Welding a Small Part

[Sodo]

James, my dearly departed dad use to have a saying about some people.
"You can ask them anything, but you can't tell them a thing!"

Haha Shield, I think I get it. When I tell someone about doing a job with tools they don't have its NO surprise if they don't seem to "hear". I have no doubt you could do it if stranded on Gilligan's island with just a MIG. You could probably even teach Ginger how to do it.

This job is easily doable by a (motivated) newby MIG welder. And look as nice as DE's hitch pins. No doubt that subpart took 30 minutes to make, it's real nice. Why don't you grab a couple nuts out of the junkpile & weld them onto pipes first, see how it goes. Post pics & ask about those. No doubt folks can offer more focused help once they have something to look at, and once they know you're gonna use the MIG.

This can be done nicely with the MIG, a great tool.

 

[Fawken]

MIG: First one I ever used was three years ago a fella at the shop brought one in to see if I could fix it. He said it was $99 at Harbor Freight. What a jerk. I told him I wouldn't even bother taking it apart for a cheap machine like that. He said just keep it then. Took it home put a piece of bike inner tube on the feed wheel so the wire would stop jamming in the hose. I used it 3 times and ended up throwing it out.

 

[jmc]

Curious if anyone knows the material for 'drill rod'?

The most common drill rod is O1. The O stands for oil quenched. My stash of it has the ends painted yellow. That may be an industrial color code for O1.

 

[Sodo]

Fawken that sounds like bad experience! You're wise to throw it out, I'd try to fix it. Note to self, never let a $99 MIG follow me home.

Anyway I guess I have to restate that this job is doable with a good MIG.

 

[Shield Arc]

Here is a Mig weld I did with dragoneggs welder on 1/16" thick square tube.

 

[CNC Dan]

....The nut is Grade 5 which I understand to be 3-4% carbon and is tempered. So would benefit from quenching and re tempering. The tube is 1026 ie 2.6% carbon, on the low side for heat treating, but possibly capable of being strengthened a bit by quenching in dirty oil. ....

1026 steel is 0.26 % carbon. You might get it to harden some.
The nut will respond to heat treating, but I'm not sure of the time/tempature.

As for picking up carbon from the oil quench, I doubt such a brief time will do much. Case hardening or pack hardening takes a much longer time to produce a thin (.025 - .060) case depth.

 

[downsizingnow48]

Thanks for the corrections CNC Dan.

 

[dragoneggs]

The most common drill rod is O1. The O stands for oil quenched. My stash of it has the ends painted yellow. That may be an industrial color code for O1.

Shoot... I thought that was color code for diameter. I was using 9/16". I don't recall but I want to say it was red. Any clue what that means? The gal behind the counter at Tacoma Screw said it wasn't hardened yet so... ?

 

[Fawken]

Here is a Mig weld I did with dragoneggs welder on 1/16" thick square tube.

Looks like 12ga 1 1/2" tube. Nice weld. I can make one just as pretty (after I clean off the slag) with my old 230A stick machine. In fact I made a 30'x7' rolling driveway gate for a guy in Mesquite out of that same steel last summer.

 

[dragoneggs]

Looks like 12ga 1 1/2" tube. Nice weld. I can make one just as pretty (after I clean off the slag) with my old 230A stick machine. In fact I made a 30'x7' rolling driveway gate for a guy in Mesquite out of that same steel last summer.

Yep I made a couple tables for my wife's greenhouse using that for a frame and 5/4 eased edge cedar decking for the top. Haven't yet got welds spread like jiffy peanut butter on that gauge as SA did on his first try... Dang it.