’re sure welcome!!

230 T joints and 250 plates welded to 5 inch channel.

Getting the stud welder end of this week I believe, looking forward to that

Julian

JayWal, I wish I could come up !! if for no other reason to escape this florida heat and humidity but I am afraid I couldn't produce up to your standards and you would make me drag up

just over 90*F but with the 2 or 3 thunderstorms a day the humidity is killer. breathing vapor saturated air is similar to being under stress at altitude, or at least that's the best comparison I can make.

I'll take my perfect day....50 degrees with Colorado sun shine. Anything else is too hot! Don't mind 20 below either.

Sweating Bullets here in NM.......