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I want to get into some fabrication just for fun and to add to my wood working projects with various metal bits to make things look fancier and poo poo. Maybe add in some sheet metal etc I can use to make stuff for the workshop. What kind of welder should I start out with? I was thinking an arc welder but I have no idea what kind of power source you need to run those things. Should I really just get a mig welder? Tell me how to not kill myself with electricity or something. EDIT: Also how do you go about cutting metal into the shape you want it for that? I'm not building anything shipyard huge, just small decorative pieces and maybe stuff like metal frames for furniture etc. Sylink fucked around with this message at 10:40 on Jun 24, 2013 |
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Jun 24, 2013 10:37
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| # ? May 23, 2024 10:56 |
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I'll leave the welding advice to others.Sylink posted:EDIT: Also how do you go about cutting metal into the shape you want it for that? I'm not building anything shipyard huge, just small decorative pieces and maybe stuff like metal frames for furniture etc. How do you skin a cat? There's countless ways to cut and shape metal. It depends on: What kind of thing you are cutting - Sheet? Bar stock? Tube? Different shapes require different approaches. How big are we talking? Jewelry sized stuff can be cut and shaped with a rotary tool like a dremel. How much are you likely to do? - Small bits can be done with hand tools, big projects you'll want power tools. You might be better off posting some examples of the kind of stuff you want to do and we can maybe tell you roughly how to approach each thing.
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Jun 24, 2013 14:04
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Sylink posted:I want to get into some fabrication just for fun and to add to my wood working projects with various metal bits to make things look fancier and poo poo. Maybe add in some sheet metal etc I can use to make stuff for the workshop. Types of welding: oxyacetylene - dangerous gases, expensive tools, fire, etc. stick welding/SMAW (shielded metal arc welding) - big honkin welder, ugly welds (unless very skilled), takes lots of skill to do right. fluxcore wirefed welding/FCAW (flux cored arc welding) - cheap welder, cheap consumables, easy to learn, basically a hot glue gun for metal. You can turn out some decent welds with fluxcore once you've got some skill. I've built an entire truck suspension with a 100 amp lincoln procore before. Kinda spattery and you do need to wire wheel/chip flux off. MIG metal inert gas/GMAW (gas metal arc welding) - cheapish welder, cheap consumables, need a gas tank but it's cheap gas, easy to learn, no slag to speak of, low spatter if done right. Easier than fluxcore, but not quite as much arc force as fluxcore for a given amperage rating on the welder. Much prettier. TIG/GTAW (gas tungsten arc welding) - expensive welder, requires significant skill, requires shielding gas tank, etc. Turns out BEAUTIFUL welds on almost any metal. You have a torch that controls how much and where you're melting the metal, and feed metal into the weld puddle with the other hand from a filler rod. I would say it is almost an electric-heated version of brazing or oxyactylene welding. I know fluxcore and MIG, want to learn TIG, and have done a little playing around with stick but not enough to say I know it. You'll learn the best puddle control with stick or TIG, so it'll make you better at fluxcore or MIG right off the bat, but it'll be a steeper learning curve. I may be biased, I learned fluxcore first and jumping into MIG was easy. The first stick welding I tried to do was horrible, but when I tried it a couple months ago with a silly little 50 amp harbor freight inverter a friend had and some lovely 1/16" 6011 electrodes, it actually went pretty OK on 1/8 plate, just not well enough that I trust myself with it for anything critical. Here's a few fluxcore welds on an axle housing I set up for another goon's Jeep Wrangler:   Tube wall thickness is around 1/4", leaf perch is 3/16" plate, 100 amps, 35 thou Lincoln fluxcore wire, around 200-225ipm wirefeed, 2 passes. It came out decently, mostly because I had the axle out of the jeep and could rotate it and do a couple inches of weld at a time in an almost ideal position with plenty of space to work and prop up. kastein fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Jun 24, 2013 |
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Jun 24, 2013 16:07
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Ooh, actually I will weigh in on the welding If you're just putting together steel brackets and such you can also braze-weld them. Basically you solder steel parts together with bronze or brass rod and flux. This requires a lot less equipment, no electricity and if done even reasonably well it is very strong. It's fallen out of fashion somewhat thanks to cheap arc welders, I was taught how to do it in highschool and I still use it occasionally. All you need is a MAP gas torch, some flux and some brazing rod. You can join dissimilar metals with brazing too, which is sometimes useful.
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Jun 24, 2013 16:27
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Sylink posted:What kind of welder should I start out with? As your skill and needs grow add MIG and TIG as necessary. Everyone should have a full oxy-fuel setup at some point for both oxygen cutting. heating, and brazing. It's even useful for some esoteric welding jobs too.
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Jun 24, 2013 18:02
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I'm gonna jump in to weldchat to say that if your primary interest is blacksmithing, oxy/fuel might be the first rig to get. It is incredibly handy to have a point-source of high heat to use for various metal-bending and forging techniques, so oxy/fuel gives you that along with the ability to do old-school welding. You can also get a cutting tip and slice through almost anything. If your primary interest is "metalworking", and not necessarily/primarily blacksmithing, then these other guys have given the right advice.
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Jun 24, 2013 19:05
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for hobby goofing around I'll just offer my crappy opinion that oxyacetylene welding is an ok start. I don't think that the tools are expensive compared to a decent arc welder. tanks are a pain in the butt tho. I found o/a welding simpler, quieter, cleaner and easier to do well than stick welding, but its not like I did it for anything more than goofing off so, well, that's my advice rotor fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jun 24, 2013 |
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Jun 24, 2013 19:29
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If you are relying on oxy fuel welding you will be sorely disappointed as soon as you have to do a fillet weld. I also recommend stick welding as it is, I think, the best way to learn puddle control, and what a good weld actually is.
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Jun 24, 2013 20:59
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When I learned to weld they started everyone out drawing beads with a stick. I think it definitely gives you the best understanding of what's going on at the weld site with the relationship of speed, feed and arc length. Also it's super cheap to get started with.
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Jun 24, 2013 21:51
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Well, I just got my O/A tanks refilled and bought 5lbs each of 1/8" 6011 and 7018. The sticks will have to wait till I am at a friend with a stick welder's place again, but as soon as it cools down a little more I'm going to do some practice brazing, assuming I actually have a heating tip in my collection not just a cutting torch.
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Jun 24, 2013 23:07
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Speaking of acetylene, I got a bag of fizzy gravel in the post this week:  This lamp was bent all to hell, been straightening it up enough so it's useable and now its going on my bicycle.
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Jun 24, 2013 23:24
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ReelBigLizard posted:I'll leave the welding advice to others. Biggest I would go is maybe a metal bed frame (I dont actually want to build one but thats an example). And maybe at the same time being able to cut down metal stock to rectangular sizes and make things like brackets/metal trim/fittings like the metal brackets you might find on a supply crate. Is that feasible? I dont necessarily want to forge anything, just be able to do some reshaping and cutting to fit/desire.
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Jun 25, 2013 10:25
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For the kind of work you are talking about I would get yourself a basic set of metalwork files, a decent full size hack saw and a half-decent angle grinder. For drilling precise holes, you will want a good centre punch too, as drill bits will wander about on metal before they bite. For marking out metal you will want chalk or chinograph pencils for rough marking and a Scribe for precision marks, this is a super hard steel instrument that looks alarmingly like a dentists pick. For the files, you want a few different shapes like round, half round, triangular, etc. This will let you clean up rough edges from cutting with hacksaws and such. For small work you can get "needle files", these are tiny files about the size of a pencil, which often turn out very useful even on big stuff. You will also want a selection of "Wet and Dry" sandpapers in various grits for further finishing. Hack saws are pretty self explanatory. Keep the old blades as you wear them out, you can grind them to a sharp point and use them as scribes (they are pretty hard steel). You can get little mitre guides for hack saws, which will help if you're cutting metal edge trim and such. If you're doing a lot of trim pieces you may want to get a compound mitre saw and put a metalwork blade on it. Angle grinders are the multi-tool of metal work. They can be fitted with various discs for grinding down, cutting, sanding and wire brushing amongst other things. They can also be pretty dangerous, you will want heavy work gloves and eye protection as they spin (and fling poo poo about) at high speed. For this reason you will also want a way to clamp work pieces in place, so a bench vice or at least c-clamps to hold pieces to the bench. The vice is also good for putting bends in metal too. If you plan on welding or brazing you will also use the grinder to prep the surfaces you are welding, taking off surface rust and providing clean metal for the weld to take hold. Search "angle grinder" on youtube and you'll find some videos on how they are used and what safety precautions to take.
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Jun 25, 2013 10:54
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Ah, that sounds good. I couldn't even think of tools beyond a hacksaw. Thanks! I will have to start patrolling craigslist.
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Jun 25, 2013 14:47
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Anyone know what the tool that cuts discs of sheet metal is called? Its like a compass used for layout work, but it has a little blade that rotates around the center to cut the disc. I have also seen a mechanical version, but I assume that is expensive.
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Jun 26, 2013 01:06
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one of these? http://www.amazon.com/General-Tools-55-Circle-Cutter/dp/B00004T7P1/ found it searching amazon for 'circle cutter' may also be called an "adjustable hole saw"
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Jun 26, 2013 01:32
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ReelBigLizard posted:angle grinder talk I've always been taught NOT to wear gloves when using an angle grinder. Since all it takes is one loose thread to get caught in the grinder and pull your hand into it. Eye protection of course, but no loose sleeves or gloves.
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Jun 26, 2013 01:35
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Yeah, never wear gloves with any power tool that moves, and especially ones that spin. An angle grinder would be particularly nasty to get caught in, but OSHA has plenty of stories of people who lost fingers to gloves that got wound up in drill presses and the like. Not to say I haven't run skilsaws and the like while wearing workgloves, but it's a bad bad idea.
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Jun 26, 2013 01:51
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Wear leather welding gloves. As someone who has hit their finger with an angle grinder without gloves on (3 stitches, X-rays, nicked the bone, cauterized an artery, $1900 ER bill and 5 hours of my life in the ER waiting room I'll never get back) and with gloves on (yelled a couple choice words, bought new pair of gloves) I think I'll continue to wear gloves. This holds even when using knotted wire wheels, I took about half the thickness of the leather on one of my gloves off in a fraction of a second with the wire wheel once, that probably would have stripped my knuckles bare of skin if I'd not been wearing them. The most important rules when using an angle grinder: * wear a goddamn face shield. Preferably birth control safety goggles. * wear gloves. * wear clothes that are not loose and flowing, those CAN get caught up in the wheel. I recommend a leather jacket suitable for welding, that way it fits both tasks. * keep the safety guard on OR keep the side handle screwed in and use it. Preferably both, but under no circumstances should you remove both. If you do and hurt yourself I'll call you an idiot... * be mindful of where the stream of sparks will end up. A friend of mine ended up with a third degree burn the size of a golf ball on one leg when the stream of sparks caught his jeans on fire. If it had been slightly worse he would have needed skin grafts. Don't shoot sparks at glass or plastic of any kind, either, it WILL embed itself in the surface and melt in, even at a range of 6-10 feet. The insides of the rear quarter windows on my old Cherokee were never the same after I learned this. * be mindful of where the power cord is. That WILL get snarled up in the grinder wheel, which is why the grinder I keep my wire wheel on has about a foot of the cord rewrapped with several layers of electrical tape. * be mindful of what the grinder will do at any given moment if the blade binds or catches. Brace yourself in such a way that you are prepared for it. I've completely ruined workpieces by ignoring this, and I've also had the blade catch and responded almost instantly to it and just kept working without losing anything. It's all in the planning. This should all be common sense but most of it is poo poo I've learned the hard way, though some isn't.
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Jun 26, 2013 01:56
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Wear gloves that fit snugly and are the right length for your fingers. Inspect them regularly and dispose of gloves with loose threads, tears, holes, etc. There are some machines you shouldn't wear gloves with no matter what (lathes come to mind), but your fingers should never come close to the spinning part of your angle grinder. If they do, you're doing something wrong (like holding a workpiece in one hand while you grind on it with the other).
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Jun 26, 2013 02:17
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Well, yeah. You're supposed to hold the grinder with both hands, and the workpiece with your thighs. Like a man.
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Jun 26, 2013 02:22
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When I do carpentry projects I hold down nails with my prehensile penis so I should be ok with a grinder.
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Jun 26, 2013 03:37
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As far as angle grinders go, having used them professionally I can tell you that I would not have fingers left if I weren't using it with heavy leather gloves in it. That bitch CUTS the glove (instead of your finger), it doesn't give two shits about drawing a mystical thread into its bowls of death and taking your hand with it. Edit: Tools I would NOT wear gloves with: -any woodworking saw -lathe, mill, etc -buffing wheel -drill handheld or press AbsentMindedWelder fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Jun 26, 2013 |
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Jun 26, 2013 04:01
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rotor posted:one of these? That looks about right.
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Jun 26, 2013 04:03
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Quick question that is probably pretty dumb, but whatever. Making a stainless steel dead blow hammer at work out of tubing, stock, and pipe plugs. I'm teaching a dude how to not be a dumbass on the lathe, so I've welded pipe caps on both ends of a piece of tubing, and turned it down into a hollow cylinder with a hole drilled in the side. We're going to be machining the handle tonight out of round stock, and maybe doing a bit of welding on it so he can practice, but the question is actually not related to the process of making the hammer, but rather the filling. I have some old scuba weights for lead shot at home that I was considering bringing in to fill it with tomorrow, but I've also heard of people using sand. I work at a place that makes food, and we have a fuckload of salt just laying around. Would it be a waste of the time and effort if I filled the dead blow with salt instead of sand?
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Jun 26, 2013 05:34
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It probably won't be dense enough to make it worth using. Lead has a density of 11.3g/cm3, salt is about 2.2g/cm3, assuming no air space between particles. You'll need 5 times as much salt by volume to impart the same energy to a workpiece given that they are otherwise identical and used in the same way.
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Jun 26, 2013 05:35
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That's what I figured, just looking for the easy way out. Looks like I'm waiting for the lead tomorrow, then. If it doesn't look like absolute dogshit I'll post pictures of it and the starting material, once done. It has to be entirely stainless for company sanitation reasons, but we'll see how it looks when it's all said and done. We don't have a knurling attachment here since the last one broke last week, so I'm just going to cut very shallow threads in one direction, and then cut them back in the reverse direction to make ghetto knurls.
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Jun 26, 2013 05:56
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Don't use lead in a sanitary application.
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Jun 26, 2013 06:28
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Yeah, if this is going to be anything involving anything that humans put inside them you should go pick up a bag of lead-free shot instead. Some of the tungsten/iron/bismuth stuff is just as dense, though quite a lot more expensive.
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Jun 26, 2013 06:31
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AbsentMindedWelder posted:As far as angle grinders go, having used them professionally I can tell you that I would not have fingers left if I weren't using it with heavy leather gloves in it. That bitch CUTS the glove (instead of your finger), it doesn't give two shits about drawing a mystical thread into its bowls of death and taking your hand with it. Bench sanders and bench grinders. Unlike the angle grinder (which I sometimes do use gloves with) I would never use them with those two tools. Grinders especially. The glove can get caught and pull your whole hand into the machine. I'd rather lose chunk of skin than my whole hand.
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Jun 26, 2013 06:52
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I can't believe I overlooked that. I have stainless shot, too. Obviously a much better solution than lead.
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Jun 26, 2013 07:03
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Yeah, I've got a few scars around my hands from "grinder bites" which would have been much, much worse without gloves. Mostly from working on boats in tight, oddly shaped spaces. It's the only power tool I really wear gloves with, and always something well fitted and substantial like leather combat or work gloves. Some of the combat gloves make excellent work gloves because they are very "fitted" and provide excellent dexterity for the protection. Enough glove chat though, its Anvil-porn time!  The markings are incredibly faint, I had to take a rubbing with paper and pencil to get any letters off it. It was forged by I. NASH & SONS of Stourbridge, there's no date that I can find but it's from somewhere between 1888 and about 1920. I've seen a near identical one online that was part of a war department contract in WW1. This anvil was bought at an auction from the contents of an old garage that went out of business last year. Upon mentioning this to my grandfather he replied "Oh, well that makes sense, that garage was a blacksmiths when I was a boy" (around 1940). The weight markings are too far gone but it would seem to be about 140lbs, maybe more. It has a bright ring to it at every part of the face, with minimal dents and dings, the edges are still pretty square. The bick has got a little bit of mushrooming on the tip, looks like it fell over onto concrete or something at some point. A few minutes of gentle grinding will clean it up. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 10:29 on Jun 26, 2013 |
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Jun 26, 2013 10:27
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Speaking of angle grinders, I quite like the idea of what this fellow has come up with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ5Fu7TYuGQ
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Jun 26, 2013 15:11
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ArtistCeleste posted:Bench sanders and bench grinders. Unlike the angle grinder (which I sometimes do use gloves with) I would never use them with those two tools. Grinders especially. The glove can get caught and pull your whole hand into the machine. I'd rather lose chunk of skin than my whole hand. I agree on the bench grinder and sander.
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Jun 26, 2013 15:18
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ReelBigLizard posted:Yeah, I've got a few scars around my hands from "grinder bites" which would have been much, much worse without gloves. Mostly from working on boats in tight, oddly shaped spaces. It's the only power tool I really wear gloves with, and always something well fitted and substantial like leather combat or work gloves. Some of the combat gloves make excellent work gloves because they are very "fitted" and provide excellent dexterity for the protection. That's a gorgeous anvil. Make sure you don't sharpen the tip of the horn, the reason it's flattened is because the last guy to use it got sick of it stabbing him in the thigh. Great find! E: Protip: Never forget that you're wearing your filthy oil-and-coal-dust work gloves when you wife kisses you and you ever so briefly and lightly touch her sides while she is wearing her very favorite shirt. Especially when said shirt is from a clearance rack in a now-discontinued color and cannot be replaced, even by going to the manufacturer's website. Learn from my mistake. Don't do this. Uncle Enzo fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jun 26, 2013 |
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Jun 26, 2013 16:29
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Well, I finally got all my oxy/ace torch stuff in order, sorta. Things I started the week with: empty O/A tanks regulators, hoses, Airco series 800 torch handle, Airco cutting attachment for it, #2 and #6 cutting tips (series 144-2 and 159-6, the 144-2 works in the torch, I'm not sure the 159-6 fits) Oxweld #2A and #9 welding/brazing tips w/ gas mixers, neither of which fit my Airco. They came free with the pile of stuff I got so I didn't really argue, especially as I had no idea they didn't fit when I got it. (everything above - plus the tanks were full at the time - and a striker, regulator nut wrench, tank cart, etc was $250 off craigslist!) Things I discovered: My oxweld brazing/welding tips do not fit an airco 800 series. At all. You cannot braze with a cutting torch (fortunately I discovered this by reading before trying it) So today I did a grand tour of the welding and tool supply shops of the greater Worcester area and ended up buying a Harris model 85 torch, model D-85 gas mixer, and #1 brazing/welding tip for a whopping $50 combined in great condition at The Tool Shed in Worcester. I had a spare/scrap part of exactly the same kind I'll be using in my first actual brazing project, so I figured I should practice on it. Here's the results:   (click for big) Not bad for a first try I guess. It could be cleaner, but it's all getting ground down till it's just an extension of the steel plate it's brazed onto the edge of anyways. kastein fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Jun 27, 2013 |
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Jun 27, 2013 02:27
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kastein posted:You cannot braze with a cutting torch (fortunately I discovered this by reading before trying it) You can braze with a cutting torch, I've done it. Depends on the brazing alloy (I typically do silver brazing alloy) and the size of the work piece. Your best friend, whether cutting, brazing, or welding, is a huge selection of various tip sizes. You will use the smaller ones alot more then the larger ones.
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Jun 27, 2013 04:07
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kastein posted:Well, I finally got all my oxy/ace torch stuff in order, sorta. Nice work for a first time, but your welding experience helped that a lot! By the looks of it, your heat was good and you weren't overheating it, so kudos!. One recommendation I will make is to get a shade 5 full face shield from wherever you buy your safety stuff (I dont think HF sells them.) I use one for 90% of my torch work and I love it because is more comfortable than goggles, it reflects a lot of heat away from your face so you don't have as much sweat running into your eyes, and you can flip it just like a welding hood.
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Jun 27, 2013 04:14
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Yeah, between the 18 years of PCB/electronics/art/sweat soldering experience and ~4-5 years of hobby and semi-pro welding, it really wasn't that hard to pick up. I suspect I overheated it at one point since it did start to bubble and spatter, and I'm sure I got some flux inclusions, but all in all it wasn't bad. I really like being able to easily melt only part of it and sorta sculpt the metal with the flame (at some points I had to push it uphill with the flame to keep it from dripping off while adding braze to the side of the vertical stack) which is something you really can't do with solder, it's just too runny when it's molten. Oh, and just the fact that it's gold colored makes it look awesome compared to solder. I did that with no goggles because my goggles had a completely pooched strap, and they were just pissing me off more than they were actually doing anything. I'm going to have to check how much a full-face shade 5 would cost, I don't see myself doing a lot of brazing but if it's cheap enough I'll definitely pick one up.
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Jun 27, 2013 04:36
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| # ? May 23, 2024 10:56 |
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You can get shade 5 safety glasses, and use a clear shield over that, as well. Cheaper route. If you can't find any shide 5 glasses, send me a PM and I'll hook you up. I can buy them 3 blocks from my house.
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Jun 27, 2013 05:05
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