Welding Tips and Tricks

Short Run, meaning, not enough in the budget to make a jig or a pattern really, or essentially building in prototype mode. It's typically a fine line with trying to keep parts affordable enough to a customer you hope to keep doing business with. It's where the old tricks of the hands on part of the trade come in handy when trying to make parts with any degree of predictable repetitiveness. Not the tubes so much. I can bend those with my mind in my sleep by now. In this case, the deal was, use what was available in the shop, which amounted to obtaining stock from different drops of 3/8" plate. I sized the parts to an even 4" so that in the future, I can simply use 4" x 3/8" flat bar and gain some economy there with the cutting phase later on down the road.

It's an oddball size, so cutting the parts out of a piece of existing channel was out of the question. There can be some kind of adaptation later on, with some thought, I imagine.

Here is the subject. A water blasting crawler that scales the sides of ships, held on by suction.


Which needs a roll cage. The use of aluminum is entirely experimental as these parts were made of SS prior. To hand cut and drill 1/4" SS flat bar on short notice, or to economically have them cut elsewhere for so few parts was the deciding factor as was the schedule.



Instead of using one, 1/4" stainless steelplate for the sling eyes, it has two 3/8 aluminum that does away with the clevices they currently use. Just a bolt or pin thru a cable eye instead.

The pipe is double wall sched forties making an 80. A 3/4", 6061-O inner, with a 1", 5052 outer. The 5052 takes a puddle quicker and welds faster and in theory, keeps heat stress/brittleness to a minimum. You can use those 'fudgy', fat aluminum welds on this material that end up being rather tough, without creating a fracture zone right at the edge of the weld and without undercut or overlap. The two wall, sched 80 buildup also helps alleviate this, over that of a single wall 80 construct. Is it overkill or in vain? Perhaps. . .but all we can do is try and guess when time is of essence.


At any rate, I made the deadline and used almost to the inch, what material we had readily available.

I wish I could work with you for a few weeks man, I'd love to watch you in your element. You do some cool stuff, and I have yet to read a reply from you that doesn't make sense.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

I would have to agree with my son on this one , you are a master at your trade. I too love to see your work. Keep it coming.

Len

Thank you. Anyone that has an interest in this sort of thing has always had a blast doing it at our shop. When young guys come in, you can tell they want to get their hands on my part of it, even though they hired for something different. I get more offers for help even for some of the littlest things. I'll be moving something like a poling platform, that may weigh 20#, and they will be running across the shop grabbing for half of it and I will ask. . ."Don't you think it's going to look a little silly both of us carrying this?" lol

Here's kind of a neat one. These ends are a male fit to the 1-1/4" 40. 3/16" gap, 1/8" balled pure tungsten with half of the ball down in the ditch. With anodized, it is best to put a scratch in the coating with a wire brush, so that the arc will want to strike down in the root, nearly as much as it will on the raw cut end of the pipe. When you only have enough parts for the job, you don't want arc wander, especially with the initial tacks. Tungsten is let out about 3/16" as well. This will make sure that you keep the torch at precisely the right angle for this type of joint and get the nice shiny welds.




I might ought to treat myself to a new torch and cables this year. At least a new cup.

awesome piece, i'll bet you could weld earrings together while someone had them on.

TamJeff,
What size torch do you normally use? I have a new Weldcraft Supercool 18, no cables, that I gathered out of the dumpster at work when they closed down our weld shop. I have quite a few 5/32 and 3/16 gas lenses and a ton of cups made for it. They're kind of like a stubby gas lens. I believe these are rated for 350 amps. This stuff could be yours for the asking.

If you really want to rattle the side panels on your old welder, I have a couple new WP12 torches too that are 500 amp torches, they both have cables. If you can use them, just let me know.

Len

I use a WP20 torch. I am half kidding about replacing it. I may change back to vinyl lines because people can't seem to quit stepping on them in the middle of a weld, cutting off my gas in the process. I never had issue with the old lines vs the flex ones we have now. My boss was told (by a salesman) that the cloth sleeves will help keep them from bursting when trying to get 300 amps worth of weld out of 250amp cables. I say, keep a 300 amp rig on hand for the big aluminum stuff. Otherwise, I have to run two machines simultaneously, allowing them to cool off alternately. At any rate, I found that the flex hoses will burst too. I also think the flex lines are prone to getting restricted for water when in a bind more than the vinyl ones so it ends up being a wash for me.

Meanwhile, the bottom has fallen out and I am looking at miles of weld in the next few months. Here's my 20 minutes into WAD (Welder Aided Drafting). Full size pattern with all the info. Bend marks, degrees, copes etc.


Notice the sleeve on the rear, smaller pipe below. This small pipe ends up being a structural member. Essentially extending the spread of the rear leg to help subdue any oscillatory motion. The sleeve is there because another support will intersect directly inline with that short nipple. I don't like doubling up heat zones on singular, structural components. I'd use them a lot more often were it entirely up to me. Especially on structures that have to stand alone without much support from say a flimsily built fiberglass console, which is all too common these days.


I am 3 hrs into the project by that last photo, including the pattern/design. The main central part of the structure is welded at this point as well. The sleeves will still move a little at this point as long as I don't weld the short horizontal nipple to them yet. I leave them sagged down ever so slightly so that when I weld the crotch of that weld on top where the weld will naturally have a deeper throat, they will end up straight. Even if it means giving them a little schwack with the wapper when still hot.

Personally, I feel that is the art of welding aluminum. Is knowing how much to pre-distort the parts and knowing which way they are going to move, and how to weld/tweak them accordingly, and when.

Beautiful as always Jeff.

~John