Slackdaddy

It's a good time for sure, if you are into Ex aircraft, fabricating, etc.
I probably ended up with around 3-4 hours of one-on-one tutoring from the Lincoln guys, and another 2-3 hours of just trying on my own.
I found the tent Saturday, and it got busy by late morning and I had to give up my spot, till it slowed down.
I asked them what time they were opening the tent on Sunday morning and was there waiting,, had the place to myself for a bit.


Slack

Basslicks

Bottom shelf of the wedding cart I started making. I think I need to slow my wire speed down...

Dumajones

Cool!..looks nice and hot.. I would slow the wire-S like you are thinking and or speed up your pass maybe both.. But in my book looks good for a cart

Basslicks

Thanks Duma, I'll try both.

XJwonders

Basslicks

Looks like a MISSILE!!!! lol.... no seriously, what is that?

Smokey_bearme

teaching my girl friend how to weld 1/8 plate and flux core on my lincoln sp-135

JandDGreens

Very nice! tool stand right?

XJwonders

XJwonders

Nope. It's a thingaminig for Boeing

Basslicks

It's a rocket

XJwonders

I thought I'll share this with y'all. As you know, I do aluminum TIG welding work.

Aluminum is a finicky metal, very sensitive to certain methods and et cetera. Here's some tips to work with it.

There's two important factors at work. It's absolutely vital that the work material MUST be clean, no exceptions. Some of you who disagree and may claim that you had no problems not cleaning aluminum and your welding turned out okay, that's fine, you are an *******, by choice. But think about the clients, would they be ok with receiving parts with substandard welds? Stop thinking about yourself and do what is right. Especially when it's for somebody else.

Anyway. CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN is vital. No oily residues, no dirt, no scale, etc. if you need to use a wire brush, use ones with stainless steel bristles and use only on aluminum, do not use on other metals. You do not want to contaminate the clean surfaces.

Another most important tip is heat. Again, aluminum is finicky. It's really necessary to preheat aluminum especially on thick parts. Even if it's at room temperature, it often is not enough.

One way is to use a torch to preheat. That works. Often guys with oxyacetylene torches would cover the parts with soot by using acetylene flame without the oxygen. When it's completely black, the oxygen get turned on and y'all heat it up until the soot disappear. When it disappear, it's usually at 350-400 degrees.

Another trick is to use 75% argon and 25% helium mixture. The addition of the helium make it much hotter. That's helpful with welding REALLY thick pieces.

Sometimes if you have so much parts but no time to preheat, you can use ovens to put small parts inside. It's about timing. You weld few pieces, then grab more pieces out of the oven & reload new pieces, etc.

Or you could do this; I stack tacked parts on top of welded parts, so it warms up before I weld them.





Also I would like to add another tip.
In the pictures you see that I'm welding round pieces (bushings) to square tubing. (Legs for a specific project). You would think I would only weld it 4 times around. Nope. I actually weld it 5 times around.

How? I make a little narrower weld on the first side, that helps heats up the thick bushing enough so that the second through fifth welds would be hot enough to really penetrate in the bushing. It doesn't have to be pretty with the first weld, because it ll be covered up by the fifth weld.

Thank you

XJwonders

Also I forgot to add. You also may think why doesn't I just crank up the power on the welder. There's an important factor here... warpage. Welding on highest setting on cold aluminum can cause massive warpage even on thick pieces. Preheating it at least couple hundred degrees help control that.

You also may notice in most of pictures I posted; my table top is a huge slab of aluminum. There's a reason for that. It's a massive heat sink. After half hour of welding, the aluminum top actually get really hot, and that aid in preheating parts as they rest on it. Ha.

It also help with welding steel, it absorb heat away from steel so it can maintain flatness.

Another tip of preheating aluminum is to heating it with the tig torch by pressing on the foot pedal so it maintain an arc but get just hot enough to make a tiny puddle, dipping lightly with the filler rod to make a tiny weld, and when you are ready to lay on an actual head on top, you just hammer it with bigger arc.

XJwonders

Now something else that always really bother me. I have seen people (both at work, friends' garages, online pictures etc) that people don't really consider the safety as absolute critical part of welding.

Your own ****ing SAFETY. No im not talking about goggles n ****. I'm talking about your skin.

I noticed many guys would act macho and think they don't need gloves and jackets. Hell some of them wear beach shorts and sandals while welding. Let me tell y'all that, it's ****ing and ridiculously dumb move. Yes this is a rare occurrence where I feel comfortable calling you a retard for doing that.

I get it, I get it, y'all may think you can handle the sparks. Sparks doesn't bother me either but I still jacket up and wear gloves ANY time I weld.
More importantly, ****ing pants and proper footwear.

It is NOT about the sparks and ****. What else? You may wonder.

It's the goddamn flash burn. I know guys who apply sunscreen so they can weld without jackets. Still a retardly dumb move.

Why? SKIN ****ING CANCER. That's what!

Ultraviolet rays from the arc is actually few times more powerful than the sun and you are ****ing inches away from it. People say sun rays are harsh nowadays and it's like million miles away and yet you still get sunburns. IMAGINE what welding arc does to you just inches away!!

You won't be all macho when the doctor break the news to you that you have skin cancer and you probably are gonna die from it.

Your little kids doesn't know why you died. Their mother could say "it's because daddy think he's so goddamn macho he didn't need to cover himself up during welding and now he is dead". Imagine how the kids feel especially when it's easily preventable.

Stop being lazy and put some goddamn clothes on when you weld. Even if it's just five minutes.

Unless you want to kill yourself slowly.

Rogue4x4

To back this up, even if you have all the gear, you can STILL get burned...I was working on a piece of equipment that had a concave face, was torching out the concave plate to replace. Had a hot bit of molten steel about the size of a silver dollar ski jump off the plate, burn right through my pants, and into my boot, right where the ankle and foot meet. Couldn't get to it quick enough, and it sizzled me good. That was WITH all the proper gear.

And the arc burn? Yeah, that's real too. Was out of uniforms for work, and had to wear a short sleeve shirt one day, and had left my leather at home. Doh. Long story short I had to arc weld all day, and had one of the worst "sunburns" I've ever had in my life. It will never happen again. Got a jacket at home AND work now.