Welding Tips and Tricks

Today I built one support for a stand for gong targets. The support has a vertical square tube. On top, there is a short piece of round tube. It's attached to the support at a 20° angle.

How am I supposed to hold a 4"-long piece of round tubing on top of a square tube at a 20° angle while I weld it?

Today I managed to get it sort of right with a big magnet. I put in a tack. Then I held the part in place with my left hand and tacked the other side. The second tack wasn't in the right place, so I cut it and redid the whole thing.

The top of the square tubing was hollowed out with a belt sander to make it fit the round tubing better.

How do real welders do this? Jigs?

clamp it down on a table. pack the square tube up to allow for the difference.

there is also adjustable squares like fireball magic square.
you can make your own temp version of those.

tho the hardest thing for me is accounting for shrinkage. once you weld it will pull a bit. it does depend on how accurate you need it.

If it has to be precise, I lay it on the table and get it where it needs to be.

If it doesn't, I just hold with one hand, tack with the other.

So it sounds like I'm going to have to keep indexing the part by hand. Clamping it to the table with the angle and the offset would be a project.

Ill often get it close, tack it once. Bend it where I need to then tack it more.

I got it done! The new gongs come tomorrow!

You can also use StrongHand MagTabs

Coldman wrote:You can also use StrongHand MagTabs

That would work if the OP is not making a lot of them. Sounds like targets possibly, not sure if that's what he meant by "gongs" or if it's really a gong stand.

Anyway, if you want to create a fixture to reuse, think about cutting some pieces of angle a few inches long and welding them to a piece of sheet to hold the pieces in place. With one piece welded together, lay the top portion on the sheet metal and tack a piece of angle on the top of the tube and both ends of the tube, then at least 3 sections of angle to hold the square tube in place, 2 on one side and 1 on the other.

Now you have a fixture that you can slap a round tube in the top, held in the proper angle and a square tube in the bottom to align at the right angle in relation to the round tube.

As far as the square tube fitting the round, use a hole saw to cut the proper arc in the end of the square tube.

Now the top is done., then turn it around and create a similar fixture to hold the square legs and square tube for the 90 degree direction. You will still need to cut the proper angles on the end of the tubes to make it all work.

They did something similar on weld.com recently making a chair, let me see if I can find it!

Here's go! Check out 16:00

TFK9_-ya6Fs

If you use 2 sections of telescoping tube for the upright, you could drill multiple holes in the inside piece and a through hole on the outside piece so that you could adjust the height of the stand and use a pin to hold it in place. Food for thought...