Blacksmith Technigue applied to Weld Prep

[Borntoolate]

Many of us blacksmiths also do modern day welding. Well, as we all know weld prep usually takes much longer than the actual welding. And is critical to a good weld. I was grinding some plate to make a bevel for welding. It was slow as surface prep is but then I thought about "surface area and contact" as Brian is always preaching. So I went ahead and used my side grinder to push in (using the edge not the side of the grinder) some closely spaced divets in to the edge of the plate. This created a serated edge at the desired bevel angle. Then I came back and ground away all the high spots. So this is like drawing out. I found this put a bevel much faster. Try it.

Blacksmithing concept applied to modern day work and productiveity. PLus. Weld prep sucks and anything to make it go faster is a good thing. Lemme know how it goes.

[bigfootnampa]

I would use a flap wheel for that type of grind... much faster IME. About as coarse of grit as I can get for this sort of work.

[SmoothBore]

When grinding large, flat areas, I will often score the surface in shallow, parallel grooves, with the edge of the Angle Grinder.

This gives me a point of reference, to judge how much material is being removed, ... and it does seem to expedite the job.


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[Judson Yaggy]

Yup, I do that too on big grinding jobs. It is indeed faster.

[HWHII]

Interesting. I will try it.