Great welding practice

[Gamble97]

Not sure who is on the welding web forum but this topic seems to be pretty good, weld a box. Great for practice. I suggest you look through it, stick, tig, mig, oxy doesn't really matter.

Build a box - WeldingWeb™ - Welding forum for pros and enthusiasts


Anyone else have any little inexpensive projects that would be good practice?

 

[leepen]

Ill try this, this week ..thanks

 

[turboglenn]

Damn, one person in that link was carried away, he had thousands of boxes built, must have lots of spare time

ON a side note if you build a large enough and low/flat enough box, after you get it done fill the insides with paths like a maze and then put an inlet on it and a fitting to hook argon to it... Then you'll have a flat box on which you can lay stainless sheet and get argon coverage acrossthe back of it for good clean and sugar-free welds

I'll post a pic of my flat stainless purging boxthat i made some years back for jsut this purpose. I've had only a few calls for it's need in general but it's nice to know that if/when i do need it that's it's riught there under the bench

 

[Dhan]

That's a great idea! I've just been laying beads on scrap pieces of metal, but actually building something while practicing makes a lot more sense

 

[turboglenn]

That's a great idea! I've just been laying beads on scrap pieces of metal, but actually building something while practicing makes a lot more sense

I'm not sure if i thought of some of the cool little things i've made similar to what i described due to getting bored with just making the boxes or if i'm really having somegreat ideas at time but I have to say that almost 95% of all the littel tools i made back in the beggining are not only still around to this day but are well used in many cases and have come in quite handy in more than a few cases to say the least.

Just like the welding finger (large piece of 1/2" or smaller round stock cut to roughly 16 inches and then bend a 90* in it about 4 inches from one end and grind it to a point. Then take another piece of round about 8 inches long 1and bend it at 90* in the middle, weld this at the opposite end of the point and now you have something metal that has decent weight on it to hold things in place for tacking (this is a quite common piece made by weldors) but it's a handy thing to have as well.

 

[Gamble97]

^^I made a third hand but don't have anything to really weigh it down with. I will get a pic and show you.

 

[99gst_racer]

I might have to try this tomorrow. Although, I dont think I have any scrap even close to 4x4. Maybe I'll make a long, narrow rectangular box.

 

[Bo0sTdTsI]

Another inexpensive thing i can think of is a square piece about 4 by 4 or 6 by 6 dont matter, but overlapping the beads on a full plate like that helped me with coordination and good tie in. You can do it flat, horizontal, uphill or over head. 1g, 2g, 3g, and 4g positions. Then id try T joint fillet welds and other combinations of semi easy welding.

 

[99gst_racer]

I made one tonight. If I did it again, I'd use a larger (3/32) tungsten and filler. But it turned out alright and it was fun practice.

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[Gamble97]

I'm having a bi*** of a time tack welding without filler. I did learn a trick from the guy at HTP. Heat the metal a little bit then use the torch to melt the filler for a tack. It works great, downside is it still requires 2 hands.

I just got in my 2% lanthanted tungsten and started another box, haven't finished it though. Maybe this weekend I will.

 

[spoonman]

If you want to tack with out filler, and you have a tight fit up, the edges must be touching!!!!!!

Put your tungsten literally as close as you can with out touching the metal, literally a sheet of papers width between.

Stomp on the pedal and let off very quickly, just a very quick flash, you need to have around 1.5 times as many Amps as you would need to weld the base metal, the very fast pin pointed heat will make a small weak tack, but it works amazing if you have to hold or position the piece with your spare hand.


Note do not try this on aluminum, it works great for ferrous metals

 

[99gst_racer]

Stomp on the pedal and let off very quickly, just a very quick flash, you need to have around 1.5 times as many Amps as you would need to weld the base metal

I'll have to try that next time. I've been using regular welding amperage. It takes a second or two to form a decent fillerless tack at that amperge. It's been working fine on materials that are .080" and thicker though.

 

[Gamble97]

It works, I've done it a few times but I can't do it all the time. Jody says double the current I think.

Why doesn't this work on aluminum?

 

[spoonman]

Well the reason it works on ferrous metals (steel, SS) is because when you pin point the heat on such a small area and instantly add an intense amount of heat on a cold base/surface metal it runs both pieces together, the liquid metal is attracted to the heat, if they blow apart it is because the heat from the tack is to spread out (not tight enough tungsten/base metal) or because of the arc force blowing a hole through

Generally with super tight fitups it always works, you can have literally no gap between the pieces



With Aluminum it can work, not always. Because when you start an arc welding AC it is usually erratic at first, the heat is spread out, and aluminum just needs so much heat it doesn't just instantly melt and run together.

 

[turboglenn]

You can also tack witout filler by doing it slower and swirling the torch around in little circles like normal welding, The material will "push" just as if you were touching it when the pieces are fit up correctly with no gap.. I rarely use filler on ferrous metals when tacking up things that are "butt welds" like SS exhaust pieces and other parts where you can get a perfect butt up fit