[maker of things]

We laid our first beads with stick together too

not sure if euphemism...

[entity-unknown]

Hey Jon! I left it open to interpretation for fun but truth is the day I lit up the 'ol Lincoln AC 225 and ran my very first beads with some 6013, I asked her to come out and lay a couple too She did better than I did but I'm not gonna say I was surprised either....

Alright so the Harbor Freight portaband saw stand I made is now a functional band saw stand! Everything lines up quite nicely and it's firmly in place with no extra gasket/duct tape either! The guide I made slides onto the front upright and I didn't spend any time makin this cuts all nice n straight, just well enough but it fits very well. I might add a lil duct tape or weld a thin strip on one side since there is a bit of play if you hit it hard enough but should hold up well.

My favorite part so far is the part/feed guide that sits nicely ontop of the bandsaw tool guide. It sits at a perfect 90 degree angle to the saw blade itself That really impressed me
I'm going to expand the tool guide to the other side of the blade with one more piece of the thick plate which I might get done this weekend.

I made one additional brace for the rear upright that I welded on that sticks out just far enough to keep the blade in just in case it decides to jump off the wheels and try to get out of the saw. Had that happen the first day I bought it because I was playin with the tension but it'll never happen in this stand even if I undo the tension completely!

So my final piece to make is the cable and lever to pull and lock the trigger. I needed a break and I'm in my peak hours for electricity plus I don't have the cable yet but I'll probably get to that all this weekend.

Ya'll def deserve some credit, especially Jody for his relentless hours of making USEFUL videos
Final PiX to close my thread will be that trigger puller setup and then I'd say I've concluded my "First TIG Welds - A N00b Journey"

[entity-unknown]

Alright it's done! Kinda... I'm going to add folding legs to this one day but for now I'm more than happy with what I got

The top plate is 90 degrees with the saw blade, and completely flat across both plates. One day I'll but a larger plate then add 4 drill holes to the current plates and weld in some small rods that will fit in the lower plate holes so the larger top plate will sit flush with the bottoms and allow me a larger surface area for mitre gauges etc.

The on/off cable tension and rod setup works great too! I didn't even need to modify the saw trigger since the angle was good enough. The setup is a bit adhoc and you have to make sure it's all aligned but it's not hard and once you know where things need to be it's not a big deal.

The on/off bar sits locked in a groove in the lock bar that's welded in and sticks out. The on/off bar has a groove which the cable can sit in and with the two extra pieces of round stock around the bar, it gives a larger plane of tension and ensures the bar doesn't roll over so the curved end always points up.

I can operate the on/off bar with my foot or hand but if I lock it in, then it's locked and I have all appendages free! If something goes wrong, it's takes little effort to push the on/off bar back so it releases too.

Pretty damn happy and I cut some of the stuff to build this as I went along with even cuts except the small round stock which I didn't run even at all. A future guide/mitre gauge will alleviate this plus not being lazy and actually caring will help

[entity-unknown]

My next project ended up requiring some stainless steel since I'm stuck with heavy duty stainless steel hinges for part of it. So I had to figure out some stainless!

The "Rule of 33" makes stainless seem easy, so long as you don't let it warp

Bought a sheet of 20 ga and used my awesome portaband saw stand to cut me off a strip for a few coupons. I also tested out my 1" x 6" x 9" AL block and my 1" x 1" x 3" copper blocks. The copper did give a bit better backing cover and the heat ring was almost not noticeable with a bead without filler. No pix of that but no need.

I ran 6 beads which didn't turn out that well but look good, in fact almost all of it looked great minus the profile and bad paths. I didn't clamp the pieces down except for the two lap joints. The 1st lap had bad fit up and now I know what happens when you do that, not very good control...

The 2nd lap joint without filler turned out very nice minus one bad spot of torch angle and pausing and a lil bump at the end. Not bad to start and with a bit more practice I'll be ready for that 1/8 thick plate I'll be joining together and to some hinges.

Since this was my first SS, and it was 20ga, I figured it'll be worthwhile to add this to my lil man journal I got goin here. Just know its an amateur shot, not weld porn

[GreinTime]

My next project ended up requiring some stainless steel since I'm stuck with heavy duty stainless steel hinges for part of it. So I had to figure out some stainless!

The "Rule of 33" makes stainless seem easy, so long as you don't let it warp

Bought a sheet of 20 ga and used my awesome portaband saw stand to cut me off a strip for a few coupons. I also tested out my 1" x 6" x 9" AL block and my 1" x 1" x 3" copper blocks. The copper did give a bit better backing cover and the heat ring was almost not noticeable with a bead without filler. No pix of that but no need.

I ran 6 beads which didn't turn out that well but look good, in fact almost all of it looked great minus the profile and bad paths. I didn't clamp the pieces down except for the two lap joints. The 1st lap had bad fit up and now I know what happens when you do that, not very good control...

The 2nd lap joint without filler turned out very nice minus one bad spot of torch angle and pausing and a lil bump at the end. Not bad to start and with a bit more practice I'll be ready for that 1/8 thick plate I'll be joining together and to some hinges.

Since this was my first SS, and it was 20ga, I figured it'll be worthwhile to add this to my lil man journal I got goin here. Just know its an amateur shot, not weld porn

Your overall heat input on the joint is a lot better than when you first started a few weeks ago. Your heat marks on some of the other stuff, are debatable to say the least lol. If you can weld the 20ga with relative consistency, you'll find that the 11ga is a breeze. Everything happens in slow motion compared to thin material (not really, but you have way more room for error.)

If possible, set your stick out short enough that you can drag the cup along the bottom piece when doing a lap joint, or in the case of an out of position fillet weld, whatever one allows you to reach the whole joint in one pass.

Also, when doing a butt joint with a plate clamped on one piece or the other, you can set your stick out to be just above weld puddle height, and glide the edge of the cup on the plate/bar to maintain a constant arc gap. It may take some effort to get it down smooth but you'll get down the number of scratches you feel between dabs of filler down pat pretty quickly. This helps to maintain consistency. You'll notice as the work piece gets hotter and hotter that the cup will gain more friction, so a light touch is advised.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[GreinTime]

For clarification, my idea of an aesthetically pleasing lap joint is to weld it like a micro fillet, maintaining the top edge integrity so you have a crisp clean edge. It takes some practice, but once you see it/do it, you'll be upset when you drop that edge the littlest bit lol

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[Charlie337]

Following your thread..hope all is well!

[entity-unknown]

I thought I'd add a few pix from my other first welding adventures. I've started plastic welding which has a lot of similarities to TIG welding but the process is the exact opposite. That was fun and below you'll find my thread for that. Got to do some stainless steel which had it's special learning curve. Holy Argon! Yeah no doubt it loves it. I even got to do some cast aluminum!
Big thanks to exnailpounder for the Bar Keeper's friend idea. While I've never done cast before, this stuff turned out very well with the clean up I did. The Bar Keeper's Friend powder took off a lot of grey shit which was paint and Al residue. Still, for my first cast Al job, I think I did a damn good job! I also did half 5356 and 4943 to get an idea of over all strength because this is for a rear set (foot peg) on an R6 which we already have replacements coming in for. Basically it was practice but I got to test the overall functionality and so far it can take some good hits and it feels solid. Mainly we're using it for alignment of the exhaust and to do a low speed test ride to make sure everything is sound.

Kym, if you read this, I was totally wondering your thoughts are on the R6 upgrade

Interesting learning experience with 5356 vs. 4943. If you bend your filler rod at a 90 degree or more, the 4943 will break but the 5953 will continue to bend. Both did well on the cast Al but the 5356 had more soot sitting on top than the 4943. This almost suggests the 5356 did a better job at burning some crap out. The 4943 breaks more like cast Al would too so I'd almost think it'd be a better match but the flexibility of the 5356 may have it's advantages. Technically it wins on strength. The 4943 did seem a bit more manageable but both worked quite nicely overall.

Below are some pix of the stainless which is for a fire prop project which is almost done and the plastic welding adventure which I got into for my girl's bike which under went surgery from a F-150 for with a landscaping trailer full of landscaping stuff using the precision only a big truck like an F-150 could do. Needless to say it's been fun and I've saved a ton of money switching to welding The plastic welding alone saved us over $500 in parts...

While I was at it I also added in an extra 10-25 HP to my girl's bike with the teeth which you might recall look quite similar to the TIG Monster claw Oh welding, where was I without you all these years?


http://forum.weldingtipsandtricks.com/v ... =2&t=10380

[MosquitoMoto]

Bloody hell EU, you've been busy, haven't you?

I recently had to repair the cast right side rearset ion a 2006 CBR600RR project bike I have, just to make the bike rideable again. I used 5356 and surprisingly the material performed perfectly and was easy to weld. I won't trust it beyond a few short road rides though.

I weight the pegs a lot while riding and don't know enough about metallurgy, annealing and what have you to trust welded rearsets as a full-time road/race part.

I'm also used to non-folding pegs, so generally as soon as I get my hands on a bike I remove the standard rearsets, switch to solid footpegs and, while I'm at it, change to upside down shift, so that first gear is up and the rest of the gears are down. So much easier to keep feeding in the gears when you are leaned over hard to the left...no need to hook your toe under the shifter and grind your boot to atoms while doing so.

You put TEETH on your girl's bike? Good grief man, was there really nothing on television?




Kym

[entity-unknown]

Bloody hell is right!
We're both pretty light riders but I weigh my inner peg in my corners too till the Apex then I switch with the graduation of the turn. I'd never trust riding that peg and I especially won't let her when it comes to riding. But after the bike was totalled and I had to fix so much crap and we're still waiting on her adjustables from China, it seems right to do my first cast repair and take the bike for a 20 or less MPH (25-30 KMH?) ride around the block to make sure things sound ok and nothing explodes. So that cast repair should do just fine for that and sounds like we made the same decisions for the same reasons

Those are her stock which I told her to replace long ago but she didn't want to and it worked for her. Now she's got some fancy adjustables with no folding pegs comin in and they just look a lot cooler so 10+ HP again

YES! I did give it teeth but I was fixing all her other broken plastics and missing plastic tabs. Since I had the teeth layin around I formed it up and showed her. She loved it so I went with it. I also did it while she was working so we didn't miss any Netflix I can pick up that entire assembly lights and all with the tip of a tooth too so it's solid!

I like the kick down for GP style shifting but after 9+ years of riding, I found it can screw you bad because at the worst moment you revert to muscle memory and you kick up when you wanted to go down, or you're kickin down when you wanted to go up. Looks like you spend more time at track than us too so GP makes more sense for you anyways. Do you even ride street? I also got a 92 CBR600 F2 so design alone I can only go so low with that skinny rear tire Got any track vid? Ever heard of Ballistik Custom Fit/Design Racing Suits? My friend makes those and they're gettin real popular out here in the US.

[MosquitoMoto]

I like the kick down for GP style shifting but after 9+ years of riding, I found it can screw you bad because at the worst moment you revert to muscle memory and you kick up when you wanted to go down, or you're kickin down when you wanted to go up. Looks like you spend more time at track than us too so GP makes more sense for you anyways. Do you even ride street? I also got a 92 CBR600 F2 so design alone I can only go so low with that skinny rear tire Got any track vid? Ever heard of Ballistik Custom Fit/Design Racing Suits? My friend makes those and they're gettin real popular out here in the US.

Threadjack -

I am lucky, I used to do fairly regular track testing and bike reports so I can switch from one shift to another without thinking...I'm very used to getting off one bike, onto another and having to get up to speed fast. (Ex bike safety instructor, part time bike writer, full time bike tragic...it all helps.)

I ride on the road now and then, mostly hills rides - I think you guys call them 'canyons'.

Have heard of Ballistik. Again, lucky, I have had a lot of gear given to me so that I can review it - A-Stars, Shark, etc.

Get most of my kicks from just working on/modding bikes nowadays.



Kym

[entity-unknown]

That's pretty awesome Kym! I wish I gotten into riding sooner but then again I'd probably be dead if I did since those were the stupid years that I purposely skipped over. I never touched one until I knew I had some common sense and self control

The girl and I really love the track and hopefully now she's good and her bike's good we can get some more track time but will still hit our canyons in the mean time since $400 is a bit much for 8 hours even if there's part of it that's worth it....
but yeah we love our canyon rides out here. I think it's more canyon in AZ than any other US state though however I don't know what those East Coaster's say...
I was told all my life that riding is freedom and I just thought yeah ok wind in hair got it cool. I never understood it until I took that first 100 ft into a 90 degree corner at our safety/licensing course here but now I know there isn't much to compare, certainly not judicial freedom