Anything welding

Thats what I thought too but he built a light weight roof rack for the bus that holds his solar array and its not strong enough to hold the bounce of the bikes.

Yeah I told him to get a small trailer to hold the weight.

 

We went through a period where the M100 filters (I think that was the model) were back ordered 6 to 8 months.

 

Shit that's tough.

I still have a pair of filters new in package, since I bought extras with the mask.

Maybe I should get a few extra filters for my Lincoln...just in case.

 

If you ever notice a funky taste in your mouth, get serious about better filtration I would anyway, but thats because hexavalent chromium reared its head during my years in the biz.

The photo I took over the shoulder of the welder in my avatar, complained to me after I took that photo that his cigarettes tasted like copper after welding all day. He was welding aluminum bronze, building up hydraulic shafts (sacrificial as it was easier to rebuild the piston than the cylinder) I pulled his boss aside and told him, this is some serious chit. They bought the Miller respirators linked above and after researching it decided on PAPR and smoke eaters. The problem wont crop up in a year, it will crop up 20 years from now when your chit starts falling off and youre on oxygen.

 

I would guess you are okay now, we had hospitals buying the Miller respirators when our 3M disposables rans out because they could not find anything else. We had one hospital buy out the stock of three stores and at that point we had to put the respirators on allocation to our welding customers.

 

Plasma cutters are just sooo convenient.

Making a small stand for my cold cut saw, and since I couldn't find a small base...I had to resort to getting this 5' x 22" steel plate. 1/4" thick so yeah it was over 80lbs







Also, love how square and clean the saw cuts square tubing; 1 1/2" square tube for the legs with 1" angle that'll support between each leg.

 

Follow-up to yesterday's steel plate I bought and cut.

Made a little stand for my saw sitting near 30" tall for a comfortable cutting height -









Just need to buy some casters and weld them to one side as well as a handle so I can easily move and tuck it away

Just need to figure how I want to "clamp" the saw to the table top

Tabletop is 18 1/2" x 15" x 1/4"

Legs are 1 1/2" square at 29 1/2" x 1/8"

Angle is 1" x 1" x 1/8" at 15 9/16" and 11 3/8" between the legs

Need to cut 1 1/2" flat stock pieces and weld to the bottom of the legs like I did my other table, and put "soft feet" on them -

 

Don’t know it’s been mention before but sorry if it has. I like to buy a dry, cold or horizontal band saw down the line. But I found this blade at Home Depot that works well for my 12” sliding compound wood saw. since is 12” it’s has a reduced rpm by design. Only draw back is you have to elevate the cut stock and use a big c clamp that isn’t built in. The plus is since it slides you can help out the blade wear to not cut through the stock the hard way and no worries of finding angles.



I have cut lots of 4x2 .25 thick stock for my trailer and it hasn’t worn out yet. I have used it before for jobs like gate/fence too. At ~$40-50 a blade I’m perfectly fine with it vs. abrasive wheel.



FYI Incase there are any woodworker doing metal work like myself.

 

I love Diablo's saw blades and use them on my M12 circular saw. Sharp as hell and easily slice like a hot knife through butter.

With that said, I hadn't considered a Diablo blade for my Evo saw. They're cheap too.

 

I think I owe @Kwikvette an apology, because I think I cheated with his wife when I got home from work today:

 

I stocked up on electrodes, drag tips, And their bigger electrode/regular tips and cup as well.

Set for a good while.

 

Ran out of gas before helping a buddy out with a project tomorrow. Luckily I found a shop open on Saturday. Had to drive about 45 minutes but at least it got it filled.

 

@koditten

My current supply



I put them in tiny zip lock bags, specifically because I don't want the copper to tarnish (though I'm sure it doesn't matter at all).

Been cutting yesterday morning and today.

 

That looks great. Plasma sure opens up a whole new world, doesn't it?!

 

Just need the cnc table; would speed things up by a lot

Slag is minimal but cutting by hand, not everything turns out to be a mirror image of each other.

 

Friday I picked up two 8 x 10 sheets of 18 gauge. $243. $3.00 per square foot. Getting close to carpeting prices!

I am going to start trying my hand at some signage for friends. May try to sell some when I get better at the thinner metals.

I wanted 4 x 8 just to keep from having to trim them down, but they didn't have any.

I must be getting desensitized to everything being outrageous because I just wrote the check w/o complaining.

He did say steel is trending slightly downward in our area though. Guess that's something.

 

Love clean steel

 

Did some welding on my brother's minibike today.

 

Here's a better representation of the changes I made to the bike.

 

Y’all, I’m not proud of the welds (I’m enough drinks deep), but my pit is in the middle of my backyard and I had to drive my equipment in from the back green space.

I bought a 140 Handler for this reason. It’s 115 volts and teeeeeeechnically not great for anything over 3/16” thick. I gave her the beans to tie me over until I can fix the pit properly. We don’t have a shop yet and I’m in the middle of a huge cook for the neighborhood; I needed something for emergencies and/or small house projects. This is my second time trying flux core and as much as I dislike it, it only took 30 minutes.

I’ll break it apart and redesign the handle later (I didn’t weld it up in the first place), but I feel accomplished by fixing a problem immediately instead of calling it shot. I learn so much from y’all and I’m just happy to be here

Any recommendations for flux core emergencies would be appreciated. Gas is out of scope at the moment, tips or advice are more than welcome.