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A long time ago I made some tup pieces out of 4140 and decided against using them because I didn't want to preheat before welding and then anneal, though it is certainly possible. Far better that I went on to use 1018 solids and 1026 DOM tubes. Anyway those 4140 pieces are now useful to be machined down into die blanks. Kinda wasteful in one sense (scrap metal) but economical (using materials on hand). I wanted to order proper sized billets, because my time isn't free, but plain cussedness kept me at those blocks for some of the morning. I was waiting for the blustery weather to calm down anyway. When I get back from Boones I gotta make dies for the 75.
When the winds did calm down I switched to loading up for Boones' hammer-in tomorrow. And installing the new emergency brake switch and getting the turn signals working and fetching more propane and......... So now I'm ready to roll very early in the morning so that I can get into position in the limited space Boones have reserved for me before others get there.
At the welding store where I get propane I learned that Miller has a new mig machine, the 211, that appears to obsolete the 180 by being 120 & 240 volts, 3/8 steel capable, holds a 10 pound wire spool, is automatic in the sense of setting metal thickness and wire size instead of speed and voltage, and here is the icing on the cake---you can get a spool gun for aluminum for under $200 as an option, the grand total being real close to $1000. Now that is a heckofa deal. The welding store guy said he has been selling them as fast as he can get them.
When I asked about the gauge-wire size dials versus wire speed and voltage dials like is usual he said "It works!". I will have to test that someday. I got the notion that the gauge dial is not continuous but rather discrete. If it were continuous so fence straddling compromises were possible I'd be way less doubtful for steel. I long ago plotted the data from the table under the hood of my Miller 251 and know that for steel the plotted data are a linear function, but the slope and intercept shift with materials. A trivial computer control issue.
When the winds did calm down I switched to loading up for Boones' hammer-in tomorrow. And installing the new emergency brake switch and getting the turn signals working and fetching more propane and......... So now I'm ready to roll very early in the morning so that I can get into position in the limited space Boones have reserved for me before others get there.
At the welding store where I get propane I learned that Miller has a new mig machine, the 211, that appears to obsolete the 180 by being 120 & 240 volts, 3/8 steel capable, holds a 10 pound wire spool, is automatic in the sense of setting metal thickness and wire size instead of speed and voltage, and here is the icing on the cake---you can get a spool gun for aluminum for under $200 as an option, the grand total being real close to $1000. Now that is a heckofa deal. The welding store guy said he has been selling them as fast as he can get them.
When I asked about the gauge-wire size dials versus wire speed and voltage dials like is usual he said "It works!". I will have to test that someday. I got the notion that the gauge dial is not continuous but rather discrete. If it were continuous so fence straddling compromises were possible I'd be way less doubtful for steel. I long ago plotted the data from the table under the hood of my Miller 251 and know that for steel the plotted data are a linear function, but the slope and intercept shift with materials. A trivial computer control issue.
