Glenn

IForgeIron Blueprints Copyright 2002 - 2007 IFORGEIRON, All rights reserved BP0226 Tool Stand by Glenn Conner For this project we will need 4 steel rims from a car (most any make, model or size rim will do), 7 feet of old garden hose, 10 plus feet of 17 gauge electric fence wire, and a 55 gallon metal drum. Now that I have your attention let us get started. Gather up 4 steel rims, face them all the same direction, and weld them together. The first weld will match, but the others on each level may need a clamp to encourage them to come together. I placed 3 welds at each level but use your own judgment on this one. The 4 welded together rims should look like this when finished. If your not familiar with cutting a open a drum, have someone do it for you. No use getting a container with explosive contents or poison when you start a project. Boom is NOT a nice noise and bring home a load of hazmet materials will not please the wife or the neighbors. Start with a 55 gallon drum that you where it came from and what it contained. Make a mark 4 inches from the end of the drum and cut along your mark. This is where a pair of gloves are recommended. The cut edge of the drum is razor sharp. (If you need to ask how I know, I will show you the scar from accidentally researching the subject.) Once you have the end off the drum, use a grinder to remove any metal slivers, and generally even up the cut line. Cut a piece of garden hose about a 6 inches longer than the circumference of the drum. With a pair of tin snips or utility knife, cut the length of the garden hose open. Put the gloves back on and place the garden hose over the cut edge of the drum and leave a bit of an overlap as shown. Mark where the bottom of the hose is on the drum. Drill a series of small holes just beyond the mark on the circumference of the drum. I use the width of 3 fingers or about 3 inches for the spacing here. The length of wire needed is about twice the circumference minus the diameter in this example. Your mileage may vary. This is 17 gauge galvanized electric fence wire cause it was handy. Lace wire through the holes to hold the garden hose to the drum. Use a pair of pliers to pull the wire snug against the hose. Trim the garden hose to length as you finish the lacing the wire. Next turn the drum over. You need to attach a piece of scrap to the bottom to keep the drum on the stand. I found a piece of scrap exhaust pipe 4 inches long and used it. Just be sure that it extends below the hole for the hub.. Check to be sure where the pan fits on the drum before you do any welding. As the bung holes did not fit over the rim exactly, the pipe was welded off center by a an inch or more. Assembly is just putting the pan on the stand. I suggest that the end of the drum with the bungs be used for the stand. The tool holder can be taken apart and easily moved when needed. A small table is next to your work area is a great deal of help. No more bending down or looking for a place to put things. The 4 inch lip is not tall enough to get in the way but still keeps things contained. The end without the bungs is a little prettier and can be used when working on a vehicle etc. Throw nuts, bolts, wrenches, etc into the pan to keep everything together and from getting lost. Once you build one, you will find many uses for the pan. View full article

IForgeIron Blueprints Copyright 2002 - 2007 IFORGEIRON, All rights reserved BP0221Welding Cast Iron by Studebaker Dave aka Dave Brooks Some times the all-around blacksmith will still be called upon to repair the neighbor's broken farm implement. This picture shows two of three broken bearing caps that I was called upon to repair and the one unbroken one of the set, for reference. The first step in a repair of this kind is to clean up the area to be welded. Grind a bevel where the weld will go, so that good penetration can be achieved. It is also necessary to grind the surface slightly in the area adjacent to the weld to prevent contamination. The surface grinding needs to be done carefully so as not to grind away too much metal. If the part needed to be held to precision tolerance, the part would have to be cleaned chemically. Next I made a jig to hold the two halves of the cap, together, in the proper position to be welded. The jig was made by drilling holes in a piece of flat bar and welding the proper size bolts in the holes. I cut the heads off the bolts to give the jig a low profile so it would fit through the door in my gas forge, and the welding was done on the bottom so I would have a flat surface on the working side without having to do any cleanup. Also I welded on a bar so I would have a handle on the jig. Here's one more view of everything, all ready to go. This shows how it all fits together with the pieces of the cap in place on the jig. You don't want to tighten the nuts too much, so it all can expand and contract without setting up stress. Cast iron is very weak at, or near, welding temperature. Next, the jig with the cap in place on it, was placed in the forge to warm up a bit. I had set the forge to run at a low heat, really not much more than an idle. Cast iron does not like thermal shock. The idea is to heat it slowly, so that it takes an even heat and bring it up to a very dull red. If some kinds of cast are over heated, their strength will be lost and the part will be brittle. Don't over heat it ! When the part has reached the point where you can just see that dull red glow, pull it out of the forge, clamp the handle in the vice which has been grounded to the welder, and get to welding before the part cools too much ! As soon as you can see the red glow disappear from the piece it's time to stop welding and use a blunt chipping hammer to peen the weld. This helps release the stress that would otherwise result from the weld contracting. I found I could get about one or two complete passes before the part would get too cool. You have to work fast. You also have to be careful not to over heat the weld. Cast iron, due to it's carbon content has a much lower melting temperature than mild steel and it's easy to over heat. Last I would wire brush the weld before putting the piece back in the forge. Because the part is only going to be heated to a dull red, there will not be much scale formed in the fire and the part will be clean enough to weld when it is pulled from the forge. The picture, above, shows one of the caps with the welding nearly complete. All that is left is to fill in the low spots. The bucket in the background is full of vermiculite which I used to place the finished pieces in, when the welding was done, so that they could cool slowly and evenly. This last photo shows one of the caps after the welding was complete and it had been rough-ground. At this point I would do a careful inspection to make sure there were no cracks. If any flaws showed up, at this point, they would be ground back out and rewelded. When all the welding was done and there were no more cracks, then the part was finish-ground and flappy-disk sanded 'till the grinding marks were gone. These caps had a rubber lining that in turn held the bearing so absolute precision, of the bores, was not necessary. More important than that was that the mating surfaces be flat so the part would not be stressed when bolted into place. The jig did an excellent job of keeping those faces in alignment. Now that you've seen an overview of cast iron welding, I'd like to add these notes: The rod I used was Lincoln ENiFeCI in 1/8 and 5/32. This stick-rod is made for cast iron welding and is not cheap, but it's made to machine easy and approximate the qualities of the cast. This rod uses much less amperage than you would use for steel rod. I used around 80 amps for the 1/8 rod and 100 amps for the 5/32. My only welder is a old Montgomery Wards AC buzz box but this rod worked well with it. The reason I used two sizes of rod is because the 1/8in was used to make the root welds. This allowed me to get full penetration without making a lot of heat. I would weld the root on one side then turn the piece over, grind out the grove on the back to remove all slag and to make sure the weld did not have cracks in the root. Then I would weld that side to completion, flip the piece one more time, then finish the side I started first. When I was all done, I would bring the whole piece up to a dull red, one more time, to equalize any stresses, then let the part cool slowly either in the forge or in vermiculite. Some folks may wonder why I didn't use a rosebud to preheat the parts. The fact is I tried, but I found it very awkward to try to work with the torch and the arc-welder at the same time. After doing just part of one piece, I could see that it would cost a fortune in gas to finish the job this way. So, I switched to my propane forge and finished the job on less moneys-worth of propane than I had already used of Ox/Ac. Plus, I was able to heat the pieces much more evenly in the forge and I believe the parts came out much better than if I had not used it. One other plus, to doing the job this way, was that I was able to work in a more relaxed manner than trying to work with a torch and arc-welder at the same time. I don't really claim to be an expert on cast iron welding but I've had a number of these little jobs crop up lately. I've used other methods on some but this was the best experience I've had so far with cast iron. Many folks are daunted by the idea of welding cast, as I used to be myself, but if a person is careful and follows the rules there is no reason, in most cases, a person can't be successful. Last, use your common sense. Don't make your first cast iron project one that will get you or someone else killed or injured if it fails! Good luck, play safe, and have fun, Studebaker Dave View full article