|
Motronic posted:That's almost 10k watts, so you're looking at a $2000 generator on the cheap end (homeowner line Generac). The pro line stuff is going to be more like $3k which would be highly advisable for something that's going to be drawing nearly full capacity so frequently. And you're talking about a 300 lb genset. It also wouldn't be a bad idea to look into 15k models so you have some overhead. How'd you get 10K watts? According to the Amazon page it'll do a max 27 volts @ 185 amps. That's closer to 5000 watts?
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2013 21:40
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 12:33 |
|
|
kafkasgoldfish posted:How'd you get 10K watts? According to the Amazon page it'll do a max 27 volts @ 185 amps. That's closer to 5000 watts? That's output. He said it DRAWS 34 amps. At 240 volts that's 8160 watts. Pad for startup inrush. You're at 10k.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2013 23:19
|
|
|
Duck Hunt, Skip the generator and just get an engine driven welder, you'll be much happier. You can probably find a used one cheaper then a new generator, plus you can use welders to generate power.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2013 01:40
|
|
|
AbsentMindedWelder posted:Duck Hunt, I've thought about that and decided it is not the may I want to go. Engine driven welders are really nice, no doubt, but they are huge. I could sell my inverter and almost have enough money for a decent engine welder. The trouble is, once they go in the truck, they pretty much have stay there. The reason why a generator appeals is that I can run plasma on it too. The other option is just to keep leaving rentals behind with 220v wiring. Oh, and thanks for the input everyone.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2013 01:34
|
|
|
Blacksmiths, what is the best way for an amateur metal worker to bend/form metal? I have a cutting torch with a rosebud attachment using acetylene. I am trying to twist, and flatten some railroad spikes. I've used the rosebud to form one into a simple coat hook, but it seems like the rosebud isn't doing enough to heat through to the center to twist the whole thing. Am I just not being patient enough or should I turn up the acetylene to get more heat? This is the image that I have in my head.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2013 21:30
|
|
|
Motronic posted:That's output. Inrush current of an incandescent load is super high but I would assume they use some sort of current limiting resistor on start up.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2013 01:25
|
|
|
My mother's anglin' to throw out some steel n aluminium cookware because it's pitted and discoloured; perfectly functional stuff, it's just been through the dishwasher or whatever one too many times and looks ugly. That's a bad reason, imo. Is there any reason- if the stuff doesn't have any external coatings, which they don't seem to- I can't just throw 'em on the buffing wheel?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2013 21:54
|
|
|
Try Bar Keeper's Friend on stainless steel stuff. It is amazing at removing discoloration. Edit: Don't actually buy it from Amazon, it is a lot cheaper elsewhere.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2013 02:04
|
|
|
Ambrose Burnside posted:My mother's anglin' to throw out some steel n aluminium cookware because it's pitted and discoloured; perfectly functional stuff, it's just been through the dishwasher or whatever one too many times and looks ugly. That's a bad reason, imo. Is there any reason- if the stuff doesn't have any external coatings, which they don't seem to- I can't just throw 'em on the buffing wheel? The stainless *may* have been passified, which involves dipping it in nitric/fluoridric acid paste or electropolishing. Removing any significant amount of material will remove the passivised layer and increase the amount of metals leached into cooked food. *However* stainless steel is generally food-safe even without passivisation, and the amount of leached metals will be tiny anyway, so it's probably not even worth considering. If you want to be sure, take the pots to an electropolishing place and a few minutes in the dip will restore the passive layer; you may very well be improving the pots beyond what the manufacturer did. Similarly, the aluminum pots may have been passified by anodization, and you may have to reanodize after cleaning. Then again, maybe they weren't, and you don't. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2013 03:05
|
|
|
I cant speak to the stainless but the aluminum, even if anodized, won't matter. All annodizing is is making a thicker layer of the oxide it already forms instantly on contact with air. When I say thicker I mean 0.0005" thick instead of 0.0001" thick. Go ahead and polish it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2013 05:04
|
|
|
ductonius posted:The stainless *may* have been passified, which involves dipping it in nitric/fluoridric acid paste or electropolishing. Removing any significant amount of material will remove the passivised layer and increase the amount of metals leached into cooked food. *However* stainless steel is generally food-safe even without passivisation, and the amount of leached metals will be tiny anyway, so it's probably not even worth considering. If you want to be sure, take the pots to an electropolishing place and a few minutes in the dip will restore the passive layer; you may very well be improving the pots beyond what the manufacturer did. for what its worth the term is passivated/passivation, not passified or passivisation
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2013 20:07
|
|
|
I have a Vw camper from 1980 that I am doing up. It's rusty to hell and welding was already one to learn list. My issue is that I currently have a arc welder and it's not suitable and a friend has said I can borrow his gasless mig. Is it worth learning mig on one of these? He said it can be used as a normal mig with some small gas bottles but I am not sure what he means! Helps goons I need to make puddles!
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2013 20:41
|
|
|
Well you are the gas man, you tell us
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2013 01:07
|
|
|
ductonius posted:The stainless *may* have been passified, which involves dipping it in nitric/fluoridric acid paste or electropolishing. Removing any significant amount of material will remove the passivised layer and increase the amount of metals leached into cooked food. *However* stainless steel is generally food-safe even without passivisation, and the amount of leached metals will be tiny anyway, so it's probably not even worth considering. If you want to be sure, take the pots to an electropolishing place and a few minutes in the dip will restore the passive layer; you may very well be improving the pots beyond what the manufacturer did. It's going to end up passivated regardless because stainless steel in an oxygen environment is always passivated. Nitric acid dipping makes for a more chromium-rich layer, but that isn't even relevant when it's cookware. If you clean stainless steel and let it sit around for a couple seconds, congratulations it's passivated. The way to go about it is to clean it all extremely well with oxalic acid (barkeepers friend) and a non-metallic scrubby and then dry it off. If it's going to be buffed, it just needs to be a non metallic (or stainless steel) buffing wheel that has only ever been used on stainless steel. thegasman2000 posted:I have a Vw camper from 1980 that I am doing up. It's rusty to hell and welding was already one to learn list. My issue is that I currently have a arc welder and it's not suitable and a friend has said I can borrow his gasless mig. Is it worth learning mig on one of these? MIG without gas isn't MIG, it's FCAW (or flux core). It's a perfectly fine way to weld, but it's not exactly ideal for bodywork. It'll work with practice, but picking up a bottle of 75/25 Argon/C02 and possibly the MIG gun kit (flux core doesn't use shielding gas and the welders sometimes don't come with the right gear for the gun to use gas) shouldn't be terribly expensive and it's worth the trouble. Hypnolobster fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Oct 30, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2013 01:21
|
|
|
To hammer in the point, flux core wire is generally thicker than mig because the flux is in the middle (?) of the actual wire. The thinnest gauge wire is still just too thick of an electrode to do autobody sheet steel, e.g. too much heat/too much puddle will burn right thru thin gauge steel. You can sometimes stitch weld (basically spot welding alternating spots), but the steel on your 80s buggy is probably too thin to even do that. With this info in mind, take it from my experience and just get a whatever size tank of ArCO2 and thin gauge mig wire.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2013 02:16
|
|
|
thegasman2000 posted:I have a Vw camper from 1980 that I am doing up. It's rusty to hell and welding was already one to learn list. My issue is that I currently have a arc welder and it's not suitable and a friend has said I can borrow his gasless mig. Is it worth learning mig on one of these? I just learned to weld this summer on both mig and flux core. In my opinion mig welding is hands down a much easier and cleaner way to weld. Not to mention I feel I have more control with the mig. A small bottle of CO2/Ar wont run you too much money and is worth the investment. Plus, if you already know how to arc weld, mig will be substantially easier to do. It's basically pulling the trigger and dragging the stinger.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2013 04:17
|
|
|
jvick posted:mig welding is hands down a much easier and cleaner way to weld. Spoken like someone who's never tried a TIG  I can't deny that MIG is like fifty times faster, but ugh you just get so spoiled by those shiny little bubbles of metal and the sheer precision of the tungsten arc. Everything else just seems so brutish in comparison. It's an elegant weld for a more civilized age. On that note, I just tried lanthanated electrodes for the first time a couple weeks ago and it's blowing my mind. You mean you can have the arc control of a sharpened electrode...while doing AC?  My aluminum welds are going to look so good
Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Oct 30, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2013 04:23
|
|
|
Sagebrush posted:Spoken like someone who's never tried a TIG Correct, and the way Tig was described to me was "imagine arc and mig having hot steamy sex". Learning it is on my Winter to-do list.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2013 05:30
|
|
|
nobody loves oxy-acetylene welding 
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2013 06:21
|
|
|
I have no particular problem with oxyacetylene welding. It's the same technique as TIG and makes the same lovely shiny welds, except TIG is a hell of a lot faster and you don't need to go to the gas place as often. Plus, acetylene kind of scares me in principle. Nasty squat little containers just waiting to blow themselves up.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2013 06:32
|
|
|
I use acetylene all day, every day at work. Love it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2013 11:25
|
|
|
jvick posted:I just learned to weld this summer on both mig and flux core. In my opinion mig welding is hands down a much easier and cleaner way to weld. Not to mention I feel I have more control with the mig. A small bottle of CO2/Ar wont run you too much money and is worth the investment. The beauty of FCAW is outdoor welding. You got a busted plow frame/tractor part/fence bracket and it's windy and lovely out? Flux core will do it. It's dirty and splattery, but it works. It also allows you to weld thicknesses that your little poo poo 120v welder has no business being able to do. That being said, GMAW/MIG is absolutely going to be worth the minimal additional expense for bodywork.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2013 15:44
|
|
|
Agreed. I've done everything from rust pockmarked sheetmetal to a right angle joint between a piece of 1" plate and 1/4" rectangular tubing with 35 thou FCAW wire in a 120V/100A welder. The sheetmetal was NOT pretty (I really should have changed out for 23 thou wire or gotten the MIG out) and the 1" plate to 1/4" tubing took a looooooong time and probably didn't get the penetration I would have wanted, but they both worked and have stood the test of time. Fluxcore is great when you're working outside, need to exceed the limits most people would set for the welder you have (I do lap and butt joints on 1/4" with 100A all the time - bevel the poo poo out of it, crank the machine to 11 and work slow is the name of the game), or don't really care what it looks like. That being said you can actually produce some nice welds with fluxcore and practice (I've posted this in this thread before, but here it is again):  Certainly not MIG/TIG grade pretty, but I've seen factory truck frames with much much uglier, worse penetration MIG welds than that. That's 1/4" wall tube and 3/16" plate, two passes with 100 amps and 35 thou fluxcore wire. First pass was just dragged along, second pass I worked slow and ran a C pattern back and forth to cover the previous pass and penetrate into the base metal a bit better, since weaving back and forth effectively keeps the puddle moving slower and concentrates more heat into one spot. Plus I think one large C pattern bead looks better than two smaller beads laid over the previous one, though that's personal opinion. On the other hand trying to get slag and spatter out of the inside of a box corner without using a needle scaler (and pecking the poo poo out of the metal) sucks and makes me wish I used the MIG. Reminds me, I really need to get my big MIG machine going now... snapon YA212, 230 amps at 60% duty cycle. Pretty sure I'll be able to melt holes through 1/4" plate by accident. kastein fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Oct 30, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2013 16:03
|
|
|
thegasman2000 posted:I have a Vw camper from 1980 that I am doing up. It's rusty to hell and welding was already one to learn list. My issue is that I currently have a arc welder and it's not suitable and a friend has said I can borrow his gasless mig. Is it worth learning mig on one of these? What happened to the delta? for thinner stuff Tig is definitely my favourite process to use, it's not quick and it needs clean surfaces but it is controlable. Depending what quality of work you want to do mig is nice and easy to pick up, I'd stay away from the gasless stuff though as you've already got a stick welder and could probably just use that for the thicker stuff.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2013 21:39
|
|
|
Sagebrush posted:I have no particular problem with oxyacetylene welding. It's the same technique as TIG and makes the same lovely shiny welds, except TIG is a hell of a lot faster and you don't need to go to the gas place as often. I must have had a faulty valve because I stopped twisting the acetylene valve at 8 psi and when I looked back it ticked to 15. I calmly twisted it back, released the pressure in the hose while waiting to die and burn my house down. Phew.
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2013 04:26
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrz-E_QuM3E I mean, think of how much steel you could cut through with all the gas in a full tank, and then think how much energy you're applying to melt all that steel, and then realize that all that energy is always there inside the tank just waiting to get out. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2013 04:34
|
|
|
http://www.popsci.com/article/techn...y-water-as-fuel Company is testing a new torch that uses water and electricity to make flames for soldering/brazing/welding. Looks nice.
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2013 11:28
|
|
|
Thanks for the input. I have a loaner gas/gasless mig. It takes the small hobby gas bottles. Can you get an adapter to a big bottle?
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2013 11:31
|
|
|
Brekelefuw posted:http://www.popsci.com/article/techn...y-water-as-fuel That's not really a new technology, unless they're doing something especially novel; oxyhydrogen was -the- very first gas welding fuel, and maintained a small market in portable + special-application water-torch units after other welding technologies took over, right to the present day. Jewellers use them sometimes because it lets you do hotwork in places that, say, compressed gas/fuel tanks are forbidden in. I actually tried making one myself as a proof-of-concept thing a while back but it didn't generate nearly enough gas to sustain a flame, needed a much bigger electrolysis chamber. Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Oct 31, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2013 17:47
|
|
|
http://faramforge.tumblr.com Blog of a cool blacksmith/metal worker, I am commissioning some of his cool shovel bottle openers as family gifts.
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2013 19:50
|
|
|
Ambrose Burnside posted:That's not really a new technology, unless they're doing something especially novel; oxyhydrogen was -the- very first gas welding fuel, and maintained a small market in portable + special-application water-torch units after other welding technologies took over, right to the present day. We actually maintain an oxyhydrogen setup just for welding and flame-polishing plastics, because with the only burn product being water, it doesn't leave any soot behind. We use bottled gas, though, not an electrolyis setup. It's a pretty hot flame and will weld/cut thin steel just fine. I don't know that you'd want to, what with hydrogen embrittlement and all, but I'd guess that as long as you keep it on a neutral or slightly oxidizing flame you'd be okay?
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2013 02:39
|
|
|
So i have a french press coffee maker that im sentimentally attached to and it lost this little screw on clampy thing. SO I MADE A NEW ONE OUT OF BRASS ROD!! I am inordinately proud of this lovely little thing i made on the lathe:   and here it is, holdin my poo poo together:  BAM
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2013 04:40
|
|
|
gonna make all kindsa coffee and poo poo now
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2013 04:43
|
|
|
I love machining brass, it always looks so pretty. If that's something you have to take apart often, a little chamfer at the start of the threads will make them last a lot longer.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2013 04:56
|
|
|
ooo, good tip, thanks. man, the lathe is like so much more fun than the mill. I dont really know what it is, but it totally is. the mill is cool and everything dont get me wrong but i think the lathe is where its at.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2013 05:09
|
|
|
That looks good. Did you make it on your Taig? I want a lathe so freaking bad but the Taig is too drat tiny and I don't have the room or coin to get anything of decent size.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2013 05:09
|
|
|
fps_bill posted:That looks good. Did you make it on your Taig? I want a lathe so freaking bad but the Taig is too drat tiny and I don't have the room or coin to get anything of decent size. yeah, it's from the taig. I like it and everything but i'd totally wait and get a 7x12 or something: http://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=4100&category=1271799306 the biggest problem with the taig is as shipped it doesn't cut threads, and all the add-ons to do that are super janky imo. I didnt think i'd need to do that, but, well, turns out i do. thats really my only beef. well that and the way the motor connects to it is crazy ghetto. But hey, shipped plus a decent set of tooling cost me under 500 so meh
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2013 05:13
|
|
|
This is more what I had in mind. http://www.grizzly.com/products/10-x-22-Bench-Top-Metal-Lathe/G0602 But like I said I don't have a place to put the drat thing.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2013 05:30
|
|
|
maybe think about the taig then. It can seriously fit into a spot like 2 feet square.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2013 05:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 12:33 |
|
|
Manual thread cutting is annoying anyway. If you have a good tap and die set you can handle like 95% of situations anyway.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2013 06:55
|
|