Anything welding

Spent about 30 min on the phone with John from TMW this afternoon, super friendly guy and seriously passionate about his products!

He talked me in to the 1/4” option. Highlights to me were he hasn’t had a single complaint or warranty claim for holes that were deformed, which includes customers like NASA, Honda and McLaren, who are undoubtedly tougher on their tables than I will be. Doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened, just never a big enough problem for anyone to make a stink about. The friction clamp base material is softer than the tabletop material, and with however many hundreds or thousands of hole options, you’re unlikely to overuse one so much to wallow it out. The folks he sells 3/8” tables to do stuff like outfit firetrucks and such.

We also talked extensions and he pointed out that they are great for when you want a permanent upgrade, but he suggested he uses these squares on his personal table at home when he needs extra envelope of support, but not necessarily full table functionality. Going to add a few to my order!

I still can’t believe the owner of the company was so eager to talk to some rando about his process and products that in depth, it’s really giving me confidence to pull the trigger!

 

i cannot fathom the amount of pain i'd be in from hip-checking that extension on a daily basis.

 

Haha! 2 bolts and it packs away. Figure it will mostly live on a shelf but will be super handy when it’s needed. I ordered 4 so my 30x60 table will have a lot of options for larger configurations.

 

Been considering making myself at least two of those extensions

May have to grab myself some 3/8"

 

I thought about asking you, I could even do the bending in my own garage. I figured shipping would kill it though, that’s an awful dimension. If you want to look at something like 8-10” (or whatever would fit into a medium flat rate) I’d be interested!

edit: a little wider might be nice too

 

The shipping definitely kills it which is why I didn't push it

But you could definitely make your own for sure, especially if you just use them for supporting any overhang (and skip the holes)

It's why I set my table up in such a long orientation, but if I do get overhang, I use my pipe jacks to support said item(s)

 

Good call! I’m not going to be using a friction clamp way out there, a regular clamp will do if needed.

Not sure how perfect I’ll be able to get the bend but if what I need is just general support and not precision flatness I should be more than good.

 

That's why you just do a single bend at the end, and then weld on some sort of gusset that supports part of the bracket extending away from the table

No need to bend it on the side, especially since the brake you use creates a large bend radius

 

I am sharing for the LOL
Nothing else
Guy posted these on his social media
I said hey uhm, looks like pulse, if so… and then gave some constructive input


The response was:
I’m no instragram welder
I work for irwindale doing blah blah blah


Gtg warrior I’ll avoid that location then

so, feel free to share what you see in this bronco roll cage weld.

 

So, I've only ever used pulse (briefly) on a 350P and more for fun and less for the structural stuff I was making at my last job.

With that said, those welds look like pulse was set at a (low?) frequency and really spread out. But that's also a shit ton of heat too with little gas coverage based on how nasty it looks. I can't imagine he sat there doing IG welds where they just tack multiple times over

Is that something that'll crack easily if I hit it with a hammer for being brittle?

Asking here to gain a better understanding.

 

Haven't posted here in this thread any work lately.

Started Sunday morning with some test cuts on some new font.





Since it passed with flying colors, proceeded to cut the actual part out. It's a backrest panel for a new custom stool.







Picked up some steel on Monday so I can continue with cutting out the legs and center cushion mount for the stool.









Since being currently delayed by USPS, curiosity got the best of me and I decided to try something out.

Vyper uses 'braces' that tie the legs together under the footrest. Since I unfortunately don't own a tube roller, I thought I'd cut some supports myself and try them out for kicks. I won't be able to see how well they'll work (in terms of the stems on the casters, or fitment) but I should find out sometime next week when the casters arrive.

Until then, I'm waiting for some wood pieces to arrive in order to drill into them and insert some t-nuts. After which I can proceed with welding the nut and ACME screw to the seat bottom mount.

 

I was unsure what he was working on initially when I messaging him.
I assumed he was doing tack tack tack tack style pulse because I can see a few butthole (craters)

but he swears he’s no instagram welder and is building/repairing stuff at irwindale.

proceeded to tell me I sound stupid for bringing up what I saw

bid him a blessed day and moved on.

few hours later I saw him deliver this item on his story
To a person who has the OLD bronco with the open bed, this was a cage to be bolted in.

After going back to look at his other welds for that project. I hope it’s a cosmetic cage only.

I’m no CWI but his welds had me trippin

 

My initial response looking at that pictures, with no context, is that yep it looks just like those IG welds that youtube will uncover.

I read wrong and thought you actually confirmed he did use pulse but damn, yeah I hope it's cosmetic only.

But even then, I can't see why it would look so oxidized and looking like it got really hot if he did just tack it a bunch?

 

Well top side of the weld in the picture there you can see the toe of the weld and the material dipping down. So yeah he cooked it like a mofo, the other weld he posted of the baseplate attached to the upright was so covered in soot I couldn’t even see the weld or profile.

so definitely hot as shit. But somehow also not getting consistent fusion. And the metric shit ton of porosity makes me thing under gassed or maybe even an attempt at FCAW?



all for learning and complete speculation

 

Looks like some kind of pulsed mig or very wetted out cursive c pattern. I guess it looks okay if so but pretty hot and flat. Probably mig with crazy heat and crazy low wire speed. If that's tig - dude's gas flow is some sorta fucked or he got the material disgustingly dirty. Bad weld in that case

Wish there was a pic of the end of the weld