Fun with square tubing

   / Fun with square tubing
  • Thread Starter
#21  
<font color=blue>Can't see real well, but I don't see a lot of buckling on the inside of the radius. Maybe it's how you clamped it?</font color=blue>

I don't fill the tubing. It's all in the clamping.

If you ever drive by what some folks refer to as wrought or ornamental iron fencing you will see little circles about four inches or so across as decorations. The way these are made is you have a gear reduction motor attached to a drum the size of the inside diameter. In a slot in the drum you place the end of a piece of half inch square tubing. You turn on the motor. It wraps the tubing around the drum. When you've got the whole stick of tubing wrapped around the drum tight you have what appears to be a coil spring of sorts. You cut down the center length wise of the coil. You have all these circles. You tweak the ends of the circle together and you now have circles for welding in for decoration.

Small tubing bends so easy and it tries so hard to please.

Solid stock is a problem because you have the stretching on the long side and the compression of the short side working clean clear through.

If you look at a bend in solid stock where they used heat to facilitate the bend. Most folks don't stop and think for a minute. They just heat the inside of the bend causing it to fold making the bend. If they've thought a little bit they might heat the outside of the bend and let that stretch.

Neither one of those bends looks for crap. The way to do it with a torch is to heat the whole section to be bent beyond red to orange. Then you bend the piece over or around something. The bend will come out spectacular and look good too. A torch can help do a bend with pipe and or big tubing. But chances are most likely you're not going to have the area heated evenly enough not to cause more problems rather than eliminate them. Some folks bend pipe by heating it in a forge. But they fill it with dry, important, dry sand and compress it first. This supports the material from the inside as the bend is made.

On the tubing you're working against the inside not wanting to compress and the outside not wanting to stretch. So you have to give it some support. It needs your help.

That's why we clamp it so tightly so it won't slip. What happens if we don't have it clamped tight enough and it slips is the tubing fails and it kinks. But if we have it supported, with the flange in this case, we're forcing the bend to happen over an area evenly. The evenly is really important. The tighter the bend the more deformation. The outside has to stretch more and there's more compression on the inside.

I have a friend who'd made a mini Hossfield for small craft and handyman stuff. It's called the craftbender and he's here south of Dallas. He sets up in Canton every month. I haven't seen it in action yet but a year or so ago he was telling me that he'd taken what I'd show'd him and made a die for doing half and three quarter square tubing with it. He's a character, names, Rylie. He talks almost as much as me and gets just about as excited about making things.

BTW I have two of his craftbenders. I use them to do all kinds of trick things. I guess since I use them so much I should give Rylie a call and have him get with Mohammed and the two of them find a way to get ya'll the opportunity to see and purchase one.

Maybe the best way to explain the way the bending works is to examine the emt bender you can buy for little or less at your local box home improvement store. Emt is a thin wall stiff walled round tubing. If you try to bend if over your knee it's gonna kink and break. If you try to wrap it around something like a piece of pipe. It's gonna kink and break.

But you put it into that simple little bender and with a little practice you'll lose all respect for electricians. It ain't that hard. (joke guys, joke) But the reason it works is the emt is forced around the die and the sides are supported while doing so.

I'm running late. I wish I had time to answer all the questions. I'll try to do better. Bgott, I can't thank you enough for your input on some other topics. Even though I haven't replied I do want to publicly acknowledge your input is appreciated.
 
   / Fun with square tubing #22  
Harv,

Thanks for the demonstration on bending. It looks like even I might be able to do something like that.

I would like to second John III’s suggestion of a “Welding 101” class. There are quite a few members that are interested in how to get started in basic metal work. You guys that put all these great things together have us chompen at the bit to give it a try. A list of the basic starter tools needed and a recommendation for a beginner’s welder that you would not out grow after the first project would be great.

MarkV
 
   / Fun with square tubing #23  
Great work, Harv - I enjoy reading your posts.

I needed to bend up a fair amount of 3/4" square stock (solid) last year and made the "Brick House Bar Bender" (see attached) out of a piece of old railroad rail and some 3" round stock. That, plus a big 'ole cheater bar allowed me to bend the 3/4" square stock with no heat.

The project I was working on can be found <A target="_blank" HREF=http://users.arn.net/~usnick/bed.html> here </A>

One thing I learned from that project, fellas: Make some furniture or other things for your wife and she'll open the checkbook for all of your welding supply needs!

FWIW, here's my $0.02 on buying a welder:

If you're wanting to spend as little as possible, I'd recommend a 220V Lincoln 225A arc welder, available anywhere for a little over $200. Those are very durable machines with a decent duty cycle that will do anything that you need, with one exception - they're not very good at the lightweight stuff (sheet metal).

But given that this is a tractor board, and most welding discussions center on building tractor implements/attachments, etc, I'm guessing that you guys want to buy a welder that can do "heavy" welding at the expense of the light stuff.

For the same money as a 220V buzz box, you could buy a cheap 110V MIG welder (wire feed), but those welders are for light duty stuff only. Their duty cycle is very low. They're OK for fixing a bike frame, repairing the lawn mower handle, etc, but are too light to actually BUILD much of anything, especially anything out of fairly heavy steel like you'd want to use to make a trailer hitch, 3ph whatzit, etc.

As luck would have it, I ran into a buddy of mine today that I hadn't seen in a while and he's opened a muffler shop in town. I asked if he was still using gas welding or was he using MIG. He said that he used both in his shop but did mention that he had bought a small 110V MIG for his home. He said that it wasn't fit for "anything heavier than jewelry repair". /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

If you've got the money, a Millermatic 175 or 250 would be the cat's meow. They're both $1,000 or better. If you're on a budget, get the buzz box. Get a welding HOWTO book at the bookstore and have at it. I'm a self-taught welder and have really enjoyed making all kinds of stuff. I sometimes tell people that I like to go to the scrap iron lot and buy small pieces of scrap metal and weld them into much larger pieces of scrap metal. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Best,

Mark

ps: <A target="_blank" HREF=http://users.arn.net/~usnick/welding.html> I've documented some other welding projects here </A>
 

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   / Fun with square tubing #24  
Mark,

Great project work!!! Us "welder wanna-be's" are all jealous I'm sure of both you and Harv.

Kevin
 
   / Fun with square tubing #25  
Nice welding projects, especially that bed!!! I'll second your comments about the buzzbox. I just bought one cause I couldn't justify the $1000 for a decent mig. So far I don't think I've had to go over 120 amps for most of my welding so I have plenty in reserve if I use some heavier stuff. BYTW - they don't make the AC225 anymore, it's now the AC235. Same thing but 10 more max amp capacity.
 
   / Fun with square tubing #26  
I agree Mark, the buzz box is the way to go. I've had a little Miller thunderbolt for about 20 years and I have used it for everything from sheet metal to heavy implement fabrication and repairs.

As you said these welders are not good with sheet metal but if you use the tiny rods, turn your heat down and exercise a lot of patience you can get by with them.

I enjoyed looking at your projects. They were great!

TBone
 
   / Fun with square tubing #27  
If you get into the $650 - $850 220v Mig welders will these work on the types of metal sizes you use in tractor related welding?

MarkV
 
   / Fun with square tubing #28  
Mark, I have enjoyed reading these threads from you and Harv. You mention "buzz" box, does this require gas? Or can you use wire feed without gas? I also would like to see a thread on basic welding. I have most of the suggested books, which I have enjoyed. Now its time to start looking for a welder and the thought of the 110 MIG welder really appealed to me for the fact that it does not require gas. Most of the welding I will be doing is 1/8 to 1/4 inch steel plating. I have no problem going with a 220 unit as long as I can keep away from gas. Most of my aversion to gas centers on the yearly inspection of the bottle/gage and not doing enough welding to justify keeping it filled.
I continue to read that you can make multi passes on the larger stuff with the smaller welders, is this true or should a person just figure on a 220-type unit?
Appreciate your advice.
PJ
 
   / Fun with square tubing #29  
I'll jump in here with some info on welding, though I'm not an expert I do have a Miller ac/dc stick welder and a 220 amp Century mig welder.

With Mig you can use with or without gas. It depends on the wire. Flux core wire does not need gas where solid core wire does. You can buy either. As far as the bottle gas goes...I got mine at amy local Amerigas/Propane dealer. In my case you "buy" the bottle, pay a one time fee and then you exchange the bottle for a different one each time you need a refill. They take care of the inspection issue. Your gage stays with the welder. This is not a combustible gas for those who might not know this. It is usually an argon mix which "shields" your wire from contamination. Others can explain this better.

The Century 220 Mig I bought at SamsClub about five years ago for $600 and it has served me very well. I've welded 1/4 plate down to sheet metal. I have to say it is the easiest to learn to use. A couple of hours of practice and you'll be amazed at what you can do.

The stick is harder to learn but not that much harder. I hadn't welded since high school. Take an adult ed class and you'll be well on your way to knowing the basics. Good luck

Mike
 
   / Fun with square tubing #30  
When I was a kid my dad had what he called a "Buzz Box". Actually, he still has it. It was about 12"x12"x12" and was simply a 110v arc welder. It used small diameter rods and was great for small welding jobs on small steel pieces. It was no good for sheet metal work.

At about 14 I discovered it was also no good for aluminum. I knew nothing about welding but had watched my dad and was confident that I could do it. My partner had a 305 Honda Dream. The front drum brake hub was aluminum and had a small piece cast into it that held the brake cable. That piece broke one day and we decided that we could fix it ourselves.

I set up the welder and, while he held the broken piece in place with pliers, I struck an arc. Looking back, it was really kind of neat to watch that big hole instantly appear in the brake hub. But it really wasn't very funny at the time.

Fortunately, my dad had a friend with a mig welder and he was able to fill the hole back in and weld the broken piece back on.

Lessons learned.......................
 

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