Welding Tips and Tricks

I wanted to share this thoos who weld Aluminum and having porosity on previous welds or a grinding dust on flapwheels is cousing gray hears on X-ray test. I dont know is thees blades used any where else???

suicide saw (probably not real name) used for back gouging Al. I actually did some work for a place where one of the employees had removed the blade guard. that makes removal of guard on grinder with a grinding disc seem minor.

tested once, 3G/4G and each booth had one in it.

I use a 7 1/4 inch circular saw to remove aluminum all the time. standard 10 dollar blade.
http://iws.onlinesupply.ca/index.php?ro ... t_id=22122

I had never seen one before. My curent job is welding new and repairing old oil/chemical containers. And often time old craks are full of all kind of contamination. And there this blade is useful because it leaves that AL surface so shiny so i can spot every litle hole/porosity. But you are right about its dangerous tool if its not used right. Allways helmet on and prefure to use air grinder when i can adjust my rpm.

I've used the smaller wheel on an electric die grinder to do similar work. It was on a vaporizer coil for liquid Nitrogen and I couldn't get any other kind of grinder into where it was cracked, worked very well. Yes it was nice to have a speed control on the grinder because it gets a little unwieldy to say the least. No blade guard, but it was 8" from my hand while I was using it. That job ended with the nicest mirror weld I've ever done.

Just FYI, a cutoff wheel goes through bone without even slowing down. Ask me how I know. Blade guards are a wonderful thing.

Len

Aleksi86 wrote:I wanted to share this thoos who weld Aluminum and having porosity on previous welds or a grinding dust on flapwheels is cousing gray hears on X-ray test. I dont know is thees blades used any where else???

I use a similar set up on my air die grinder.

I bought a toe-kick saw blade (smallest I could find), the hole was too big so I drilled it a little bigger to accept a reducer bushing.

Works super excellent, but is even more dangerous than any grinding wheel.

The ability to feather the throttle and take very controlled amounts of material off is awesome.

Have you guys seen/read Stephen King's "The Mangler"?

After I ran a blade like that through my arm I think of that book everytime i pick up that saw.

A chamfer bit in a wood router does a good job on alu plate, feels safer too

Hmm i need to have one I usually dont use it if the grinding place is abowe my head or uncomfortable, because when it bites too deep you need good grip to your grinder.. I Mig AL bretty often butt joints weld both sides and porosity comes so easily on Mig AL and welds mostly x-rays so gettin layer by layer that root opening clean. Flab disc loads thoos "tiny" porosity holes so i cant see them..

AndersK,
I was making a gun stock one time and had a router bit in a die grinder, it caught and ran it through the palm of my hand. Worst part was, it wouldn't come back through and I couldn't manage both wrenches to remove the bit so I just fired it back up and pulled it through. It didn't damage any working parts of my hand, just skin, I was very lucky, but it hurt a lot.

Power tools need to be respected or they will put you in your place without any sympathy at all.

Len

Yes, those blades on an angle grinder(or ankle grinder?) look diabolical but how about the twin blade saws with counter-rotating blades? I've never used one but would have to be a vast improvement over single blade running in one direction.
In boat building I've used routers without any issues at all, except for the hot chips flying off.

Coincidentally about 1000 posts ago I offer my very first post suggesting that the OP use a router with a chamfer bit to bevel Aluminum.

Len

Thanks Len. Great post to read at morning tea time.

We use these green grinding wheels for aluminum, they don't load up like regular grinding wheels. Not sure who we get them from, I'll check.

Damn Len....

I use a worm gear driven Milwaukee circular saw with a carbide blade to cut alum sheet often, works great. I have also set the depth and removed old weld. Works very well!

Some of the blade on the die grinder are scary...