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Friend gave me a press frame


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Hi. One of my friends is downsizing, and he gave me a press frame. I can make a hydraulic jack press with this frame. He welded it out of 3/16" structural steel with a 120V flux core wire welder, and the welds do not look good. I have found that even lousy looking MIG welds can be surprisingly strong, however, and he assured me that he has used it a lot and it is safe.

My plan is to grind the bad looking welds out and re-weld them with a stick welder. Unfortunately, I am not very good at welding (no good practice or training) and it might be better to leave well enough alone. I have stayed away from structural or vehicle welding, and have only had one mission critical weld let go. It failed the way those kinds of welds do, slowly and gently, with plenty of time to get out of the way :o

Here are some photos. The first two are original welds, the next is one original weld ground out, and the last two are my welds. Should I go for it, or leave well enough alone? Structural calculations suggest that the welds are not the weak point, and the press will fail first by deflection of one of the cross members.

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I am not trying to be ugly but I would not even consider using a press with welds like that on it. You are vary lucky that structural welds you have made in the past have failed slowly. But under the loads many presses take that thing could fail catastrophically and really injurer you.

I would not try and use a 120v flux core welder to weld up anything under pressure or that could be dangerous if it broke apart. Ive seen one to many trailers that have broken in half on the highway that were poorly welded or undersized material was used for the frame.

Consider having the frame professionally welded up, and inspected by some one that works with equipment like this for a living. I just don't want to hear about anyone getting injured.

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Don't be afraid to reweld it. You have to learn sometime and you can not do a worse job than what is allready there. Normally I would suggest E-7018 for this repair but for you try a 1/8" dia. E-7024 rod. Keep it in the flat positon. It is a very easy rod to run. Practice a bit first, then go for it! Good luck!

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I'M surprised he did THAT well with a 120v WSO !.........I wouldn't weld anything thicker than 3/32 with one of those.......things. Evfreek is spot on, those welds need to be bomb proof........Are the holes needed for bolts? If so the welds shouldn't be under the head or nut, rather cut in deep so they don't interfere with each other.
If you can't weld it find someone who can, practice your welding on something less critical........
Make sure you don't use a bigger jack than the one originally used or you'll likely turn the frame into scrap.

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120v welders can run multipass beads acceptably well, you will have to prep between passes appropriately. If you make ugly welds you may be grinding out much of your previous pass so it is going to take a lot of time with that little machine to get a good buildup of good weld.

You may want to practice on some plate before welding the frame.

1/8 inch rod is going to be big for the machine to get good penetration though, so see if you can go down a 32nd to 3/32.

Phil

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Judging from the amount of undercut, you have plenty of heat for penetration. 7018 would be preffered, but 6011 will work. Whatever rod you use, you will need 3 passes. The first pass or root pass should be centered half on each of the base metals. From the photos, I say that your heat is too high, even for a root pass. The vertical section shows severe undercutting, particularly troublesome in a tension member, which is what press sides are. You may have the heat set so high because your rods are damp. Put the in your kitchen oven at 200 degrees for an hour be fore using.

The second pass should extend on the lower base metal, and half way up the root pass. The third pass should sart at the top of the second pass and extend onto the upper base metal. If you still have undercutting, make more weld passes till it is all filled, have adjusted the heat slowly downward first, of course.

The best thing you can do is weld this press up and in the process learn to stick weld...one of the handiest skills a metalworker can have.
As you progress, take closeup pictures, as you did, and post them here, we will help you learn that way.

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120v welders can run multipass beads acceptably well, you will have to prep between passes appropriately.

I was referring to mig machines. I have a 220/110v tig/stick welder that does pretty good with 1/8- 110v, multiple pass welding. In my opinion 110/115/120v mig welders aren't worth spit for doing what we do, a sheet metal shop ok.......:)
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My Dad's Hobart 140 welds 1/4 inch rather darn well with flux core in 1 pass (20% duty cycle though) and welds thicker with multi-pass as well. It is a 120V mig machine.

About 30 some years ago a guy brought one in my shop to demo.......I saw what it could do, or rather couldn't.......I told him I wouldn't take it for nothing and that set the tone for my long running prejudice of 110v migs.........They've gotten a heck of allot better, but I still hate em...:lol:
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About 30 some years ago a guy brought one in my shop to demo.......I saw what it could do, or rather couldn't.......I told him I wouldn't take it for nothing. That set the tone for my long running prejudice of 110v migs.........They've gotten a heck of allot better, but I still hate em...:lol:


That's different.

The lower powered machines still have limitations and many are not nearly as good as others. Miller and Hobart (a division of Miller) currently have solid, good performing 120V mig machines. I know what they are capable of, and what they are limited by from people I know who use them and experience with my Dad's machine.

My wife gave me permission to buy a Hobart 140 (when I can save the money up from my hobby allowance :huh:) because the wire (not including installation) costs about the same as the new machine to wire the garage for 50A 220V service.

Phil
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Phil,

I don't want to pee on the parade but 50A 220V is a lot of power. You need only about 7A 220v for a 200A stick/tig dc inverter wich is plenty more than the 140. I'm not sure about in your market but here about $200 all in.

Maybe Grant should add them to his line?(Another string to a fine violin?) :)

Ian

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The run is 125 feet! (38 meter) the cable run is also inside the house to an attached garage, so it puts me in a more expensive cable (#6 copper IIRC). All I know for sure is the specifications on a similar machine to what I had, what I wanted, and what my book said I was supposed to install, and what the store wanted for the wire. It also turn out that I require a sub-panel in the basement for the 220V circuit since my main panel is full. The price of installing a 50A outlet in the garage just keeps going up for me!

I do have a dedicated 120v 20a circuit to the garage already in place. There are only 2 outlets on the circuit.

Phil

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Hi fellas. Thanks for all the suggestions. The welder that I am using is a 220 V Miller Thunderbolt. I have been having trouble with the welds between the cross member and the verticals because of the large gap between the beveled square tubing and the plate. I think that the gap just needs to be filled. As observed, there is too much undercut, so I should back off on the heat. I tried baking the rods as suggested. They are "free" garage sale rods.

Also, I did a safe loading calculation on the top cross-member. It is 4500 lbs. So, the frame, as it stands, is only good for a 2 ton jack. With even a couple good inches of weld, this should hold.

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That's different.

The lower powered machines still have limitations and many are not nearly as good as others. Miller and Hobart (a division of Miller) currently have solid, good performing 120V mig machines. I know what they are capable of, and what they are limited by from people I know who use them and experience with my Dad's machine.

My wife gave me permission to buy a Hobart 140 (when I can save the money up from my hobby allowance :huh:) because the wire (not including installation) costs about the same as the new machine to wire the garage for 50A 220V service.

Phil
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When I think of welding presses I think power and penetration and you don't need a 50a 220v mig to do that........120v 20a migs fall short in my opinion, I'm not saying it can't be done, esp. with 3/16 plate. I just don't see how the cost of a 220v 30a machine and wiring is that prohibitive. I run my 220v 30a Lincoln 175 on 12/3 12ga wire,and it has%. You need 12/3 anyway to run a 140.
the cost of a Hobart 140 list is $666.............A Hobart 175 is $896........$230 more. And for that you get the power you need for this trade. I've seen ''buyers remorse'' more than once when guys need more than the 120v machine will handle. Try and weedle a little more ''permission'', you won't regret it.........At least in the long term...........:D

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Back to the press. Since two tons is a bit short of your desired capacity, why not look into beefing the cross members up to increase the press capacity ? That would probably be worth the effort. Figure out what the side columns and welds will hold and reinforce the top accordingly. Maybe you could even make one of those HF air powered presses out of this frame.

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Hi. I made two modifications to the weld technique. First, realizing that the chamfer on the sides of the rectangular tubing made a difficult to fill gap, the frame was angled so that the presentation was more horizontal than a fillet weld. This helped it fill better. Second picture shows that baking the rods did help. These were rods thrown in with a box of stuff at a garage sale. Normally, I don't buy rods like this, but if they're thrown in, one may as well use them.

This press just landed on me as a temporary gift. I think my friend's wife told him to get it out of there. He said he might ask for it back, so I should not do too much hacking on it.

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Hi. I made two modifications to the weld technique. First, realizing that the chamfer on the sides of the rectangular tubing made a difficult to fill gap, the frame was angled so that the presentation was more horizontal than a fillet weld. This helped it fill better. Second picture shows that baking the rods did help. These were rods thrown in with a box of stuff at a garage sale. Normally, I don't buy rods like this, but if they're thrown in, one may as well use them.

This press just landed on me as a temporary gift. I think my friend's wife told him to get it out of there. He said he might ask for it back, so I should not do too much hacking on it.



Hack away. It is worth it for the practice you are getting. The last picture looks real good.
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