Anything welding

Also recently ordered the Eastwood dimple die set. Pretty excited about that coming in. Had good reviews so I decided to try them. $170 for the set ain’t bad so I’m hoping they work nicely and last for a while

 

Curious who you consider "big name".

I wish i remembered who we used at work. Be a few years but remember being able to cut out 3/4" thick padeyes with a single cutoff

 

Well I guess not “big name” but more commonly known is what I meant. Like Diablo and Dewalt. I used to buy these at Home Depot and they were 3x as expensive and the benchmark abrasive stuff works just as well for 3x less.

Wow that’s some thick stuff to cut through. I’m usually able to do an entire CMC with 2 cutoff wheels which is good value in my opinion

 

Lets just say those cuts were more of a "omg we have to pay these people to do do something and we have nothing for them to do" type cuts.

Ive spent plenty of times in MBT's on a sub both "grinding" and stting by the ladder if you catch my drift lol

 

MBT = Main Ballast Tank?

 

You already get +100000000 points for not saying MBT tank

But yes. Lead pockets are an interesting feat (that thankfully im WAY past)

 

my favorite abrasives by far are pferd, i've used abrasives from probably a dozen different companies and they tend to be the best as far as wear life and durability.

 

Im a big fan of Walter or 3m abrasives. I dont go through very many at home so cost is not an issue. I have found cheaper flap wheels can be off balance and make my hands angry with vibrations.

 

I thought this one was pretty

 

what kind of arc movement are you doing? semi circles? just curious for my next practicing.

 

I love to weld any joint vertically if I can. I go from top to bottom in a down and back up motion to trace over my puddle. When I go horizontally I like to do the semi circle or cursive E but when I’m working on smaller parts, I like to weld from top to bottom. I feel like my welds turn out nicer if I do it that way. I feel like it helps me to keep my hand in a more steady consistent line

 

my vertical skill is definitely lacking. i like turning things horizontal.

so if its a small enough part youre just going up and down in the joint and the weld bead is big enough to cover enough of both?

 

It’s honestly the same thing, just the way you position your hands and how comfortable you are with going in a certain direction. I can completely understand why it feels more comfortable going horizontally.

I guess what I meant is that if the joint length is small enough I like to run vertically. Like 6” or less I like to run vertically. When I weld up the legs for all my sliders I always weld the legs to the mounting bracket as a unit and then weld that whole unit to the slider itself. So that is a piece that I can maneuver and manipulate to be able to weld all the joints on it vertically. I run .030 wire and yeah if you can make sure that you’re going the right speed and your settings are on an accurate setting for you materials and that you keep the wire feeding right into the center of the joint it’s plenty of bead to join and cover both pieces

 

All the vertical welding I've attempted has been done going up and I've been getting way too much material piling up on the weld. Your vertical welds look great. Is welding down the answer to that or do I need to adjust my settings a bit as well?

 

Uphill will be stronger than downhill eventhough it may look like shit.
For uphill, Try a tight “z” pattern and pause longer on the sides.
Downhill is great for light guage but its really easy to do it wrong resulting in lack of penetration.

 

Should my settings differ from horizontal at all?

 

I avoid welding up a joint. Always move down. A quality weld will be plenty strong welding down.

Welding up is a skill to have, but not one to waste time mastering in my opinion.

 

Hard to say but generally you run cooler uphill as it puts a lot of weld/heat into material

 

I think you have that backwards.

 

Fair enough, but as material gets thicker, downhand is less effective.