Welding Tips and Tricks

Have been thinking about this for a little bit. Kind of a pain to ground a vise grip to small parts for TIG welding. Often times the clamp and cable is heavier than the part and wants to move around, even fall off the table. Also, the ground clamp is often in the way when welding small parts.

What do you think of this? It's a steel swivel base I pulled out of somebody's trash can. It has a rod all the way through, so should complete the circuit. Bearings are metal, so that shouldn't cause a problem. I'm going to weld a rod away from it for the ground clamp.

I figure tack the vise grip in this position and I'll be able to articulate the part pretty good.

Thoughts? See any issues using it?

*the spring clamp is just there to show placement of the vice grip that will be welded to the swivel plate

Nice, kinda like a home made version of a positioning clamp. Dose the same job. Dose your earth clamp connect to the rod under the base?. If it is just connected to the main base I would imagine that the bearings would eventually start arcing out.

Cheers

I didn't weld the earth rod yet, I guess I could give it a go and see how it holds up. do you see any safety issues that I may not be thinking about?

I'd use some bronze/brass filler on the jaws that would make contact with the work piece..

Good Idea ! amazing what we can come up with. I have a jig using a flexible arm off a light and a magnet on the end of it. I use it to weld ball bearings to stems to make grape clusters. Let the creative juices flow!!!!

Would the current going through the bearing cause a problem with it maybe becoming magnetized? Why not clamp the ground to the vise grips and save that problem? More direct ground it always better right?