Welding Tips and Tricks

5th st
i see you do numerous shapes and fixtures.
do you have several customers or do you build for one source?
craig

motox wrote:5th st
i see you do numerous shapes and fixtures.
do you have several customers or do you build for one source?
craig

I work for North River boats so most of the things you see are for them.

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5th st
awesome array of projects.
craig

@5th Street Fab

Just out of curiosity, are the long runs that you do done with mig? Do you use both processes?

Jakedaawg wrote:@5th Street Fab

Just out of curiosity, are the long runs that you do done with mig? Do you use both processes?

It depends. I try to tig anything that will be seen or anything that's critical. Everything else is migged.

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Hey all, recently started welding and TIG welding and have been trying to get some practice in. I don't nearly get around to it as much as I should.
Really see some amazing work being done here on the forum, truly incredible!

Some of the sides are not looking too good and I can only assume way too much heat on the stainless part
Have been struggling a bit with the stainless for some reason, I'm thinking my filler it too thick so I can't move as fast as I want to.
Hopefully I will tackle a more useful project soon, i.e. aluminium water tank for my car.
Also got my TIG finger combo, was pretty expensive to get it to me, but definitely worth it considering the wealth of knowledge that is available.

reflexsa wrote:Hey all, recently started welding and TIG welding and have been trying to get some practice in. I don't nearly get around to it as much as I should.
Really see some amazing work being done here on the forum, truly incredible!

Some of the sides are not looking too good and I can only assume way too much heat on the stainless part
Have been struggling a bit with the stainless for some reason, I'm thinking my filler it too thick so I can't move as fast as I want to.
Hopefully I will tackle a more useful project soon, i.e. aluminium water tank for my car.
Also got my TIG finger combo, was pretty expensive to get it to me, but definitely worth it considering the wealth of knowledge that is available.

20170916_191350.jpg

20170916_191423.jpg

IMG-20170926-WA0002.jpg

Welds look good from a consistency perspective, but way too hot. With stainless, heat control is a major challenge. A few fusion tracks to hold the sides together, then weld only one edge. Let cool! Then weld another edge elsewhere. Let cool! And keep rotating to farther edges. Stainless is terrible at dissipating heat, so patience and input control is paramount.

Maybe a smaller wire too for that project. It takes a lot less amps to weld stainless than the equal thickness carbon steel.

cj737 wrote:

reflexsa wrote:Hey all, recently started welding and TIG welding and have been trying to get some practice in. I don't nearly get around to it as much as I should.
Really see some amazing work being done here on the forum, truly incredible!

Some of the sides are not looking too good and I can only assume way too much heat on the stainless part
Have been struggling a bit with the stainless for some reason, I'm thinking my filler it too thick so I can't move as fast as I want to.
Hopefully I will tackle a more useful project soon, i.e. aluminium water tank for my car.
Also got my TIG finger combo, was pretty expensive to get it to me, but definitely worth it considering the wealth of knowledge that is available.

20170916_191350.jpg

20170916_191423.jpg

IMG-20170926-WA0002.jpg

Welds look good from a consistency perspective, but way too hot. With stainless, heat control is a major challenge. A few fusion tracks to hold the sides together, then weld only one edge. Let cool! Then weld another edge elsewhere. Let cool! And keep rotating to farther edges. Stainless is terrible at dissipating heat, so patience and input control is paramount.

Maybe a smaller wire too for that project. It takes a lot less amps to weld stainless than the equal thickness carbon steel.

Thank you for that advice! I really didn't give this piece a chance to cool in between welds.
I think next time I should make a few of them at the same time, that way I can keep busy but also let them cool in between. I'm also learning that having little jigs or something to help you hold things is really important in making your life easier.

reflexsa wrote:

cj737 wrote:

reflexsa wrote:Hey all, recently started welding and TIG welding and have been trying to get some practice in. I don't nearly get around to it as much as I should.
Really see some amazing work being done here on the forum, truly incredible!

Some of the sides are not looking too good and I can only assume way too much heat on the stainless part
Have been struggling a bit with the stainless for some reason, I'm thinking my filler it too thick so I can't move as fast as I want to.
Hopefully I will tackle a more useful project soon, i.e. aluminium water tank for my car.
Also got my TIG finger combo, was pretty expensive to get it to me, but definitely worth it considering the wealth of knowledge that is available.

20170916_191350.jpg

20170916_191423.jpg

IMG-20170926-WA0002.jpg

Welds look good from a consistency perspective, but way too hot. With stainless, heat control is a major challenge. A few fusion tracks to hold the sides together, then weld only one edge. Let cool! Then weld another edge elsewhere. Let cool! And keep rotating to farther edges. Stainless is terrible at dissipating heat, so patience and input control is paramount.

Maybe a smaller wire too for that project. It takes a lot less amps to weld stainless than the equal thickness carbon steel.

Thank you for that advice! I really didn't give this piece a chance to cool in between welds.
I think next time I should make a few of them at the same time, that way I can keep busy but also let them cool in between. I'm also learning that having little jigs or something to help you hold things is really important in making your life easier.

“I have too many clamps” said no welder ever-

My wife asked me to make this bit 3/8" narrower, taking half off each side. The hard part was making a fixture to hold it in the same angle for rewelding, and not have it warp. It's some kind of polished stainless. The bead came out looking pretty nice but I had to make it smooth because the horse bites down on the part where the weld is. So I used a flap disk then successively finer grained sand paper.

A simple poling platform but challenging because of the compound angles and keeping it all symetrical.

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A simple poling platform but challenging because of the compound angles and keeping it all symetrical.

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Looks very professional!

Looks great Warren, I hate compound angles!

Yeah. They are aggrevating. The stern leans forward and angles out and the mounting points are wider than the top. And the sides are mirror images so you cant just copy direct.

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Not my best welds but was still a fun project. Industrial side job came my way. 1/4” tube and angle, 1/2” base, pushing the limits of my 210DX, messing with the AC balance (decreased EP with a higher cleaning balance to keep the puddle clean but not fry the 1/8” tungsten) and using a low frequency helped punch it in. Should have probably got some Helium but it worked well enough. Did multiple passes on parts of the base just to be sure.

Had to experiment with technique to create a preheat with the torch, walking it back and forth super tight in the root until it would start wetting in, then add filler, step it forward, further than needed, back and forth a bit... then after about 1/2-1" of that, I could weld like normal.

Stuff like this makes me want a 350 but I don't think I will ever justify getting rid of the 210, I absolutely adore it. I can toss it in the truck and go anywhere with a 110 plug to stick metal together and I have to do stuff this thick once every few years. I'm definitely picking up a Helium bottle today though so I can learn how far that will take me.

Thanks for posting that @BigD

It's nice to see stuff and hear what had to be done to accomplish it.

We had a little squall come through and I have been busy repairing some aluminum dock sections. Similar issues even if I do have a few more amps available.

Finally got a new phone. I lost all my pics though so I started fresh this week.

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Some swivel chair chair riser

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5th
looks like most of that stuff is about .125 ?
do you favor 1/8 rod or 3/32?
craig

Poland308 wrote: Started working last night on a 16 inch 300# steam main under ground. There still digging up pipe trying to find the leak. It has an insulation case and a welded 24inch jacket. If they can't find the leak visually then there going to bring in a smart pig. It's a robot that can ultrasound the pipe from the inside. Either way we will be cutting off the jacket and repairing the pipe, or cutting out some holes big enough to get the robot in. We only have a one week window so it may not all happen this week. I'll post more pics as I can.

Dang. Interested to hear how this turns out, Josh, please keep us posted!

We ended up patching the outer jacket. They couldn’t pinpoint the leak in the shutdown window we had. So there putting togeather a new plan to bring in a Smart Pig. It’s a robot that is put in the pipe and then ultrasounds the whole thing as it travels down the pipe. The only other option would be to run a whole new pipeline a bout 2miles not including expansion loops. Have to wait for the engineers and check cutters to decide.

motox wrote:5th
looks like most of that stuff is about .125 ?
do you favor 1/8 rod or 3/32?
craig

It's a mix of anything mostly from 1/8" to 3/8" and sometimes up to 1"

All the things in the last post were 1/4" and 3/8"

I prefer 3/32 rod until it's something like a 1/4" outside corner then I'll switch to 1/8. But for almost everything it's 3/32 rod

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Nice looking work 5th! You definitely have nice consistant looking beads goin On..

Pete

I've done about 60 of these 4" flanges in the last couple weeks. Weld a flange on, cut a 12" saddle 7" back from the weld...put another flange on. I'm not going to lie I'm really looking forward to getting the ss headers done with so we can move on to carbon, I've probably only got a few hundred hours welding stainless, and this is a 100% x-ray job for the power company, I'm just not completely comfortable with it yet (because of the x-ray requirement)