Cheater tips

[Taylortractornut]

I have a friend that want to be the best at every thing including welding. He came by work the otherday and i was in the shop making dumpster door latch washers. He asked if I did them free hand and I said in a way. I have one of my personal torches in the shop at work along with 2 welders.

My friend was amazed but said I was cheating. I have a homebuilt burners Compass built fro ma cable clamp with a 1/4 20 all thread sharpened to a point. All I have to do is center punch the plate and light the torch and make a great hole. Pretty complex paterns can be cut out with some simple layout.

The next cheater is a ground clamp made with a wide mouth vise grip.


Making bevel cuts using a 3/4 inch round pipe as a torch guide.

a section of small angle iron with a leg at least 1/8th longer than the shoulder of my torch head to steady a long cut.


To gouge a weld or remove an old wed from a junk yard find to make a gouging/washing tip for your torch take a bad/ burnt tip and a drill a little larger than the oxygen hole and drill a 1/64 or better into it and it will do the same job as a straight gouge.

To weld up a bushing bore without alot of fuss you can take a carbon or graphite bar and grind or turn it in the size of the pin you want in the bore and weld away. It wont stick to the filler. Really good in building up Crawler tractor rails or trencher chains.

Most of these tricks I learned from old books, retired Welder/fitters and ship yard workers I have known or worked with.

 

[Johnbro]

these sound great. Wish I understood half of what the heck you're describing

 

[Baby Grand]

To gouge a weld or remove an old wed from a junk yard find to make a gouging/washing tip for your torch take a bad/ burnt tip and a drill a little larger than the oxygen hole and drill a 1/64 or better into it and it will do the same job as a straight gouge.

By this do you mean open up the center hole of a cutting tip a few mils in diameter and about 1/64 deep - counterbore the centerhole?

Some great ideas - thanks for posting. If you have any more, by all means bring 'em! I really like the compass idea. I use one all the time to lay stuff out. Why didn't I ever think of attaching the torch to it?
-Jim

 

[LD1]

CHEATER CHEATER CHEATER

I cant freehand very well. I always look around the shop for scraps to make circles, jigs, etc. I wouldn't call it free handing though.

When we made dads lawn roller which was 4' wide and 38" diameter (HEAVY) we had to cut out 3 circles out of 1/4" that were the 38" diameter. The two ends and one in the middle.

Trying to trace and free hand to make it as close to perfect as possible would not have turned out good. So what I did was we drilled a pilot hole where the 1" hole was going to be drilled later for the axle. We tapped it to 1/4" bolt and threadded a bolt in it. Then I took two 1/2" washers and connected them with wire (just a little mig wire) so that they were ~19" appart. Drop the one washer over the bolt in the center and slipped the other over the torch tip. Kept the wire tight and went to town cutting.

 

[J_J]

More tips.

To cut circles using plasma, on the cheap side, drill a small hole in the center of the circle, and bend coat hanger wire to fit in the hole, and then bend the coat hanger wire around the plasma torch head, so the center of the cut path is 1/2 the diameter of the circle. Cost nothing but time. You can pre-make these for different size circles. You can do something similar with a magnet and a wire on steel only. Sticky bottom for other metals. I have a home made compass also , made from two pieces of metal bolted together for the diameter needed. Can cut as large as you want.

 

[tglass]

I have a friend that want to be the best at every thing including welding. He came by work the otherday and i was in the shop making dumpster door latch washers. He asked if I did them free hand and I said in a way. I have one of my personal torches in the shop at work along with 2 welders.

My friend was amazed but said I was cheating. I have a homebuilt burners Compass built fro ma cable clamp with a 1/4 20 all thread sharpened to a point. All I have to do is center punch the plate and light the torch and make a great hole. Pretty complex paterns can be cut out with some simple layout.

The next cheater is a ground clamp made with a wide mouth vise grip.


Making bevel cuts using a 3/4 inch round pipe as a torch guide.

a section of small angle iron with a leg at least 1/8th longer than the shoulder of my torch head to steady a long cut.


To gouge a weld or remove an old wed from a junk yard find to make a gouging/washing tip for your torch take a bad/ burnt tip and a drill a little larger than the oxygen hole and drill a 1/64 or better into it and it will do the same job as a straight gouge.

To weld up a bushing bore without alot of fuss you can take a carbon or graphite bar and grind or turn it in the size of the pin you want in the bore and weld away. It wont stick to the filler. Really good in building up Crawler tractor rails or trencher chains.

Most of these tricks I learned from old books, retired Welder/fitters and ship yard workers I have known or worked with.

The only one I understand completely is the vise grip ground but sound like great ideas I'de like to learn. Have any pictures or rough drawings you could post?

 

[J_J]

You simply bolt or weld or connect your welding cable to the vise grips, lock the grips down, and you will usually always get a good ground. I have had mine for forty years. I use the magnet ground sometimes.

 

[Taylortractornut]

Baby Grand you hit the nail on the head on the torch tip.

I will post a few pics when our new cmeral comes in. I have alot of maintenance welding to do in the shop at work and a helper to take some pics. I use the compass the most making washers and open hooks and roller ends.

 

[tglass]

You simply bolt or weld or connect your welding cable to the vise grips, lock the grips down, and you will usually always get a good ground. I have had mine for forty years. I use the magnet ground sometimes.

J J , the vise grip is the only one I understand. Your circle cutter seems simple to me also. (just bought a plasma), and would like to learn all these little tweaks. Cutting a circle with a torch or plasma cutter, well I always end up with square holes. Any rough drawings would help me.

Merry Christmas

 

[J_J]

Here is a link, and some pic.



BettyMills: Torch-Tip Standoffs - Flange Wizard 496-70501

 

[Sandlot]

To cut nice holes it helps to make yourself a turntable so that you turn the work under the torch and not try to move the torch around the circle. :thumbsup:

 

[Shield Arc]

I've had this turn table for years, you can truly make some nice circles with it.


But sometimes things are just to big to fit on the table. :laughing:

 

[LD1]

I never thought of the turntable Idea.:thumbsup:

Heres a pic of some of the 38" circles we cut out of 1/4" for the lawn roller. Using the method I metioned above with the two washers and piece of wire.

In the first pic, you can still see the small pilot hole, before we drilled it bigger for the axle.

 

[tglass]

Lot of this is now on my got to make, got to buy list. Pictures sure help, and like to see more. Instead of cheats maybe it should be called how to do a good job of something when I can't freehand. I would be first on this list.

 

[workinallthetime]

i use a small torch around here, i also use the smallest tip i can.
my rules for my torch are:
1. never let anyone borrow it
2. never let the touch tip touch anything including the floor when im done
3. never leave the bottles on
4. never cut on top of concrete-exploding concretre hurts
5. always make sure its stored and secured to the something that wont fall over.
6. never let anyone borrow it

as for tips during use, if you angle the head slightly it will blow the slag out and away from the cut and clean up is easy. Dont wear cheep boots, watched a guy get some massive burns on the top of his foot when a piece of slag fell. The boots were imatation combat boots that must have been made of plastic, they melted almost instantly to his foot. He tought me everything about welding and cutting, i tought him were to buy good boots. 20 yrs ago

 

[pat32rf]

I have one 50' ground cable bolted to my small (portable) welding bench. The ground cable is really an OLD section of welding cable thrown out on a job many years back, but OK for a ground. I also have an old set of battery jumper cables that I run from the welding bench to other jobs in the driveway....

 

[Johnbro]

Oh, boy, that takes me back. Brother tried to melt a Nashville bus token with a propane torch on a concrete porch years and years ago. Bang! He was squatting over it wearing shorts. Hot token got him right on the butt cheeks. We used to tell him he could ride free for life on the Nashville Transit Authority if he just dropped his trousers and showed his tatoo...

 

[Mark @ Everlast]

Cheater Tips:
Removing broken bolts or studs: Weld a nut on it if possible. It'll usually back right out

Removing gaulded bearings: Lay a torch parallel to the shaft and use light oxygen pressure and wash the race off after a generous preheat. You won't even nick the shaft if you are careful. (You can use this for rusted on nuts too.)

Reduce clean up after welding with MIG: spray down surface area(minus the weld line) with nozzle anti splatter shield. The BB's will come right off. Also you can use a higher Argon mix to reduce spatter overall. ( I use a 88/12 mix from air gas).

To prevent rust on a work table: Use the same anti spatter spray on the table,rubbing it in with a shop rag. Use a couple of coats and then use every couple of months. I can almost see my reflection now.

I'll think of some more later.

 

[SandburRanch]

To avoid metal cuttings entering into undesirable locations when drilling, place your shop vacuum nozzle in close proximity to the hole being drilled. Yep, go ahead and turn it on first and off last.