Welders

I think if I was bothering to weld summat I'd prefer it wasn't shitty,
no matter what us was (like the MZ exhaust bracket yesterday).

I'm not sure what could be rusty _and_ made of ally or stainless on
the OP's bubble car though. ;-)

I don't know where 'round here' is of course but the 160 mile round
trip (combined with some driving practice for the kid or a look down
the sea-side might make it more interesting.

http://www.adamsgas.co.uk/default.aspx

I've seen cheap DC (scratch start) units about but I understand it's
AC and with a foot controller are the boys to have?

Whilst I built loads of stuff with my SIP 150 stick welder (still
running a 1/2 tonne box trailer I built 30 years ago) The little
Lincoln MIG is a real pleasure to use.

With stick no sooner have you got the stick to a nice manageable
length when 3 seconds later it's down to a fag end. :-(

It's nice when you tap the slag at one end of the weld and it all
falls off (the slag not the weld).

T i m

 

Well, I meant jobs like sills, footwells etc. on cars. Welds that need
to be sound but don't have to be pretty.

Like I said, TIG's not limited to stainless and alloy! I guess that
per inch of weld bead, TIG is a bit pricey for MS applications. Hasn't
stopped me, though.

Ah, ta. I've 2/3rds used an X-sized cylinder in about one year. I'm in
Suffolk, so it's a bit of a trek.

If you want to weld aluminium, yes. You need the intermittent reverse
current to clean the weld. Proper TIG welders allow you to adjust the
forward-reverse current ratio.

The foot pedal helps because as you run a bead, the weld gets hotter
and, if you're not careful, starts to overheat. I've only used it a
couple of times on pieces of alloy scrap and found it a bit tricky to
control the current with the pedal, TBH. Getting the initial current
right helps. Welds (well, some of them) looked OK though.

HF start saves contaminating the weld (not that it would really matter
on the sort of things that I weld) and saves buggering up the
electrode tip. A nicely sharpened tip makes a world of difference to
the arc shape and thus the controllability of the weld puddle.
Unfortunately I still sometimes accidentally touch the workpiece and
end up having to regrind it. The kit is considerably better than my
ability, TBH.

For thin sheet some welders have a pulse mode: you effectively do a
series of overlapping tack welds.

Yeah. Also, personally, I sometimes find it hard to see what's going
on with stick welding. It's probably down to bad technique though.

One nice thing about an electronacally controlled MMA unit is the fact
that they're DC and some have 'arc force' control, which makes it a
hell of a lot easier to strike and maintain an arc, especially at
lower currents.

Always the sign of a good weld when that happens.

 

The Doctor has picked one up from Lidl for me. Now, who is there near SW
London who fancies teaching a total numpty the basics of welding?

 

Gis a borrow. ;-)

There is another guy in Dunstable who rents shielding gas for £45/3
years. The point for me is I need it no not low rent. If I had a
really big job to do I could just pop down to BOC and take one out for
a month or so. It's the having it there ready but without the
inefficient disposables or rent that I need.

And are we still talking around a couple of grand to get started on
one of these?

The threaded insert I made and lumiwelded onto the std thermostat
housing for the electric fan switch on the kitcar seems to be hanging
in there. ;-)

That's nice to know though isn't it ... you can grow into it and know
it's not holding you back?

I actually got quite good, the best bits were always from when the rod
was mid length though <g>. Now today it might have been easier ...
magnetic clamps / quick grips / auto helmet visors mean it's easier
to hold the job and be able to guide a long rod with your free hand.

Sounds delightful. ;-(

I like welding ... I like the way you can so easily fix and construct
stuff. What I don't like is stuff wandering about when you get
overenthusiastic and weld when you should be just tacking!

I also like the ease of brazing (sort of an extension of soldering for
me as an ex electronics service engineer) and the gentility of gas
welding. Gas cutting is just fun (probably beats the angle grinder for
overall excitement)!

T i m

 

Mode = ogden
paging Bonwick
/o

 

Ah, you've seen "The wind that shakes the barley" too recently

P.

 

Get a gasless MIG - no fucking about with bottles, regulators, etc, etc.
It's the Point and Shoot of the welding world. If you get a taste for
it, you can trade up, or even buy a convertible gasless to start off
with.

 

No, less than that. You can get something new for around £1500 or
maybe even less, I think, but you might have to buy a couple of extras
- they don't always come with the foot pedal, for example. Having said
that, you probably could do without the pedal at a pinch.

Sure. It's only me holding me back now. Haven't actually used it since
I finished my topper mower (phase 1: getting it basically working). I
have been building up a collection of odd bits of ally for practice
and there's an old FZR camcover that I'm going to saw up sometime and
also practice on.

 

Sounds like one of those "... oh go on, I'll take that as well" bits.
;-)

(and not taking your toes off testing it?)

That really is the key isn't it , as with most things that require
skill and technique, practice.

And not just he easy stuff, the upside down, tight corner, very thin,
very heavy or worse, hugely miss-matched stuff.

And then there's the prep.

Just to do this little MZ exhaust bracket (bolts up under the engine
to clamp between down pipe and 5' long silencer). It had broken clean
across the middle of the bolt hole. I degreased it, de-rusted it then
ground some 45 deg chamfers on both sides. Clamped the bits firmly
together then welded up both sides. Ground back to flush (it had to
sit flush against mount one side and bolt head the other) final
flattened with a file and painted. You wouldn't know it had ever been
broken and hopefully won't break again.

Probably cheaper / easier to have bought a new one of course but that
was 1pm and the MOT was at 4.

I clearly remember an incident at welding class at college though. Lad
stick welding in the booth next to me hadn't cleaned the work piece up
properly and it spat badly. Ball of molten steel bounced off his
leather apron, behind his visor and up his nose! The first I knew
something was wrong was seeing his torch flying past my face and
welding to the wall of my booth and hearing his scream as he rushed
out into the workshop to plunge his face in the quenching tank (which
was filled with nasty, rusty, sharp off cuts and scrap).

His face emerged, brown with rust and steam still coming out of one
nostril. Poor bastard!

T i m

 

That's what I was hoping to hear. Screwfix have something that should
fit the bill/budget

 

I wouldn't bother ith an arc welder when there are MIG welders to be had.

If you attack that without a LOT of practice with an arc welder, it'll be a
holey fucking mess in very short order.

--
Beav

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