You point out a valid concern about the hot tip touching the car body. If your earth is on the exhaust system when you weld it, all should be good. Nitpicky bit: It's actually a RETURN lead, not an earth lead. It completes the circuit on the secondary side of the transformer to the electrode (wire)....

We use mostly 40 grit flaps on finishing steel. Gives a nice shiny finish in the right hands with the lover's touch, but as they wear down (pretty quickly too, I might add) it is harder to get that smooth finish. They might not look worn, but they fade off pretty darn quick. For prep work, we often ...

In Oz most old regulators and torches pre mid 90s are pretty much junk now. Reason being cylinder pressures were increased from 2400 psi to about 3000 .... Wouldn't it only be the regulators that would be obsolete? Anything downstream of the reg would be at welding pressure, not bottle supply press...

oops, something went wrong. I'll sort it out later...

In Oz most old regulators and torches pre mid 90s are pretty much junk now. Reason being cylinder pressures were increased from 2400 psi to about 3000 (something like that) and most of the old gear was pulled off the market as potentially unsafe. It was done over an extended period of time, so custo...

We were taught...."Think robot, be robot".
Always... forehand angle, angle to fillet, stickout, never changes, act like a machine is doing it. Never vary anything.

Same with travel speed, always consistent.

Easier said than done.

Do you have an adjustable post purge setting? if so, try adjusting it for a longer time.

Does your pilot arc start up? If it does, then it is probably your air pressure.
Plasma is pretty fussy about air pressure. If it isn't within a certain narrow range, the arc won't light.
Also your air needs to be very dry. Any moisture will damage your tips pretty quickly.

Well I certainly wish you the best of luck. Having some contacts certainly helps sometimes. I don't think we are even allowed to do weld repairs here on alloy rims (but I'm not sure). Some of them are not even weldable. I know we are not allowed to weld tow hitches on trailers anymore, only bolt on ...

Over here on spec work, weaving on downhand runs is illegal.
Stringers only with max width of 9x wire dia.

Vertical up can weave, but limits on width depending upon application. eg. 309 S/S on Manganese is 8mm or 5/16".

I'm a bit of an old hand in the game now, but one thing I have learned over the years is that you cannot pick and chose your path completely in this game unless you are one of the elite welders. Just doesn't happen anymore. When I first started out, it was possible to do so mainly because there were...

I'll attempt some sort of answer here.... When I last worked for a large manufacturing company in Brisbane, we had a CNC oxy/LPG profile cutter. It ran OK. It was down to costing where LPG was deemed to be cost effective because of its significantly lower cost per bottle. In practice, LPG took consi...

Liked your post there Jim, very informative.

Not often you get a detailed and impartial report from a sales guy, so well done.

Something to watch out for you guys cutting thin materials.... Tooth pitching. On thin stuff standard blades can be too coarse resulting in rough cuts or damage to the blades. Expensive after a while. On a cold saw this can cause chattering in the blade, not only hard on the blade, but the brass gea...

Ok, since it's been more than a few days since posing the question, I'll have a shot. I would preheat significantly underneath the plate first, get it nice and warm (helps with making a smoother cut too). Then on the topside about 1/3 away from the line, get it fairly red on top and start the cut, m...

Thanks guys.

Steve is correct. Highest heat buildup will be at the point of highest resistance...ie. poor connection. Check for oxidation of wire and connector. If the wire is discolored, cut it off back to clean point and reconnect. It is also correct that the wire will warm up if used at the high end of curren...

I'm sneaky.... I give it to someone else to do.....

But 1500 RPM sounds very high On any size.
I often find a drill bit in the workshop kit with a melted end on it and we say "who has been drilling stainless?"
Usually find out it was that Chinese fella again. Sum C**t.

Nice work there man!
Good skill building project for sure.

I don't have one, altho i was considering a Viking. Great that Bossman fronted the purchase price! The problems I had with the Viking was that it could be difficult to set sensitivity right with aluminium and workshop lights. the sensors often turned the lens off in the middle of a weld, which mean...

Have been using a Lincoln Viking auto helmet for the last few years and it started playing up a bit by turning off whilst welding and it was becoming a little bit unpredictable. So, time for a new one.... Told the boss my plans and he said pick what I wanted and he'll buy it. You can pay me back on ...

Spec is up. We were using some sort of Lincoln flux core. I don't really remember what is was, never heard of it before. It ran very blobby, and was tricky to master. I never did, so I ended up doing the fabrication and there weren't too many welders that passed to do it. This is the project we used...

I also noticed you guys weave your welds a bit over there. On our spec. welding here the only weld permitted to have a weave is vertical up, which I think offhand is 9x wire dia. max weave. Otherwise it is pretty much frowned upon over here. We can get away with a minor weave in other places, but if...

You're welcome Chopper. I'm a boily in Oz too. We both realise that car mods are a legal lottery here when it comes to highway use. Just changing your tyres from the type the manufacturer supplied to another here will sometimes make your car illegal for road use. As an example, BMW supplied some of ...

Just the minimum required to get reasonably good fusion on the thicker plate. Not so much that it will blow the thin one away. If you have trouble getting enough heat onto the thick one, sometimes pre heating it with help. But don't heat the thin one. As for wire speed, not too fast as you won't be ...