Welding - Stick, TIG and MIG

[coppercone2]

does anyone have any nice welding clamps or fixtures they made?

I got an idea to make chill bars. I got a aluminum block, a big one. I see chill blocks are like 900$+

I thought it might be pretty simple to setup some stops on the table saw, then cut a T - shaped groove in the middle of the block. So long the stops are proper (magnetic switches), I think the saw should be able to widdle out a T shaped slot.

Then, I would put end plates on both sides of the brick with the T in it (glue or screws) to seal it up without the need for any milling machine.

For the gas diffuser I thought to get two brass tubes of the correct thickness for the bottom of the T slot. Solder them together like a double barrel shotgun and then cut the top tube in half, so it makes a U on top of a O. Then drill holes down the middle of the U (cut pipe) to make a gas diffuser that has nice rounded walls. Then just stuff it into the hole, throw in a segment of drilled copper on top to cover it up, and maybe stuff a rolled up tube made of out screen material under the copper to act as more of a diffuser.

I see alot of people make this but I ain't see one with plates on the end, so that means you can use a saw to cut the whole thing. The thermal conductivity and stiffness increase from having machined side walls instead of just putting plates on the sides is bull shit IMO.



What I am saying is that if you just put walls on the sides made out of plates it gets rid of alot of complex milling.

The only hard part would be to cut slots on the top steel pieces to hide the screw heads, and the small slot in the middle of the copper bar.  the slot in the copper bar I could do on my tiny milling machine though. But other then that so long you have a block of aluminum I don't see the exact need for a mill. Lots of grinding to bevel the plates though. I got a aluminum block, a steel flat bar (5/8 x 2.5) and copper bus bar and even brass tubes. I could try a angle gouge on the top plates to rough it in before precision angle grinding.

But shit, is almost free for me if I do it this way. I wonder how the saw stands up to a aluminum block. If you only do a mm at a time I think it will hold.    and maybe make a copper epoxy cement by mixing copper powder with epoxy to anchor the tube into place and increase thermal mass, but idk if you want the tube coupled to the block because the gas is coolant and it would be cooling the block but it would be emerging hot on the weld vs not cooling the block as much and directly cooling the weld.




a regular slot and a copper plate to cover the whole surface would work. there is no need unless you are trying to save copper. i cant think of a reason.

[coppercone2]

I cut a groove in the big brick with a table saw (1 hour work) and cut the side panels and the two top clamps (aluminum, anodized, 5/16), and ordered a copper 3/8 plate to put on top of it.

The only problem I did not figure out yet is how to make slots in the top jaws, unfortunately it looks like I need to use a router here, if I want recessed bolts, or drill and file for strait slots.

I will probobly file out a oval and then route a recess for the bolt heads at a later time maybe.

[Ed.Kloonk]

[JohnG]

This made my day!

John

[coppercone2]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vGVwzw5sC3Q

musician makes more then a welder

[coppercone2]

https://youtube.com/shorts/FTYsnpsxcVI?feature=share

I KNEW IT HAD A USE IN THE WELD SHOP

[Ed.Kloonk]

https://youtube.com/shorts/FTYsnpsxcVI?feature=share

I KNEW IT HAD A USE IN THE WELD SHOP

Some of us wonder what it's like to be able to weld stuff on a bench. For once. 

[coppercone2]

lol what you want is zero gravity

I guess all the paying jobs are in a dirt hole under a pipe? easiest transition ever to or from the armed forces. fox hole ready, and it rains fire either way

[coppercone2]

I kind of wonder if there is some old backwood southern car mechanic practice where you dig a reinforced trench under a car so you don't need a lift

for the stupid, don't do this, it does not take much of a hole to kill you and shoring is hard

[Ed.Kloonk]

I kind of wonder if there is some old backwood southern car mechanic practice where you dig a reinforced trench under a car so you don't need a lift

for the stupid, don't do this, it does not take much of a hole to kill you and shoring is hard

We ummed and ahhed about putting in a service pit, decided that a hoist is the go. They are quite cheap nowadays, just don't cheap out on the concrete footing.

[DarkMode]

I thought Men's sheds had an age requirement?
As in "your too young to be in here Sonny"

[Ed.Kloonk]

I thought Men's sheds had an age requirement?
As in "your too young to be in here Sonny"

What?

What happened?

[coppercone2]

I think the micrometer video caused some discontent

[coppercone2]

you can put slots and cut tellurium copper fine on a good carbide saw on a table saw, I am almost done with my back purge fixture. I got a 3/8 inch TeCu plate that mounts on top of the 8x4x3  aluminum block that has the slot cut into it. I cut aluminum panels for the side walls and I will put a side wall on the slotted TeCu plate so the gas does not escape from the side (will screw a filed copper block in the ends of the groove). Got a 150 mesh stainless mesh to act as a gas diffuser inside of the aluminum and 3/16 inch holes in the copper plate to pass gas through and something like a 3/16 groove in the copper plate, held together with stainless bolts and I plan to put thermal grease between the plate and the block. Only hard part is filing the bottom of the grooves flat because its a little jagged as careful as you are with the saw, pain in the ass, but flatness is not critical, I just don't want roughness.

If you free hand the block on a bound saw area then you can probobly smooth out the bottom but I just did back and forth slide passes I would rather just use the file for a few hours then fuck around with the saw that much... kinda feel like that might be pushing your luck for some reason. I keep the block im slotting flush up against the guide every pass and advance it a little bit each pass. Never lift it up just move it forward and back and only take like 1/16 of an inch deep each time. Takes a while and probobly hell on the saw but its not hogging IMO, easier then kneeding a pizza

[coppercone2]

I managed to get all the gauges for weld inspection from GAL. Everything besides the pipe pit gauge.

I think it will be nice to have test equipment to use with welds other then a wildarizer.

[tautech]

The foot pedal control is very confusing (i prefer the O/A torch 'distance' heat control method), but it does allow me to get less of a messed up bead on the edge of the metal if I reduce power on the last bit.

Typically you set the welder for the current required to make nice welds and only use the treadle when starting so to blast some heat in so to get to welding heat faster which also saves on Argon.

attempted to butt weld some 1/16 stainless plates at 50 amps with a 1/16th electrode on top of a 1/4 inch copper plate.

High distortion occurs, I am not sure if its possible to weld it without high distortion.

Technique is everything.

For thin plate you needs lots of short stitch beads before even considering runs of any length.
Aim to keep heat build up as low as possible by shifting to another part of the seam and then come back once heat has dissipated.

[coppercone2]

well my back purge thing is almost finished I will try it with that, its not pleasant to weld with the sugaring on the other side anyway. I think that fixture is supposed to allow you to practice faster, other then being mandated for some test.

Just need to get my 3/8-24 bolts because I bought 3/8-16 bolts by accident after tapping it to 24. and the gas diffuser needs a flange so it does not leak out the side

[coppercone2]

I want like a thermal cam eye patch things like the colonial marines thermal imager so I know when it cools down and when its over heating lol

they need a welding helmet with a Ti in it

[langwadt]

I think the micrometer video caused some discontent

this one? https://youtube.com/shorts/McNjXzCwf-o

or this one? https://youtube.com/shorts/crtdwenwik8

[coppercone2]

https://youtube.com/shorts/3dRZPnH_Uhg?feature=share

I wonder if those micrometers almost ruined a contract or something, its a vendetta at this point

[coppercone2]

if anyone is curious about weld gauges, I recommend you buy GAL.

I got 1 gauge by riverweld, and its a POS. The hi-lo gauge is like a caliper but it runs like they made a casting for a caliper body. The GAL gauges all run smooth as butter after a cleaning even though they are probobly ancient. Its all stainless steel so I used ultrasonic and then gentle lubrication with silicone oil.

The riverweld is so unpleasant to use I bought a GAL gauge to replace it.

And I tried to stone the body of the gauge, but the problem is the caliper body/block thing. Its very rough inside. Sounds like a chalk board when you use it, even with ultrasonic clenaer and silicone oil and stoning as many surfaces are possible. It might be fixable with lapping compound on some kind of special lap to polish the interior square bore but I am just not going to go there. If I know one thing its don't skimp on test equipment for any trade .

Or maybe a fine diamond file could do it but it would be hard to hold it true IMO. And the edges of the sliding parts of the caliper are not ground true, they ground it so there are like dots every 0.5cm that are sort of flat. It's not even the quality of fowler (which is inferior to mitutoyo and starrett usually). Someone must be standing over the grinder making sure they don't actually do enough passes to make a true flat.

At first I thought it was some kind of feature to work better with welding grit and stuff, but the damn mechanism is too poor. Thats why they cost 20% of the GAL gauges.

But then again you can't even get a decent metal rule from the cheap asses that make the cheap measurement tools.

[coppercone2]

made the welding diffuser screen for inside of the block. I bent a 1/16th stainless rod into a rectangle, did a poor weld to join it, and for it into the cavity. I was off by 1mm but its nothing that a bit of silicone sealant wont seal, and I need to fix it into place anyway, so a microbead of silicone wont hurt anything, and I managed to destroy the replacement I made. I don't see how you could get a good seal to a bent rectangle wire structure and a slot without silicone anyway. It would need to be well machined to direct all the gas properly.

To weld the 150 mesh screen on, use a spot welder set to 5J or so. I put maybe 100 welds to join the stainless steel mesh rectangle to the rectangle made out of wire, then go over it with scissors to trim it down, then run over it with a diamond file to get any errant threads and cut them off again.

I dropped mine on top of the gas diffuser support structures.

The hard part is bending the stainless rod, I was never good at bending thin stuff precisely.

To weld the stainless mesh to a irregular surface, put a flat piece of aluminum on it at first and expose the first weld area. Tack it in a few places and its stiff enough to go manually. I am surprised how easy that part was, as usual, bending is the hard part.

[coppercone2]

i put the copper plate on with arctic mx5, and used alunox for the bolts that hold it down and silicone dielectric under the flatheads. There was a bit of seepage into the groove but I used a long implement to scrape the thermal grease that got squeezed into the middle from the side. I guess gluing it in was maybe ill thoguht out since its difficult to clean the screen, but I can use a small bottle brush to scrub it. When it gets too soiled from splatter I can just pull it out and put a new on in I guess that fits better.

Kinda wondering if it will start leaking thermal grease into the diffuser once it gets hot but whatever.

First time it gets hot I will pop the sides off and check the groove. Probobly good enough though.

I will check the impedance after it sat for a while, if anything I will tap a thread into the copper top plate for a ground connection.

A better one would have a grease catcher milled into it that would collect speepage maybe.

[Mechatrommer]

if you want to log everything what you did and mistakes, please make your own thread. dont hijack this one.

[coppercone2]

woop woop

grave yard police

the engineering details of you trying to purchase a gas tank are fascinating