At Home In The Woods

[Ted Summey]

A layer of brick, firebrick or block over a temporary sawhorse table will work for a simple welding table. You shouldn't need more than a couple of square feet for practice welding. Just use it outside an you will be okay.

 

[clemsonfor]

I only have one left on my free mower I got, oh its missing the hood too!!

 

[Obed]

As for a welding table, what I use is the old ramps from my trailer on a pair of sawhorses.

Dave,

The sad thing is, my wife was at the dump the other day looking for some scrap metal for me. The county has banned scavanging and won't let you remove anything from the dump. Unfortunately, right in front of my wife was a set of old ramps but the attendant wouldn't let her take them.

I'm glad you were able to find a scrap yard that would sell to you. Scrap yards seem to be going away from letting the public in much these days.

One of the scrap yard workers told me someone got "run-over" in the scrap yard the previous week. The person was in a busy spot where people aren't allow. Fortunately, the rest of the yard is open for browsing.

Obed

 

[clemsonfor]

I need to ask at the old family scrap yad about weather they sell or not, see some good stuff there .

 

[Obed]

Alright, I got to practice laying some welding beads today with my flux core welder! I used the box blade as my welding table which worked out great. Thanks for the tip Dave.



I cleaned off my piece of scrap metal with the angle grinder. I also cleaned off a spot for the welder ground clip.



Here's my first weld "bead" attempt. I figured my first bead would be pretty bad; but I didn't think it would be this bad.



I improved with more attempts.



After each pass, I would chip off the slag with my chipping hammer, brush the debris off with a wire brush, then inspect the weld. My early welds were not penetrating my steel piece deeply enough.



I increased the speed of the wire to get more penetration and got better at watching the weld puddle as I welded. My beads improved as I practiced. I referred to my welding book a few times to help me evaluate my beads and troubleshoot how to do better. I made successive beads from left to right when looking at the picture below. I was reasonably satisfied with my last bead (far right).



The biggest challenge I had was seeing what I was doing. My welding hood has an auto-adjusting shade but it came with no instructions. It has a dial and two switches but I have no clue how to adjust them. I'm hoping that when I try to weld two pieces together, that I will be able to see where the two pieces meet. It's really like trying to do detail work in the dark. I don't know if I can ajust my hood shade or if that's just the way welding is - you can't see.

 

[Ted Summey]

The next step is to begin joining some scraps sine that is the objective. You beads have improved.

 

[clemsonfor]

Those beads are looking good, they will hold I promise you that. The hood should allow you to see until you strike an ark. Then it will turn black and allow you to see the puddle fine and you will see the edges near the puddle. It is like looking through a black painted window. The dial allows it to darken slower if I remember right, or either its how dark it gets?? Just play with it, turn all the way one way then the other wasy and stike an arc each way u turn it.

 

[Obed]

Was going to say the exact same thing. I would heat the tab and beat it straight. Take your grinder and grind out that crack, you want the side of it clean and V shaped to fill with weld metal. I would then do like dave said and cut some plate and weld at least to one side if not both and get an extra long pin to go on that side, they must make them.

...

Yea after reading teds post at the end of the last page I would forget adding new metal, I would heat the cracked piece beat it with the sledge, gind out the crack and weld it up, then tack the vertical piece to it with a weld bead across the top and bottom of the horizontal piece then put your pin through it, it will be fine.

So what do I need to heat up the flange so I can beat it straight? That flange is 1/2" thick.

Thanks,
Obed

 

[Bill 55]

Well you are not going to like this but you meed to Go to Tractor Supply or Rural King and get you a cutting torch kit and a set of tanks. Heat that puppy up, beat it back in place and weld it solid. Ain't it nice how one new toy leads to the next one? I do not think anything less than an oxy/aceteylene torch will get that 1/2" piece of iron hot enough to beat it straight

 

[PhysAssist]

View attachment 312038 View attachment 312039 View attachment 312040 View attachment 312041

So what do I need to heat up the flange so I can beat it straight? That flange is 1/2" thick.

Thanks,
Obed

Hi Obed,

Looking good so far- at least you got further than me, and I bought mine months ago- but have had no weather good enough to go out and practice in...

The link to the welding helmet manual is attached for you to peruse at your leisure: http://manuals.harborfreight.com/manuals/91000-91999/91214.pdf

Thanks for sharing all this, I'm learning from you learning!

Please be careful with picking up hot stuff!

We have a pair of really heavy welder's gloves that we use with our wood stove, but even with those, if you hold something hot for too long, it still gets you !

Finally, I found out the hard way that it is best to always keep both of your hands on the angle grinder's handles :duh: and well back from the grinding wheel :banghead:.

Once I thought I could use one hand for a while, and just use the other one to steady my workpiece, but then in an instant I was missing skin almost to the bone, despite the leather work gloves I was wearing....:shocked:

... and because the tissue was just gone, it took forever to heal :grumpy:.

Thomas



I forgot to second someone else's notion of using a MAPP gas torch to heat it and bend it back- that stuff is safer and easier to use than OxyAcetylene, but not quite as hot.

It's sold in little tanks like propane, but they are always yellow and are available almost anywhere that sells propane torch kits.

It should definitely give you enough heat to bend that back.