Lonesouth's general welding thread

[Justafordguy]

I really like that table idea, I wonder if I could build something like this into part of my welding table? Now you got me thinking.

 

[73AnneBoleyn]

That's pretty slick, lonesouth. Man, I need a shop.

 

[jim3326]

Keep in mind when cutting with the plasma, if you don't have enough space between what you're cutting and the support, it will cut that also.

 

[lonesouth]

I saw another table designed with sacrificial 1/8" x 1" cross bars. Another suggested a bed of nails for plasma. Haven't gotten that far, still thinking it out.

 

[lonesouth]

Back on the bumper caps.

I found some sheet metal in the shed from which I was able to make some end caps. I used a roll of teflon tape to mark out 4 ~2" circles and used some tin snips to cut them out. Not sure what the thickness was, maybe 20ga, the snips cut with ease. I think that is part of what made this the hardest, most annoying, attempt at welding so far.

The tube is 3/16 if not 1/4 wall. It was nigh impossible to get the caps welded on without burning straight through the cap. My settings were 1/40 and .23 wire, 100% CO2. I suspect I would have had an easier go of it with a thicker cap, but either I wasn't getting enough heat into the pipe, or too much into the cap and blowing through.

I finally got all 4 welded in, I made at least 4 trips back and forth on each piece between the welder and the grinder. I would weld it all up, think it looked OK, then after grinding I would see the crack where there was no penetration to the pipe. Extremely frustrating. I'll post pics tomorrow.

 

[Justafordguy]

It would have been much easier to weld if the two materials where the same thickness.

 

[sykanr0ng]

It would have been much easier to weld if the two materials where the same thickness.

/\/\ That +1

TIG is the best way if you want to weld different thicknesses.

Straight CO2 is a poor choice of gas for fine welding, Argon mix is much better.

 

[lowbush]

TIG is the best way if you want to weld different thicknesses.

I agree, you can ride the ticker side harder with a tig and then just pull in the thin side, with a quick rotation onto it's metal. If you are going to work with thin steel a bit, consider getting a cheap DC TIG unit. Then you can do stainless, copper, gold, silver etc.. as well, just won't be able to do aluminum with a DC unit. Not that I would know but DC TIG units are great for building moonshine stills.