Welding Tips and Tricks

Nice forum you got here!
I've got a new Everlast 164si and am coming along fine. Pressure in my 80cf tank is down to 2000 after 4 seatings of practice. I got a leak. Without welding I've got 5cfh going back to Airgas to bottle and sell back to me.
I know I'll have to open it and fix but I wondered if a welding machine maint. & repair category might be useful. It's good to know what's inside the box.
I know I'll have to address spark gap cause I'm green and I lose sight of the tip in the arc. Sticking the tungsten will erode that part I've heard.
Thanks!

Are you saying your flowmeter shows 5CFH anytime the valve is open? That's a pretty significant loss, and Everlast will likely ship you a replacement, so I'd contact them before opening the machine and risking voiding the warranty. If that's not what you meant:

The easiest way to prove a leak before (or through) the gas solenoid is to open the bottle, let the pressure stabilize for 15 seconds, close the bottle valve, and watch the needle on your regulator. It should not move for quite some time (no system is perfect, and it will eventually drift down, but you should get a good ten-15 minutes with no detectable change).

If it does drop, then a soap test of all external fittings and connections is in order, and one suspect spot in particular is where the valve handle enters the valve on the bottle. If you find a leak there, try opening the bottle valve fully, hard against the stop, and test again. (There is supposed to be a positive seal in that position, which is why all high-pressure bottles should be opened fully.)

An 80CF bottle will show pressure drop much faster than, say, a 280CF bottle, so if no leak can be proven, there are gas conservation measures you can take.

Steve S

Thank you!
My bad...the fault was internal. I undertorqued the inlet on the backside of the unit.

Glad you got it sorted out, while you still have gas left!

Steve S

Due to a recent deep freeze and failure of engine heater are boats heat exchanger developed a small crack. I was curious what might be the best way to repair this unit.

I had to replace yacht stantion and it was 30' long with multiple stantions along the perimeter and I figured there had to b open tube being so long and how it was made well I didn't want to drill any holes and carefully started and finished weld and the up rights were open on bottom and I found out the hard way the top railing was air tight and it blew out on me immediately even trying to quickly weld a pin hole was impossible so they must have had a short section sealed air tight so I just did best I could to do what I could to keep it original and I wasn't sure if pickling it would work to insure corrosion proof and I used the very best pickling the company guarantees that it restores chromium and pulls out darkened weld and any impurities and iron and I'm not sure what to expect do u have any advice how they might have welded it air tight and had no venting and I know that u can seal a tube if it's long and it is a quick short weld if there's only a short weld on a long tube and a short sealed section is of course impossible so they must have had a closed off short section where I had to make one weld joint

w123turbo wrote:Due to a recent deep freeze and failure of engine heater are boats heat exchanger developed a small crack. I was curious what might be the best way to repair this unit.

I have no idea how your question got buried at the end of a topic that was resolved. If you still have an issue, please post this in the "general shop talk" area by creating a "new topic". I'd never have seen this, if I hadn't been tidying up a bit.

Steve

w123turbo wrote:Due to a recent deep freeze and failure of engine heater are boats heat exchanger developed a small crack. I was curious what might be the best way to repair this unit.

If I'm looking at that picture correctly? Then that outer wall must be 1/4 or 3/8 thick? End plate looks to be the same. If it's a single wall I.E. pipe with a plate welded on the end. And the thicknesses are approximately between 1/4 and 3/8. And it's steel? A lot of assumptions on my part. I'd grind out the cracked portion of the old welds until the crack is gone and then stick weld with 3/32-7018 or Tig with 70s2.

awsweldingmi.com wrote:I had to replace yacht stantion and it was 30' long with multiple stantions along the perimeter and I figured there had to b open tube being so long and how it was made well I didn't want to drill any holes and carefully started and finished weld and the up rights were open on bottom and I found out the hard way the top railing was air tight and it blew out on me immediately even trying to quickly weld a pin hole was impossible so they must have had a short section sealed air tight so I just did best I could to do what I could to keep it original and I wasn't sure if pickling it would work to insure corrosion proof and I used the very best pickling the company guarantees that it restores chromium and pulls out darkened weld and any impurities and iron and I'm not sure what to expect do u have any advice how they might have welded it air tight and had no venting and I know that u can seal a tube if it's long and it is a quick short weld if there's only a short weld on a long tube and a short sealed section is of course impossible so they must have had a closed off short section where I had to make one weld joint

That is a truly amazing run-on sentence! I'm impressed and amused. I assume you spoke this into a "smart" phone? You didn't actually type all that...

The post you're replying to is months old, and was an add-on to a topic that had been resolved many months before that. I love your enthusiasm, but this fellow posted once, and never again, so your advice is likely unheeded.

Join us in more active conversations. The stuff that's been idle that long doesn't get much attention.

Steve