Welding Tips and Tricks

My wife and son picked up a new fire truck toy at a yard sale, I noticed it had a ladder snapped to the side of it but nothing to mount it to. So what does a good dad that can weld and fabricate do.... Make one, of course out of stainless..lol

He was the happiest little man when he woke up and saw the ladder on it.

Rick_H wrote:My wife and son picked up a new fire truck toy at a yard sale, I noticed it had a ladder snapped to the side of it but nothing to mount it to. So what does a good dad that can weld and fabricate do.... Make one, of course out of stainless..lol

He was the happiest little man when he woke up and saw the ladder on it.

Well we now know where it won't break!

We shipped over 20 tons of fabricated steel today, and as a father of seven, what you welded today is worth 10X more in my opinion.

Well Done !

Put in a service for a buddy that just bought property with an orange grove on it. Stand all aluminum built on back of trailer with 4-1/2" Grinder (zip wheels), porta-band and Spoolmatic 30A. Worked pretty well outside, wind kicked up once and made me curse, other than that no issues at all.

This is a great fix! I bet there's at least a 50% chance you'll be making a better ladder too when those two vertical attachment points break. Post a picture of that when it happens.

TV wall mount

And a trip to Radio Shack, that thing needs some code equipment. Strobes, LED's and a 120dB siren for mom and dad

Wow, excellent job. I like that. Them freaking mounts at Wal Mart are cheesy and really expensive.

I usually weld stainless high purity pipes with orbital, but every now and then I need to get my hands dirty with mild steel
Which is quite fun to do for a change. No purging etc. just weld that shit together

So saturday's quick job. Nothing special, just get to work, weld it and get back to home.
12 barg steam pipe Ø114,3x4,2 mm. Root done with 3 mm gap, 2.0 mm wire and 1-2 mm land, about 85-90 amps. Fill with one pass around 100 A and 3.0 mm wire. All was tigged.

Jody's trick works like a charm!

That is a crime to cover that weld up with insulation! How long did it take from start to finish?

Thanks buddy!
Total time was one and a half hour, but had some problems with water running down the pipe. I think 20 minutes per weld is quite correct guess. I like to do lay wire root, which is really fast. With this technigue I am able to get that line in the middle of the weld and then I know that speed is near 100 mm/min. At 6 o'clock keeping the tip of the wire inside of the pipe and on top just feed it straight to puddle.

That is very good time, I hope the customer appreciated the skill and quality! Nothing worse than laying down the perfect bead, and say to a buddy that isn't in the trades "check that out" and he says "what? it's just a weld" lol

Nice job Markus, tomorrow is Steam Pipe Sunday for me

Here's a few projects I did today at work...

Rick
looks like that place wold be lost without your talents
craig

Swapped out some old carbon steam piping for some 316L after we found a leak. 13hrs of work on Sunday but I banged it out, removed the old, fit and welded all new and installed. Did I mention I get double time on Sundays ...man it was a lot of work by myself. Old pipe is never fun, like those old unions were actually going to come apart...lol damn leak had run down the insulation soaking in, who know how long it's been leaking till I found a small wet spot finally.

One day I learn to have some help, but I find I like stuff done my way, fit tight, the right length I actually measure to the 1/64" quite often..lol Guess that the mech engineering coming out of me. My co workers laugh when I talk in thousandths..lol

motox wrote:Rick
looks like that place wold be lost without your talents
craig

I appreciate that buddy as much I as also like to think that..they say everyone is replaceable.

Damn fine job, but replacing steam and condensate returns with SS, who is doing your water treatment program?

appreciate that buddy as much I as also like to think that..they say everyone is replaceable.
yup they can hire two or three people each having one of your talents and experience...
its the american way of business......
craig

DLewis0289 wrote:Damn fine job, but replacing steam and condensate returns with SS, who is doing your water treatment program?

Yeah it shouldn't have to be stainless, but in the environment it is in it will help externally as well. I heard we had issues years back, I think it is catching up...that and I have found quite a few sch 40 fittings that were used as replacement over the years. Most of the stuff I find is all threaded, no unions makes it wonderful to work on. Our new external treatment company is Guardian, them seem to have there act together and the readings and boilers are looking much better.

The difference in price from Stainless to Carbon was not as much as I had expected either with piping and fittings, not valves are a different story, they are doubled in most cases.

I'm guessing that in the food proscess you may not return much condensate. This is common and also makes it hard to treat the water. I see lots of condensate that got put in with sch 40 and it just doesn't last. Gets even worse if it's in an area where they wash stuff down.

Welding table, still need proper bottom shelf.

Posting this pic has taken about the same time as the progress on welding table so far.

We are doing a short run of a new all aluminum schmitt32.com line drilling system. This extrusion was not meant to be used for this part but the steel yard sold us 6063 even though they said they only sell 6061. This is 2.3mm 6463 which seems to machine and weld fine. Butt weld with a little bit of beveling, 3/32 4043 rod, 135 A, 225 Hz, 70 % EN. I did 10 of these. I don't know what the trick is to starting on the end and making it look good, so I started in the middle and welded out. I was getting sooting on the starts and I'm not sure why. I'm guessing that either i need to turn up the pre-flow time or it has something to do with the cleanliness of the metal or tungsten. It's not after dipping. It happens as soon as I start the arc.

This will be mostly hidden. I would like to know if it's possible to melt through this notch from the front. The only way I know of making it look good is to get less penetration and don't want that since this joint should not even be here. If I weld on this side I would need to sand it off. I did a test weld like this, cut, sanded and beat on it and it didn't break.