Welding Tips and Tricks

Do you drill a hole for gasses to escape when you are closing up the welds? I think I may have to build some cubes just for practice, ouside corners are my kryptonite.

Pie cuts tend to get crapped on by allot of people. The truth is they are EXTREMELY helpful. I had to bend this downpipe elbow up to clear the wastegates and then down right away... All while transitioning from 3" to 4". They 4" bends I have don't have a tight enough radius to do this.

AFR_Autoworks wrote:Pie cuts tend to get crapped on by allot of people. The truth is they are EXTREMELY helpful. I had to bend this downpipe elbow up to clear the wastegates and then down right away... All while transitioning from 3" to 4". They 4" bends I have don't have a tight enough radius to do this.

Nice solution

Pie cuts work however plain and simple, very nice job..

How are you cutting?

rick9345 wrote:
Nice solution

+1
How did you calculate the pie cuts, and cut them?

I cut with a water cooled band saw and deburr with a belt sander. I used to use a chop saw but it was terrible, more time deburring and dressing then actually welding them. To calculate them I always do 5 degree cuts so each piece equals 10 degrees. Some people do 4.5 degree so you can make 45 degree elbows but 5 works well for me. To adjust the radius of the bends you just change the length of the pieces. If you can deal with welding paper thin metal on the inside of the bend you could essentially do a 0 radius bend

Also, I tack welded a 3-4" concentric reducer to a piece of 4" stainless so I had a piece to clamp to and reference to make sure it was straight. I then pie cut the reducer. This was my second time doing this and it works like a charm!

I started welding school last May 18th. We aren't supposed to finish until April 15th.
AWS certification on all four processes, 2-4G.
I passed my last final tonight.

I never could follow the rules.

AFR_Autoworks wrote:I cut with a water cooled band saw and deburr with a belt sander. I used to use a chop saw but it was terrible, more time deburring and dressing then actually welding them. To calculate them I always do 5 degree cuts so each piece equals 10 degrees. Some people do 4.5 degree so you can make 45 degree elbows but 5 works well for me. To adjust the radius of the bends you just change the length of the pieces. If you can deal with welding paper thin metal on the inside of the bend you could essentially do a 0 radius bend

That makes sense, thanks.

RocketSurgeon wrote:I started welding school last May 18th. We aren't supposed to finish until April 15th.
AWS certification on all four processes, 2-4G.
I passed my last final tonight.

I never could follow the rules.

Congrats Chris
Your hard work is paying off.

LtBadd wrote:

RocketSurgeon wrote:I started welding school last May 18th. We aren't supposed to finish until April 15th.
AWS certification on all four processes, 2-4G.
I passed my last final tonight.

I never could follow the rules.

Congrats Chris
Your hard work is paying off.

Awesome job Chris, always nice to finally have all those bend tests completed. No matter how confident I was I hated watching those bend...lol

More pipe, I have the whole bypass loop finally done I'll post tonight, next up welding the leg in up in the ceiling... Yippie

It doesn't look like much to the guys on here but I'm super happy right now. I've been working on installing a full cage in my racecar which had a rollbar put in before I knew how to/could weld. The trouble is that the rollbar fits the car quite well and being able to weld the forward bars to the hoop fully all around seemed impossible without cutting the roof. Cutting the rollbar out wasn't a consideration for many reasons (one of the biggest being how hard it would be to properly re-do the rear stay attachment in the trunk). Cutting and stitching up a few holes in the roof wouldn't be the end of the world but I really hoped it could be avoided.

Then I saw that you could get a TIG microtorch that would work in around a half inch of space. So in December I got me a TIG welder and started learning.

Over the past week I fitted the forward bars and windshield bar and today was the day when I tackled the final welding to the hoop. It ended up being a lot harder than I hoped. Every gadget I picked up for its coolness ended up being crucial. In addition to the confined space, something I didn't foresee when I was doing dry runs was that wearing a welding helmet, I couldn't see jack. I did some of it by Braille but eventually it got to be hopeless. With my welder I also picked up the Miller welding goggles at the trade show because they seemed neat. They were what really let me get my head right up to the roof. Then I mcgyvered a mirror and started trying to weld through the reflection. Got crossed up a couple of times but overall it went well! I gotta say I'm quite pleased with myself!

Welding by mirror view can suck but gets used for a lot of position welds in tight spots. I even keep a SS polished mirror if I'm worried the heat will crack the glass. In a tight spot solid or leak free often trumps looks.

20 inch pipe getting set welded it up today

BigD wrote:It doesn't look like much to the guys on here but I'm super happy right now. I've been working on installing a full cage in my racecar which had a rollbar put in before I knew how to/could weld. The trouble is that the rollbar fits the car quite well and being able to weld the forward bars to the hoop fully all around seemed impossible without cutting the roof. Cutting the rollbar out wasn't a consideration for many reasons (one of the biggest being how hard it would be to properly re-do the rear stay attachment in the trunk). Cutting and stitching up a few holes in the roof wouldn't be the end of the world but I really hoped it could be avoided.

Then I saw that you could get a TIG microtorch that would work in around a half inch of space. So in December I got me a TIG welder and started learning.

Over the past week I fitted the forward bars and windshield bar and today was the day when I tackled the final welding to the hoop. It ended up being a lot harder than I hoped. Every gadget I picked up for its coolness ended up being crucial. In addition to the confined space, something I didn't foresee when I was doing dry runs was that wearing a welding helmet, I couldn't see jack. I did some of it by Braille but eventually it got to be hopeless. With my welder I also picked up the Miller welding goggles at the trade show because they seemed neat. They were what really let me get my head right up to the roof. Then I mcgyvered a mirror and started trying to weld through the reflection. Got crossed up a couple of times but overall it went well! I gotta say I'm quite pleased with myself!

12717931_10154152108973287_2231519467444512849_n.jpg

Looks like you did a fine job. It looks better than the MIG welds on the other bar.

big gear head wrote:Looks like you did a fine job. It looks better than the MIG welds on the other bar.

Thanks! Not the prettiest with all the awkward start/stops but I'm happy with it. Yeah I think I'm going to go over some of these with the TIG to make them fuse deeper. Makes me wish I did everything myself but back then welding was black magic to me. Now all I do is shake my head at other people's work. Not that I could necessarily do better in some cases but knowing the application and caliber that these welders should be, it's shameful. One of the worst was what I saw at the Pagani factory tour. They make their 4 million dollar cars look pretty with all the carbon but the cage and intake welding could be done better by a diligent welding school student.

Poland308 wrote:Welding by mirror view can suck but gets used for a lot of position welds in tight spots. I even keep a SS polished mirror if I'm worried the heat will crack the glass. In a tight spot solid or leak free often trumps looks.

Yeah, I didn't even know this was a thing but I figured it made sense. I wish Jody did more videos about doing these kinds of goofy application videos - like welding with the mirror, or like you guys told me about in the cage thread, taping the pedal to your foot when contorting.

Bypass loop completed, tie in tomorrow and replace the entire leg in stainless.

@zank

I was scrolling through and my 4 year old saw the aluminum bike frame, I stopped and explained how this was a frame someone was making by welding and how nice it was. He looked at me and said "he make those for Walmart?".. I couldn't help but laugh at his innocence.

Awesome work as always zank, beautiful work. I repaired a spare high end bike for a friend of mine a few years back, I was shocked at how much it wanted to move. I had it clamped it tight...

BIGTIME wrote:20 inch pipe getting set welded it up today

Nice!

Rick_H wrote:Bypass loop completed, tie in tomorrow and replace the entire leg in stainless.

As a retired mechanic at a food factory I must thank you for the unions and their respective positions. So many times either one of our people or a contractor socket welds these in so you cannot even begin to remove and repair. THANK YOU ahead of time.

bruce991 wrote:

Rick_H wrote:Bypass loop completed, tie in tomorrow and replace the entire leg in stainless.

As a retired mechanic at a food factory I must thank you for the unions and their respective positions. So many times either one of our people or a contractor socket welds these in so you cannot even begin to remove and repair. THANK YOU ahead of time.

Thank you Bruce! I to am a mechanic at a food plant, and like you it pisses me off every time I have to do a repair and there is no Union in sight. People really don't think about future repairs.w

Support flange.

Rick,
Did you really have to show us a picture of your Johnson? Lol.

Len


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Braehill wrote:Rick,
Did you really have to show us a picture of your Johnson? Lol.

Len


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Lmfao...