Anything welding

Lighting is your friend. I'm into bifocals too. The glasses are a challenge.

I have a magnetic base led flash light that I use to light the area I'm welding.

It's called the "Big Larry". It works amazing and the batteries last a long time.

 

I need to do this for my bumper I'm making....... Once I clean up the garage AGAIN!

 

That just takes getting used to. What shade do you have the helmet on? Occasionally I'll lose track of where I'm going, so I'll pause, make sure I'm on track and start again. Nothing wrong with that.


edit: A rough cost for a full 80CF tank of gas is about $280-$300. Then you own the tank and it costs ~$60 to get it refilled each time. That was my experience with Roberts oxygen.

 

Don’t work in a Nuke plant but I work in chemical and a lot of the code welds I do are nuke tolerance, my entry tests were those of a nuke plant. watcha got?

 

I have a Miller helmet, and they make "reader" inserts that go on the inside of the helmet.

Using the reader insert is so much better than wearing reading glasses and trying to see what you are welding.

I assume other vendors make readers for their helmets, but I don't know for sure.

Something you might want to look into.

 

And the gas really does last a long time. I'd be surprised if you used a tank per year.

 

Guess it all depends. I got to the point I was running through an 80 every month which is why I jumped to the 400.

 

I turned it down to 9 last night and that did help, it came out of the box on 11 or 12 I think. I agree though that it should get easier with practice.

For the gas, I've noticed what looks like pre-mixed 75/25 tanks. Am I reading that right, that they sell them pre-mixed so you only need one tank instead of two?

 

Correct. It is already mixed.

 

9 is what I keep mine on and seems to work well. And correct, tanks of C25 are premixed gas so you only need one tank

 

Starting out I'd also recommend practicing with 2 pieces the same thickness - like 1/8" on 1/8". 16ga on 1/8" takes alittle more finesse to control the heat to penetrate the 1/8" and not burn through the 16ga. 1/8" is a nice thickness to learn with as it's more forgiving than the thin stuff.

Also if you find yourself doing alot of thinner stuff like the 16ga I highly recommend a thinner wire. I felt like a total hack burning through trying to weld 16ga tubing with 0.030 wire (it can be done, just trickier) but had zero issues and life was alot easier as soon as I went down to 0.023 wire but you'll also need gas for that as I don't think they make thin flux core. It's totally worth the 10 min to swap it out if you're going to be doing alot of thin stuff.

 

I'll definitely look into the reader insert. I bought a Lincoln Electric Viking 3350, haven't yet looked into whether it can accept a reader insert, but I would think it can.

 

I selected those thicknesses because my first project will be to weld coupons with holes drilled in them onto the rocker panel of my son's car so the plastic clips of his side skirt can attach to them (the existing holes in the rocker panel won't hold the clips anymore, resulting in a sagging side skirt; no one likes a saggy skirt!). I figured this would be a good first project because no one will see it so the appearance doesn't matter. I had planned for the coupons to be 16 gauge but I don't know the thickness of the rocker panel but figured it would be slightly thicker and 1/8" is the next thickest size Lowes had. Guess I could try 16 gauge on 16 gauge as well to see how that works. But that is a good comment and something that had started to dawn on me regarding welding two pieces with different thicknesses together. I'll also look and see if thinner flux core wire is available.

Edit: haven't been able to find any flux core 0.023" wire, so I'm actively searching for gas cylinders.

 

Get your metal from a local steel supplier, Lowe’s and Home Depot are insanely expensive for metals.

 

I meant like big nuke plants but I see what you did there there’s one like an hour and half from me up here in VA. Just wondering what it’s like to work at one.

 

That’s beautiful

 

That’s about where I’m at depending on workload with my 80. I’m considering buying a second tank so I don’t have to stop working between fill-ups.

 

The brief bit I've worked with commercial guys it really seems like there are two types. Maintenance guys who work there full time and the traveling guys who go contract to contract (shutdown and refueling). The couple maintenance type guys I've worked with seemed to enjoy it as it was pretty relaxed. I havent directly worked with the refueling type guys but Im sure that is the same as any other traveling type gig.

If you mean what its like to work inside a reactor plant? Its interesting the first entry or two then you really dont care anymore lol. Its just another job.

 

On this thread I personally haven't worked in nukes but worked for an NDT company that did alot of Nuke shutdown work - I was scheduled on a nuke job and went through all the checks but then got reassigned at the last second.

The shutdown crews were the job that everyone in the company worked toward, once a guy got into it they usually held onto the position as long as possible. They "worked" long hours during the shutdown but most of it was typically on standby waiting to get called out to do something for an hour or so... they watched alot of movies on their laptops. The thing is the plants loose so much money per day when they're down that it's worth it to just pay the crews to be there and ready when they need them.

The shutdown guys made good money because they worked like 15 hour days 6 or 7 days a week which meant they were stacking boatloads of overtime. Once they got into nukes alot of the guys would only work seasonally (for some reason late summer/fall tends to be shutdown season) and then take the rest of the year off.

Sorry for the long rambling post but figured I'd share my secondhand experience.

 

I did shutdowns for a couple years in power plants. You shut down in fall and spring only because electricity/power is in the highest demand during the winter and summer. Can’t afford to shut it down during then. I’d love to get in on a permanent maintenance crew at a nuke just to say I did but maintence gigs are 99.9% of the time about who you know.