Welding Tips and Tricks

Thought I'd share this nice little find with the group,

I was looking at a dedicated grinder at Harbor Freight to use for grinding my tungsten when I thought to myself "I wonder if anyone has thought up a device that could be 3D printed?"

So I checked Thingiverse and sure enough someone had! http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:18347 Thanks to Jag from Thingiverse for posting this.

So I printed one out to give it a try.



The diamond discs are from Amazon for $17 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BD ... ge_o03_s02 it takes a 1-1/2" wheel.

You have to remove the collet on the Dremel:



And screw the grinder attachment on:



Insert the Diamond Wheel to the correct depth (not critical):



Each of the holes on the side are for different sized Tungsten and different angles:



As you can see the rod is held in the correct orientation:



Grinds it pretty quick:



I had the disc down a little too far when I ground this so there is a little bit of swirling on the tip. This was the first time I used it so I'll need to figure out the best depth for the disc and mark it on the shaft.

It cost me pennies to print this and it's about a 3 hour print but you can't beat the price and results!

I've been thinking about using the same disc from Princess Auto to make a grinder yours needs a hole below the disc, slotted on the side in case you have to cut off a tip. They say not to grind the tungsten sideways because of tracking by the abrasions it looks about 50-50 in the pic.

Tom Osselton wrote:I've been thinking about using the same disc from Princess Auto to make a grinder yours needs a hole below the disc, slotted on the side in case you have to cut off a tip. They say not to grind the tungsten sideways because of tracking by the abrasions it looks about 50-50 in the pic.

I was using one of the other wheels to cut the tips but a slot would work. The guy that posted the 3D file also included the source so I may try to modify it. I'll also contact him and make that suggestion, thanks.

As for the grind marks, I had the disc pushed too far down in the Dremel and to get the rod to touch the disc it put the angle off. I'll experiment with it some more to get it right.

I was thinking about using a roto zip to power mine.
Really all that is needed is enough space in one spot between the disk and shroud enough for a blob to pass by the hole just lets it vacate.

You could file or melt a slot for it easy enough

Like it

That's pretty cool, the 3D printing is amazing stuff!

Mounted this grinder on the wall
http://www.princessauto.com/en/detail/3 ... -p8567356e

With this disc
http://www.princessauto.com/en/detail/e ... -p8405953e

Very please with how it works. Grooved a slot on the disc guard and use that to support and steady the tungsten.

With my level of welding skill it gets A LOT of use.

So I saw this thread and had to give it a run. Had my brother print it out and it is curing in the sun now. Looks good though

The lithographic printers do so much better of a job with the holes than the deposition printers. I wont know how well they really fit until it has cured though.

-Sandow

So I thought I'd follow up after I'd had a chance to use this for a bit. There are holes for 1/8", 3/32" and 1/16" and 4 angles per tungsten size. Seems to range from about 2:1 to 5:1. Not sure why you'd ever actually want 5:1 on a 1/8" tungsten but it is there if you want it.

So for $8 in resin, $20 for a Dremel and $17 in diamond wheels, you can put together a grinder that will produce a nice finish with very consistent outcomes. Granted, slowly... I think this takes about 10 times as long to finish sharpening an electrode from square using this than a bench grinder.
-Sandow

Love the resin, wish my printer were that sophisticated!

I ended up removing my printed part and just use the diamond wheel by turning the tungsten between my fingers. I got lazy taking it off and putting it back on when I needed my Dremel for other things.

Havent had any SLA prints made in a few years but they used to be really fragile. Drop it and it would scatter in pieces.

How is your material Sandow?

The different SLA resins have different properties. The clear is very ridged but can be brittle as a result. This is a thick enough print that I seriously doubt is would have problems is it was dropped from any reasonable height though. The tough resin is flexible but not stretchy and would likely just bounce. Haven't played with the flexible or castable resins yet.

http://formlabs.com/products/materials/standard/
http://formlabs.com/products/materials/tough/
http://formlabs.com/products/materials/flexible/

For the purpose, I think the standard resin is probably the best choice since the holes could be bored out very cleanly.

-Sandow

Sounds like they have taken a few steps forward then.
It used to be the most accurate prints but mainly used as plugs to produce silicone moulds. Was the used to vacuum cast PU and other materials not printable.
Thx for the update.

Am I the only one left on the planet that uses a green wheel on a bench grinder to grind my tungsten?

thespian wrote:Am I the only one left on the planet that uses a green wheel on a bench grinder to grind my tungsten?

I doubt it, but then 3D printing a component to sharpen tungsten is pretty cool and worth talking about. I do think the inexpensive diamond wheel setups people are making is the way to go if someone doesn't already have a solution, or just enjoys the DIY part.

Oh, don't take it as bashing in any way I was kind of making fun of myself a little bit.
I think a 3d printed jig is pretty cool.

LtBadd wrote:

thespian wrote:Am I the only one left on the planet that uses a green wheel on a bench grinder to grind my tungsten?

I doubt it, but then 3D printing a component to sharpen tungsten is pretty cool and worth talking about. I do think the inexpensive diamond wheel setups people are making is the way to go if someone doesn't already have a solution, or just enjoys the DIY part.

thespian wrote:Am I the only one left on the planet that uses a green wheel on a bench grinder to grind my tungsten?

So what I've settled on is cutting new tungstens to 2 1/4", chucking them in a cordless drill and doing the majority of the profiling on a bench grinder. I'll then finish them in the printed grinder down to a point and then put a small flat (about .010") on them. The dremel is just too slow on its own to do the entire prep from square to truncated cone. FWIW, I don't really feel that the electrodes are meaningfully better than when I was just grinding them on a bench grinder.

-Sandow

A friend of mine printed one of these off in ABS as a printer test project.

Who knows how useful it will be, and it's definitely a bit rougher than the pictures above.

I may try smoothing the extrusion layer lines by using some acetone vapor smoothing as an experiment, but then again it's a tool and doesn't need to be all that pretty.

2016-06-24 tunsten sharpening guide by Hey_Allen, on Flickr

thespian wrote:Am I the only one left on the planet that uses a green wheel on a bench grinder to grind my tungsten?

Nope. I just bought a new 8"x1" green wheel.

Dave

I had a friend print up one of these, as well. I've used it some and like the consistency of the grind and the ability to have it next to me on my table while working. It's very quiet too.

Prior to that I was using a 4.5" angle grinder with a Skil brand wet/dry continuous diamond saw blade. The grinder worked well but was extremely loud (like all angle grinders) and needed hearing protection to grind tungstens.

The downside is when I really mess up, dip the tungsten and get a large blob on the end. It won't fit into the fixture's openings so another grinder is needed or the fixture needs to be modified with an access port to clean up really messed up tungstens.

sru_tx wrote: The downside is when I really mess up, dip the tungsten and get a large blob on the end. It won't fit into the fixture's openings so another grinder is needed or the fixture needs to be modified with an access port to clean up really messed up tungstens.

One of the comments made on Thingverse where the first post links to mentioned that issue, and suggested modification of the part to add a slot to the side, allowing the cutting of the tungsten when blobbed.

dmcnally wrote:

thespian wrote:Am I the only one left on the planet that uses a green wheel on a bench grinder to grind my tungsten?

Nope. I just bought a new 8"x1" green wheel.

Dave

Dave, can you provide a link to what you bought, thanks

LtBadd wrote:

dmcnally wrote:

thespian wrote:Am I the only one left on the planet that uses a green wheel on a bench grinder to grind my tungsten?

Nope. I just bought a new 8"x1" green wheel.

Dave

Dave, can you provide a link to what you bought, thanks

Yes. I bought 100 grit silicon carbide 8"x1" wheel from Lehigh Valley Abrasives (item #LVA95248). Their web address is; http://www.lehighvalleyabrasives.com/ and here's the link to the wheel: http://www.lehighvalleyabrasives.com/ab ... 8-rdm95248

I bought two wheels for my bench grinder and the shipping was only $6.99.

Dave

Very nice! I'll have to print this out too! I just bought a bench grinder for the job but this will be handy since my Dremel is more portable. I like the fixed angles which should help anyone new or old so serious props to the design!

Not trying to hijack a thread but there's some ppl here with 3D printers doin TIG stuff so for those that do, if you haven't seen my thread for the TIG Monster Claw, I'd love to see if you could print one or a set out and try it out. I need some pro opinions on if it's useful or not. So not to hijack this thread, please post any replies about it at the thread below for topics sake

http://forum.weldingtipsandtricks.com/v ... f=5&t=9961