Rutterbush

Handbook - Welding Techniques This says it so much better than I can Handbook - Weld Defects

irnsrgn, You've touched a nerve. ..."That flux is hard to weld over and besides the flux is actually what holds the stuff together anyway its a lot smoother than the weld under it, so if it looks better it must be stronger"... I hate being on the road anywhere near a home made trailer. Most of those who DIY purchase a cheap machine and the salesperson points them toward the E-6013. Good rod if used properly. I've recently seen trailers upside down and busted apart on the median and shoulder of the road. I could write all day of new impatient students who enroll to build a trailer. Thier, I need it NOW and I'm paying to rent the equipment and have you do it, attitude pays no heed to my you need to learn to weld first response. As I said, You've touched a nerve. Glenn, Welding electrodes should be used as irnsrgn indicates. Electrodes should be run at the lowest possible amperage to get a good weld. This is defined as the lower end of the manufacturers amperage guide. If the guide lines say this electrode should weld with 90 to 100 amps, then try 95 amps. Can you make a sound weld with 94 amps? Can you make a sound weld with 93 amps. When an amperage is found that will not allow a sound weld to be made, then turn the amperage up one or two or?. When a weld is made the base metal has a heat affected zone (HAZ). I'll compare it to a hardened edge on a Japanese sword. When welding the heat makes the grain of the base metal grow. The further from the weld the smaller the grain. If the weld is ground out, band sawed or cut with anything which doesn't bring the base metal up to normalizing heat, then the HAZ is still there. Effectively you are welding on the area which has grain growth and a possibility of cracking. BUT making the weld could bring this area up to a normalizing heat. Think of that Japanese sword. If the sword were heated to 400

I've four dogs. One blind Dachshund, one Dachshund who thinks she is Queen till someone, some dog or a stick that she steps on threatens her, one Beagle who will give you the key if you have food or anything she can swallow and a crippled Pit Bull mix. I'm on the job when the exterminator arrives at the house. The dogs are put in their kennel. The wife unlocks my shop for the exterminator. Several weeks later I discover a portable bandsaw and my hammer drill with hundreds of dollars worth of masonry bits are all missing. The crackhead hired by the exterminator company had taken it. I have his name on the invoice. No I did not go looking for him. Yes, I would have shot the man. No, I would not have beat him with my fist. He is a CRACKHEAD. I could get some sort of disease. He had taken the tools that I use to make extra money. He is still alive and I am not in prison. I simply took the loss and several months to calm down. It doesn't take someone breaking in to steal from you. Now no one gets the door to my shop unlocked for them unless they carry my fat self across the threshold. If the thief arrives at night the motion sensor trips the light in Big Ugly's (the dog) kennel and she races, as best a crippled dog can, out to the shop to investigate. The sight of a slobbering Pit Bull mix drunkenly weaving her way toward the shop keeps it theft free. Does that antique law cover wheel locks or rail guns?

Thomas Dean, You mean that I'm not the only "crusty old welder" (C.O.W.) who has sharpened a tungsten with a torch? First time I saw that Chem-sharp was at an AWS convention in Hotlanta way back in 1986. I've never used or seen any more since. I did take a pocket full of the sample cans home. I gave them out to other welders who had never seen anything like it. That was kinda like taking a sample of magic back to them. Oh, yeah. Sharpening a tungsten with a torch will leave an oxide coating on the tungsten. Don't let the inspector catch you doing that.

To have a perfect ground tip on a tungsten as the manufacturers will recommend: 1-Grind longitudinally- so stated by others before me. All good information. Tungsten electrodes are manufactured with the molecular "grain" running end to end, or so one manufacturer has claimed. You grind against the grain if rolled around the grinding wheel at a 90

If the well heads are being welded to code, API 1104, then there is a welder who is not in compliance. At least, not the code I'm reading. The whole point of welding is to make two, or sometimes more, separate pieces of metal into one. However, there is a consideration to everything, such as, WHY? 1-Is the weld metal of the cap/cover too low and there is a need to fill it up? The weld should be a maximum of 1/8" above the base metal. 2-Is the completed weld leaving the edges of the bevel exposed and not part of the weld? An inspector would interpret this as lack of fusion or under fill. The weld should be 1/64" over, or past, the top edge of the bevel on each side. There's an old saying that the cover pass should be a "Dime high and nickel wide". As for tempering a weld? There is Pre/Post Weld Heat Treatment.

The latest ABANA- Anvils Ring has pictures of tomahawks made using gun barrels. Want to part with some of your barrels? Cool knife. What made you think to use a gun barrel?

I didn't intend any corrections to anyone's post. Sorry if it read that way. I was only making comment. Short version of grinding marks left on the weld when grinding is complete, the marks, or scratches, should run with the direction of welding or longitudinally. Hillbillysmith shows a good example in post #3.

Unless a sharp edge is left, or a thin spot, nothing may ever happen on a stationary piece. Put that same weld on a front end loader or something huge that may have cyclical movement and it could be disasterous. It usually depends on the use. An example that comes to mind, some welding procedure specifications for code welding require grinding the weld to a certain conture on the face of a fillet weld. This procedure may or may not specify the final surface finish. Ornamental iron only needs to look good and keep the kids from breaking the weld and you from meeting their lawyer. Of course, there's that part about keeping rain out of the tube stuff. Again, it depends on what the end result needs to accomplish. In the very large picture, way out in right field, any scratch on metal could be a potential crack. With this said the direction of grinding would be suggested that the grinding scratches should be toward the direction of possible bending. This way the scratch lines will bend with the metal. Hold your hand palm out. Bend your hand as if to hold a hammer handle. The fingers curl around easily and do not seperate. If the grinding scratches go transverse or across the potential direction of bending the scratches will tend to stretch and open. Hold your hand palm out. Put the end of the hammer handle in the palm of your hand and attempt to wrap your fingers around the end of the handle without spreading or bending the fingers. Clear as mud?

You ground the rust away from the top of the table. Did you place the grounding clamp with the jaw that has the cable bolted to it on the cleaned area or on the underside where it did not get clean? If it's a brass grounding clamp is the jaw of the clamp that has "this side up" attached to the clean area? This is also the side that the cable bolts into. If it's a brass clamp is the contact surface clean or does it have arc marks and burned places on it? Does the cleaned table and the clean (no paint, rust, slag, etc.) item being welded do OK for a while before starting to have problems while welding? Slag and spatter between the item being welded and the table will act like insulation. Even with a shiny table top the item to be welded can start to vibrate while welding. Amazing as it sounds, the contact point between table and item to be welded will heat up. The metal will expand and move in this tiny area. An arc will be observed as the metals move and when they move far enough the arc is extinguished. Metals move back together and it repeats. This can happen in rapid succession when tig welding and the item being welded starts to vibrate like a door bell without the ding dong. The electrode holder has been cleaned. Does the electrode fit tightly? When a ganged or multiple welding machine is used there is usually no problems with the arc knowing which weldor to go to or how to complete a circuit. Most all of them have a GPS now days. Big toothy grin!

I have nothing to add after Thomas Powers speaks, except that he is usually correct. Just to back that up, I did contact a place here in the upstate of South Carolina. They use loads of these things and I was informed that the tines are 4140.

Grace Fuel was stocking the Blue Gym coal. It's rather smoky, but a very good smithing coal. I've got about a half ton of it left at Blue Ridge Community College in Hendersonville, NC. I would use it all of the time if I didn't get complaints and literally have people pull the fire alarm.

I had written half a page about tungsten's brittleness when I realized that I don't know in what applications tungsten is capable of being used. May be that it can bend and I didn't know it. The only bending of tungsten that I've witnessed is when a student sticks one while welding and attempts to break it loose. I did the Google thingy and the first page I looked at confirmed that I need to update my knowledge core on a few subjects. That page shows a spool of tungsten wire. I have often explained to my welding students that although I am showing them how to accomplish something one way there are multitudes of other ideas. Great question Glenn. Thank you to Joe H for forcing me into research mode. Yea, I know about the Thanks button.

(((make it WELD (not just stick)??))) I may be taking this way too literally, but the short answer is NO. If you get the steel hot enough to *weld* the brass will probably be long gone. Brass will adhere to the surface of the steel. Minute scratches and surface blemishes allow the brass a better grip, but it won't weld or mix in a homogeneous blend. That's according to the way I interpret the question. Like I said, I tend to take some things way too literally.

I like to read the things people have to say about certain welding strategies and experiences. Most times people that do this stuff on a regular basis are pretty knowledgeable. I have to follow several welding codes pretty close so that I can train students for area employers. Sometimes I have to re-certify experienced weldors. The code books that I have to be familiar with have parameters and guidelines. The guideline for welding in the cold is when the ambient temperature gets to 0

I just want to know how I'm supposed to keep my balance while tapping on the anvil? The anvil face is slick and I tend to fall off.

AR wear plate is Abrasion Resistant. AR 400 is used around concrete plants ALOT. I have had way too much dealings with that. Sorry, I can't comment on the metallurgy of this material. Only guessing I'd say it has some manganese content.

I'm just passing along a little of the technical stuff. A perfectly pointed tungsten is ground with the marks running longitudal to the axis of the tungsten. Toward tthe point. This helps to stabilize the arc so that it won't wander and dance around. These grinding marks will also have a slight twist sort of like the grooves in a rifle barrel. These also help to focus the gas into the weld area. Transverse grinding around the tungsten will work sort of like the terraces a farmer will cut into a hillside to slow the rain water and keep it from washing the dirt away. A perfect tungsten point will be finished with 400 grit grinding/sanding. The very point of the tungsten should be ground flat to about 1/64" diameter. Doesn't matter what diameter tungsten. This eliminates the tiny wire point and helps stabilize the arc. Think of a tiny spark plug. A belt sander is a dangerous sharpening devise for tungsten. The connection joint where the belt is spliced can catch the tungsten and push it through a hand (I've seen this) or shatter the tungsten like shrapnel (seen this also). The tungsten has a danger potential when holding the end up to be sharpened. If using a belt sander point the end down so that the connection joint on the belt will slide past and not catch. Of course, if you stop by the home shop you'll find me doing it my way, but on the job I ask for nothing less than perfection.