|
Post by CORE 4WD on Mar 13, 2006 22:22:48 GMT -5
True... Very good point!!! I keep a scrap bin with lots of different pieces for making sure my heat range is correct for what I want to weld. Pieces can be used for brackets, gussets, etc as well.
|
|
|
Post by What It Was on Mar 13, 2006 22:56:16 GMT -5
I've got a bin already started.... I just have to organize it to the different thicknesses.
|
|
|
Post by CORE 4WD on Mar 14, 2006 19:28:15 GMT -5
Yea me too. At least I've got the bin in two sections so far!
|
|
|
Post by What It Was on Mar 15, 2006 17:04:39 GMT -5
"Organization is paramount in a proper working environment... With-out organization there will be chaos"...
|
|
|
Post by kwrangln on Mar 16, 2006 18:45:34 GMT -5
Seen a few things in the discussion so far that I dont completely agree with. Main one is that dragging a rod is a bad or lazy thing. Some rods require no manipulation, and doing so will just lead to impurities and inconsistancies in the weld. 7018 being the most common of the so called drag rods. 7024 and 316 stainless being others which aren't used quite as much.
Looking at heat coloration on the back side of a piece of steel means nothing, simply long arcing will heat a greater area of the base metal, but wont give the penetration you think your getting. Do not adjust arc length to adjust weld quality, thats whey there are knobs on the welder, use them instead.
Dont bother with preheat to make up for welder capacity. A properly prepped joint with multiple passes will result in a stronger final product. Why? Heating to just under the melting point creates a lack of uniformity in the crystaline structure of the steel, yea, the heat affected zone, using a torch before welding is just going to make this area larger which is a bad thing. How many passes are we talking about? For my x-ray cert using 7018 on mild steel, 3/8" thick base metal, properly beveled joint with 1/8" roop gap, 1/4" backing strip, it took about 8-9 passes to complete. Cleaning is paramount, clean it as much as you can, then clean it some more, get a dental pick and make sure every bit of flux is out of there, every piece will show as an impurity on the x-ray. A long arc at the start due to its lack of penetration will entrap impurities, and literally drag them throughout the entire weld pass.
|
|
|
Post by What It Was on Mar 16, 2006 19:21:49 GMT -5
Dragging the rod in MY OPINION is "lazy"... (Navy got rid of all 7018... for a multiple of reasons... unless hidden and forgotten about and then accidently stumbled upon). In my own thoughts.. You should be able to get a stronger Weld by weaving if done correctly... I can see weaving/pulling too fast and having the wrong lead leading to weak welds etc... As for the discoloration.. I wasn't referring to the backside... It was along the sides of the bead not behind.. maybe I should've explained myself a little better. Heating it... I didn't say anything about heating it to almost melting point... I think I said heating it up... (Not making it glow or almost melting). just heating it up.
|
|
|
Post by kwrangln on Mar 16, 2006 20:26:02 GMT -5
When did the navy get rid of all 7018, and what are they using now? You a HT?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2006 21:07:47 GMT -5
Hey Ken, how many MILES of bead have you put down?
|
|
|
Post by What It Was on Mar 16, 2006 21:20:16 GMT -5
About 3 1/2 years ago maybe a little longer a message came out to get rid of all 7018 on the boat... (I'm pretty sure our HTC and HT1 said other ships are doing it also). Never really paid too much attention as to why... Our HT2 mentioned something about the miss uses of it and impurities, but I honestly can't recall word for word. But, all and all I remember them telling us we had to get rid of it (7018) as per instruction... SO, Those welding rods got heavy real quick. We tossed probably 300 to 400 lbs of 7018 various sized rods, Not sure what they got in return. Like I said it was a few years back at-least... The shore commands might have them and possibly some ships... I can find out tomorrow for sure... Norm... what's your beef?... You always have a sarcastic remark or opinion.. (Sort of negative). I'm not debating his knowledge or others.. I'm giving MY two cents and MY thoughts etc, I'm sure welding is his trade or a hobby... Not sure, machining is my job and that's what I know best... welding is one of my hobbies/interest... Being that I was on a small boy you tend to learn welding real quick... But anyway, what's the deal Norm?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2006 21:28:55 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by What It Was on Mar 16, 2006 21:41:40 GMT -5
I've already checked it out... And I liked what I saw.. Good beads, quality work... Like I said in the earlier post.. I'm not doubting or questioning the mans knowledge or talent.. I'm just giving my two cents... and my thoughts. I prefer not to drag.. I like weaving and doing small circles... Maybe I was tought wrong but, It's how I do it you know.
|
|
|
Post by kwrangln on Mar 16, 2006 22:00:29 GMT -5
Fife, if you could find out details, I'd appreciate it. Not doubting you, but it seem odd that the navy would completely discontinue use of one rod. I can see a few reasons for doing a fleet wide replacement, bad batch, improper heated storage, age issues, etc, but not completely forgoing its use. There is the possability that during the ship archetecture, high yield steel was used and unknowing HT's were using 7018 for structural repairs, so ditching the chance they just replaced everything with 10018 stuff. Just speculating at this point.
As for the dragging, 7018 and the rest of the 18 series rods for that matter are fairly forgiving when it comes to manipulation, usually, its only used on cover beads tho. Get into a specialty rods or into the 24 series, and it can not be manipulated. silly if it aint a purty bead tho, those rods flow like buttah, they flow so well in fact that they can only be used in the flat position. Point is, blanket statements like "dragging is lazy" are too encompassing, there are in fact processes that require it.
As for milage Norm, I havn't a clue, too many to think about.
Thanks for the kind words, the both of ya, but lets not let this turn into a pissing match. We can all learn something from this kind of discussion, even us ole rod burners.
|
|
|
Post by What It Was on Mar 16, 2006 22:07:43 GMT -5
Dude.. I think you hit all the points why they got rid of it on my boat... and others... 10018 Not sure... Like I said I'm not sure what replaced it... I do remember something about structural flaws using 7018.. But, on a ship we're not supposed to touch anything structural... We had a few collapsed bulkheads up forward andi n the middle of the ship and the cracks were getting worse and worse with every pounding wave... shooting paint like no other.. and we couldn't touch it... we had to wait for people to come and fix it... Minor stuff I can see... but then again.. it's up to the chain of command... and how many turn away and forget about it. : )
|
|
|
Post by Chuck on Mar 17, 2006 8:28:15 GMT -5
Alright, as promised on Monday ... shots from last weekend. There are a bunch, so I'm posting as thumbnails. This board won't let you link thumbnails for some reason, so click to the right of each shot to enlarge. I'm not a professional weldor or welding inspector, just a structural engineer, so realize that this isn't my specialty, just a hobby. I get most of my advice and tips from whoever I can find that really knows what they're doing ... I probably spent an hour yesterday hitting up a coworker who paid his way through engineering school as a weldor for the yard, where he went through about 50lb of filler a day for the better part of five years. There are a few good sources of know-how around, just gotta know where to look. ;D This plate will be the top plate of my bumper, and will hold my removable winch mount. I got a steal of a deal on good A36 or better 1/4" plates at $0.30 a pound or less, but all the plates were 24"x32" and I have a 37" frame so I've found myself making a lot of big pieces out of small pieces. Good practice, though, and can't beat the price. Start by cleaning up the edges and doing a *good* job of beveling both plates back about 45*. clickyGet the pieces lined up straight and clamped in place. Remember the typical MIG guidance about not having a gap larger than the diameter of the wire in your fitup? Throw that out the window. The two little aluminum pieces you see are sheetmetal clamps that don't have enough range to clamp the 1/4" plate, but the clamp tongues make a good gap gauge at around 0.040" or so while I clamp the rest of the plate down to the two 1.25" square bars underneath with four clamps each. clickyThen strip back the paint at the weld area, and clean. That filth on the paper towel was from one swipe with alcohol, one of my favorite cleaners. Obviously worth taking the couple of minutes necessary to get it clean, you'll be thankful later. clicky Tack it up ... clickyThen connect the dots. In this shot, I've just finished the middle section, as you can see. I had to pause here to move my bars underneath just to make sure I wouldn't accidentally weld them to the plates. clickyIf you want decent penetration, don't ask the welder to do more than it can. Going slow just piles up a big bead, it doesn't get you any deeper. This is about the maximum capacity of this 110V welder. Run long beads when you can, the more often you stop the more cold starts you'll be grinding the backside of and re-welding. With this gap and bead size, I was only getting full penetration all the way through the backside after about 2" of travel, once the plate got some localized heat in it. You obviously have to be prepared to compensate for this with your joint design and method. clickyRun the second bead on the right side. My garage was a high traffic area at this point, so even with screens up I was stopping every 2-4" so someone could come through. Alright, alright, no more "clicky."Run the lefthand bead. Fewer stops this time, too, which is good since it's easy to trap small pockets on the last pass if you don't carry decent heat through. As you can see, no gaps, but none of the big pile of steel you'd get if you were travelling too slow. You should be seeing about three seconds to the inch or so here. Pic. (There, that better?)Now, flip it over and get a look at the backside (I've already given the plate time to cool and cleaned the paint off here). As you can see, still an average depth of 1/32" or so that got no penetration, almost 1/16" in places where I had a cold start. This was expected and easy to fix. Pic.Tilt your 4-1/2" angle grinder up 45* and V out the backside. Start with the worst spot, and open it out until any sign of a gap has disappeared, and you have a clean 90* V. Pic. Dang, y'all are no fun at all.A single fast pass will finish the backside. I probably could've skipped these last steps if I were leaving the 1/16" or so of weld bead built up on the front side, though the small gap on the backside would still have lead to a stress concentration that would've formed the first crack if I'd bent this plate to failure. Pic. But I'm grinding this plate smooth on both sides, because it's highly visible. Where's the weld? Last one!I'm sure this is all well known to a lot of the real weldors here, but hopefully it will be useful to a few more of the newbies like me who had to start on a budget, and needed a smaller welder that does beautiful sheetmetal work. That was the main reason I bought this box, and it's great for things in its normal size range ... just takes a little more work to do big stuff. Corrections, tips, and critiques are more than welcome, of course! ;D
|
|
|
Post by What It Was on Mar 17, 2006 10:12:28 GMT -5
Chuck that was an awesome still demostration!... Now I think there really can't be any questions or doubts about small welders... and if there is... then all they have to do is read this article and it should solve all their questions.
|
|