Anything welding

As long as your new bung isn't aluminum, correct because as I mentioned you cannot weld aluminum to steel.

Steel is easy to tell apart from aluminum from a visual standpoint, weight, even sound.

And knowing that the flanges are mild steel (based on your magnet check), your exhaust has to be some sort of alloy steel; normally good stainless steel will not be magnetic at all but sometimes those properties change slightly when welded (making even the strongest magnet only stick to it just slightly).

PS Don't use those soft bits on metal, get yourself some cobalt bits if you plan to drill into steel even.

 

If those are the titanium bits they are far better than milwaukees cobalt set. That shit dulled so fast for me.

 

The drill bits shown are from the Shockwave pack, and meant for wood, drywall, etc. Useful little set but only for the items mentioned (I know, I own the set).

But as for the Milwaukee cobalt set, I own those too.

My set is over a year and a half old and I've only had to replace one of the 1/8" drill bits after becoming dull from drilling out a lot of spring steel and stainless. You sure you used them properly?

For me, the cobalt set are my favorite and I use them for anything metal related. They're sharp, they drill easily through anything, and last a long time.

 

Thanks for the info. I'll definitely have to get me a set of the cobalt ones. Yeah I used those ones from the shockwave pack. I used them to drill thru the broken and stuck stud piece and it was definitely took alot to get thru.
Just dropped off the pipe and bung with a local welder. His reviews are really good so we'll see how well it comes out.

 

It's not to say my experience is the end all be all; I've used and beat the shit out of my cobalt bits and they still run having used them on both a hand drill as well as my drill press.

I've gone through thick 1/2" thick steel rod, and just the other day through 1/4" plate as I needed an exact 5/16" size hole for the Pterodactyl stand -



I use a little bit of cutting fluid as needed (bottom right corner) and always adjust my speed for the thickness steel being drilled into. Maybe these are the things that make a difference?

I can't say, but that's a 5/16" cobalt bit right there in the picture.

Drilling rivets out not to mention drilling into spring steel is a whole different game too, but I've done a shit ton of it as well with these cobalt bits -

 

Oh maaaaan

Fucking DeWalt just lost a bunch of welder's future business

 

Forced two handed operation?

It's like they taking notes out of California gun laws handbook

 

I have both the titanium shockwaves and the cobalts and i still prefer the shockwaves. I almost exclusively hand drill everything though but yes speed and cutting oil of course are used in thicker stuff. The cobalts are shit for me until I get proven other wise during use lol

 

You're always welcome over to Kwik Fab's garage

Cutting welding beer and music; just got done cutting this tree out

 

lol, yeah, that'll sell about as well as solar powered night lights...

i mean, it is a 7", which definitely needs more of a handle on it to keep it from surprise walking. if the handle was at least swappable from side to side, it's feasible to use, but as-is, it's only a right-hand dominant grinder with a very narrow usage scope, that works best in product demo campaigns...

 

i don't remember who i stole this idea from anymore, it was some time last winter?

but i finally got my hand-truck welding cart done. turns out northern tool has the absolute cheapest hand truck of any distributer. hf, and Amazon included, which was a bit of a surprise for me.

the hand truck was the only real cost, the rest of the steel for mounting, bracing, and securement all came out of my stash

was a nice little project that i also used as an opportunity to convert the welder over from 0.030 flux core to 0.023 gas shielded. spent the entire welder mount getting frustrated making 'caterpillars' with the welder, every setting, speed, and adjustment, and nothing helped. then i realized i needed to switch the welder polarity... suddenly it puddled like it should!






and another quick project, i added a 2" hitch ball to a piece of tubing for a lower-effort trailer dolly. i drilled/tapped my normal hand truck to accept that(i used some random off-brand 'titanium-coated' bits for the task)-- i can throw nuts on the back of it if i really start to feel like it's stressing the bolts, but for moving small trailers around my yard, it's perfect.

this one was a little fun to weld-- just dropped the ground clamp on the table, tacked the ball to the tube, and then just rotated the tube on the top of the ground clamp while holding the tip in place... i know it's not a new or novel way of doing it, i just haven't had a chance to do circular welds like that before.

 

Could have been me as I think I posted my cart here. Even though I came up with the idea on my own while moving my tank from truck to garage, I think others had done it before me because after I made mine and posted it, I saw others had done something similar.

 

Where at?

 

I hate that for many reasons.
Mainly the tool tracking stuff.

yes companies are supposed to make money. Yes we are there to work. But we are humans and being tracked by tool time is just over kill. They introduced that to the shipyards where the management could see how long you welded all day and when you took breaks and everything. I could be the fastest welder and get more stuff done than anyone on site but they'd question me why I didn't have as much arc time as others.

 

efficiency measurement has always been a boon to workplace efficiency. the maths says that if one were to average hours input vs work performed, a simple percentage of efficiency comes out.

the reality is anything but...

more often, tracking processes discourage individual efficiency and encourage universal mediocrity.

i deal with this on a daily basis as well. i get a daily to-do sheet with the hours for each task divided out based on the total hours the salesperson sold for the job. i've never come under, but i can also go 2-3 weeks into the process waiting for questions to be answered (i've started posting 'nag sheets' on my trucks for anyone that walks by the truck to see all the issues/questions as they arise), or they have a dozen other little tasks that are never added to my job hours, but i'm "just expected to finish" those items.

the one i'm dealing with now is another portion was fabricated by another guy after he gave up but before he quit, it's entirely screwed up, and now i'm basically re-doing all of it to the detriment of my own 'efficiency'. i get that the company can't bill out those hours for something that someone else mucked up, but the 'to-do' sheets are an internal document only, which means that it only penalizes me in my 'efficiency' for trying to do the right thing and repair what he mucked up...

when management becomes manglement!

 

my job we have a daily revenue target we have to meet, something that is fairly easy most days, other days do not even come close, but depending on the job come out above the goal. before they put cameras in the trucks, it was common for us to skip lunch, and make our goal for the day by 2pm and we would go home with 10 hours. now with the cameras we still skip lunch an breaks, work 10 hours and barely make revenue for the day. they took away all the incentive to work fast. if we go home early at the end of the week to make up for the missing lunches our time gets docked because corporate can see the trucks are not out in the field

It gets worse, we where told there would be a 10% to 15% pay raise for the last year. now that it looks like it willing be going through, we are being told it is only for journeyman an above. You can bet that they are going to demand revenue increase to pay for the raises the majority of do not get.

 

Just where did Your Cobalt set come from??

Drilling by hand makes the best drill bits look like junk.

My cobalt set might be 20 plus years old as long as you do not get them hot !! They last forever.

Once hot they are finished

A few have been resharpened a few times.

 

Was a busy one yesterday from dropping off the wife and kiddo, grabbing more beer before getting home, then jumping onto a Zoom meeting, then a buddy arriving so we can get measurements from his truck, to cutting something out for another customer, and finally picking up the family and getting home to start drawing up a new bumper plan

Think he got me writing on the cardboard in this shot

 

You just described what dealership techs have been dealing with for many years

Used to run a dealership and we basically looked at the techs as being "90" or "85" or "105" efficiency when it came to warranty work

Of course not including comebacks either

 

Lol, my entire shop averages 72%...