No, I'm not saying it's Too Much Information, or commenting on my welding...
It's the Total Metal Innovation beadlocks. I'm wanting to weld them to old steel wheels I have. The locks are 3/16" plate, and the wheels are typical steel wheels- maybe the same gauge?
Obviously surface prep is important, so I'm going to grind the welding surfaces clean of paint, scale, etc.
I'm going to center the ring inside the outer "bead" of the rim, use a micrometer to make sure it's properly centered, then clamp and tack in two places. Spin it up on a brake lathe to check for true, then apply more heavy tacks, jumping around to prevent warping the structure. I know some folks weld them all in one go, but I think this is my best approach as I've not done this before.
I have a Lincoln Weld Pak 3200HD, 110VAC wire-feed welder. I built the suspension brackets and crossmembers for my solid axle swap using it. While I'm not ready to do nuclear pipefitting, the welds I made are sound, even though I used 1/4" plate for most of my build.
I also own a Lincoln AC225 "tombstone". It's a 220VAC welder, and certainly would be the more suited to the task- but I'll have to add an outlet to the garage in order to use it. I've not used it in the 11 years I've lived in my house for that reason- I've considered getting rid of it, but haven't.
Would you consider the 110VAC MIG to be capable of laying sound welds for 3/16" plate? I'll be using fluxcore, which I believe gets better penetration.
Or, should I just pull the trigger, put the project off till I wire a 220 jack for the welder, and then burn it in as above but with stick process? If so, which rod would you advise? I think I used 6013 back in the day when I built my last Jeep using that welder.
