Show us your welding projects

[hunter1151]

You could make that bracket out of a piece of tubing too couldn't you ZT, by just cutting out a little triangle and bending the portion left back into itself and welding that and adding the bottom piece...........absolutly the way to go and the best looking ZT....nice illustration.

 

[hunter1151]

I too have one of those to do on a lower unit of a volvo-penta drive..........do you guys worry about heating up the guts and seals in there??

 

[ZTFab]

You could make that bracket out of a piece of tubing too couldn't you ZT, by just cutting out a little triangle and bending the portion left back into itself and welding that and adding the bottom piece...........absolutly the way to go and the best looking ZT....nice illustration.

Yes, you could use a piece of box tubing and form the mount but looking at the F100 frame and the new K-member there is potential for many different mounting planes and/or compound angles.

In order to get the most contact surface area and simplify the fabrication I would start with one piece at a time to ensure the best fit-up. Also, using individual pieces allows for the addition of internal ribs or gussets and any internal welding if necessary.

...but that is just how I would go about it. There's a million different ways to skin a cat.

 

[steel 35]

Mine was far enough away no worries pull the plugs drain the lube, and if it goes bad I can use the (it was like that when I used it) Glad mine is a jet sled...

 

[Jack Olsen]

This was in my 12-Gauge thread. But hey, it was this week's homeowner's welding project. And sometimes even mediocre fab work can produce a nice product.

These sconces came with the house. The wife thought they were too small, relative to the big sun face thing and other stuff in the room.

So I cut up some leftover material.

The plan was to re-use the arm part (although I would flip it, which meant tapping a new threaded hole), and also re-use the goofy old man face. Here was the test assembly.

Then the welding. And the grinding of the unsightly welds. I used flat Rustoleum, which does a nice job of hiding metal-working sins.

Here's a picture with an idea of the new 'proportion:'

And closer in:

The most expensive part of the project? The two $10 retro filament bulbs.

Nothing fancy, but I think they pass the 'you wouldn't notice that something on the wall was made in the garage if you just walked through the house' test.

 

[z28snksknr]

I didn`t get back to you on your truck restore thread because i didn`t want to tick you off, i`ll try to explain the 2 ways i would have done it, depending on the ttruck height you want to achieve, if you want more ground clearance i`d leave it exhactly where you have it, take some cardboard and trace out the frame (horisontly) and contour the suspension, this then would be your side plate, i`d then substract the thickness of material your using and remove that along the suspension contour at the bottom of the plate, what i would do next is make a plate that contours the suspension top and is wide enough so it would lign up with the inner part of the frame,this plate would then get welded to the side plate, if you wan you can weld the side plates and box the inner part of the frame together then bolt the suspension to the bottom plate.

Throughout my thread, I call out the fact that I will post my triumphs AND failures because I think it should represent what I'm going through as a first build. I lean on the GJ community to help point things out and help me learn as I go - I think I requested that in my first post of the thread in fact. To be honest, I had a suspicion that my work was not up to par, but I didn't get any feedback on my thread. That's why I posted it here also.

I think with your input above and ZTFAB's help, I have a plan for what I'll be doing now. It's a one man show in my garage, and I need all the help I can get!

 

[charger891]

here`s a quick sketch i threw together, the first one is if you leave your suspension in the same location it is right now, the second one is if lower the suspension and graft it into the frame, kinda like doing the volare swap.
View media item 13689

 

[superspec]

here was is my first welding project. i did a motor swap about 4 years ago. went from an I4 to a v6 in my DD sentra. the shorty headers never would seal up good with the y pipe and always blew gaskets and sounded like ****. sooo i did the next best thing considering nobody made a long tube and equal length y pipe for this car...i made my own.

started with this:

cut the 2 y pipes to make one and tacked everything under the car.

 

[superspec]

i had some serious problems when i got it out from under the car and welding in the open. it kept blowing holes through the material. i tried eveyrhting to fix it and then i realized that the wind was blowing really hard that day. i closed the garage door and everything was better. it aint pretty but its been doing the job for a year or so now.

 

[Cheap5.0]

Looks good, how about a pic of the car or vid of it running?

 

[superspec]

my twins, good is on the left and evil is on the right

all of the exhaust work will be redone soon on this car

 

[USMCdodge]

heres a rust repair job i did yesterday. cut rusted area out w/plasma, found some angle iron for the flush patch, welded it back and cold welded handrails back on.

 

[CAOS]

What to do with half a 1" box end wrench.

So I was at the local Princess Auto looking through the "random bin" and came across a 1" box end wrench for $1.00! I know its "china made garbage" but for this purpose it was perfect.

Ive wanted to make a tig torch holder for awhile now, this is mine. Used half of a box end wrench, magnetic base, two nylon washers with a 1/2" o.d, 5/32 set screw and some 1/2" cold roll. Oh ya, 1/4" bolt to mount the base to the cold rolled. The washers insulate the wrench from the base so there is no arcing out! The initial idea was to tap the wrench and use the set screw to push against the cold roll, but who would have thought even a POS wrench would be too hard to tap. Anyways here are a few pics, please take in account all holes were drilled with a basic drill press so the holes are not perfect.

 

[PCO6]

Nice job CAOS. That's better than what Princess Auto sells as a "real" tig/mig torch welder stand ... and I bought. I buy a lot of cheap wrenches from PA. I use them for dedicated tools for my cut off saw, drill press, polisher/buffer, tool stands, etc. I usually cut one end off and dip the "handle end" in Plasti-dip.

 

[Krokodil]

Nice torch holder!

 

[z28snksknr]

Here's Round 3...

I ran out of wire when I completed the fronts (I was using Lincoln's 0.35 wire). I ran out to Sears Hardware and bought some no-name **** - I couldn't get a good weld for the rest of the job - I'll be trashing this stuff ASAP. Here's the rear mounts, with 3/8" plates to reinforce where I cut in the tubing for "round 2":

I was pissed how bad my vertical welds looked with the new wire. Same prep, welder settings, etc. Oh well - just more grinding for me before paint.

How's this look? I have to make 2 more mounts for the rear bolts, but that should be easy.

 

[sberry]

They call them gorilla welds. they ain't pretty but look strong. I have seen worse in service and they held just fine.
First, I cant recall everyones details but I would say you could become a pretty decent welder for that type of stuff with a little help. What machine are you using?
A lot of this work can be done vert down, poor ragged fit up and gaps can be your friend in many cases, with small machines 030 wire. With a 250 class 035 turned up about 3/4 throttle most structural to a truck could be down. I am not at my old computer and need to load some files on a new unit.

 

[sberry]

Here is a little frame repair, ripped a couple factory rivets out, I didn't patch the frame really, just blew the busted bent out so it was flat and I could work on it, welded around the shock mount, at first I went, oh **** then simply clamp up and weld all around. I don't worry much about welding on these frames, its already busted and it was done by engineers, ha. I ran a big ole fatty on after to cover up some spiderweb cracks, hasn't give any trouble since.

 

[z28snksknr]

They call them gorilla welds. they ain't pretty but look strong. I have seen worse in service and they held just fine.
First, I cant recall everyones details but I would say you could become a pretty decent welder for that type of stuff with a little help. What machine are you using?
A lot of this work can be done vert down, poor ragged fit up and gaps can be your friend in many cases, with small machines 030 wire. With a 250 class 035 turned up about 3/4 throttle most structural to a truck could be down. I am not at my old computer and need to load some files on a new unit.

Most of those welds were awkward positioning and poor visibility due to the struts being in the way, so I made sure there was plenty of material there .

I'm using an Eastwood 175 MIG. On the rare occaisions that the stars align for me, I can get some nice looking welds out of it, but I'm learning every time I pull the trigger, so I struggle for consistency.

 

[JayL]

My first Mig Welding build ........

 

[docjake]

The miller 211 is a great machine I love working with it. I do have a problem with the hose working itself loose from the wire feeder portion, thus my argon doesn't get to the end of the hose. I have tried tightening it and it works for a little while but if I move the cable to much it comes loose again. Anyone else have this problem?

 

[mattlago]

I love this thread. It reminds me of what a hack I am.

Two projects. One was modifying a wheel stand. Family came down for Turkeyday and had these wheel chocks for their harleys that are amazing. They are called Condor and you couldnt kick the bike over if you tried but they are about $300. I looked at Harbor Freight and they sell them (on sale) for $60 and have great review. I bought one and since I dont own a dresser it was too fat for my skinny wide glide front tire. I took out a little over an inch and welded it back together. Here are the pics.

Table is one I made for a friend. He has a one car garage so he has no space. It mounts to the wall and comes out only about 3 inches when folded up. But when unfolded all of the weight goes to the legs so it is pretty sturdy.

 

[mordantly]

zmotorsports: nice work. i have some 4130 i was going to build a roll cage for scca until i read the rules and realized i bought the wrong size.. DOH!! now i have 71 feet of 1" ODx3/32" wall for something like your quad.

here was a project im still fine tuning. 1972 Yamaha LT-2 100cc 2 stroke into a 1975 Kawasaki KV75 frame.

mr rev 1 brew sculpture.. not pretty but free angle iron and it has already made ~100 gallons of beer!

 

[mordantly]

i got one of those oxy goggles that i put a shade 8 in for mig... after two days of heavy tacking and welding on the 100 cc above, i have a sun-burned face around the goggle. i hate sunlight or shop lights hitting the back of the hood and preventing you from seeing your puddle, so i use an overhead/sandblasting leather hood, but it steams up like a motorcycle visor. i use tig gloves for mig/stick.. every time i don't wear gloves, i get spatter under a finger nail or grab the thing i JUST laid a 60 second bead on for some dumb reason.

 

[silhou]

new here. figured i would make a post in here. been welding for about 3 years, started tig and aluminum about 1 1/2 years ago. most of these pics are random and old. have produced better stuff. i also have alot of car fab stuff i can post up that i built. anyways

some flux core

1/8th stainless housing welded to handle

oh and my garage. just a 13x30 storage unit that i work on the car in.

 

[c201971]

i made these last week in welding class

 

[jhn9840]

Nice work Silhou. Post your pics away. Welcome to GJ.

jhn9840
John

 

[sberry]

Most of those welds were awkward positioning and poor visibility due to the struts being in the way, so I made sure there was plenty of material there .

I'm using an Eastwood 175 MIG. On the rare occaisions that the stars align for me, I can get some nice looking welds out of it, but I'm learning every time I pull the trigger, so I struggle for consistency.

That machine will work a lot better with 030 wire.

 

[IONH]

I've got a HF 90 Amp 110VAC welder. I used it very rarely for many years with the original flux cored wire. However, since buying my first house, I finally invested in a bottle of Argon/CO2 (10/90) and some mild steel .022'ish wire. The results were NIGHT AND DAY between the flux cored and the non-flux cored. My first bead was very smooth and had great penetration.

I used some U channel stuff that the DPO left bolted up to the termite ridden back wall of my garage (can be seen in the second picture with white siding). This was a really fun project and I hope to get to do more.

Something I need to focus on is slowing down when I am welding sensitive materials... e.g. body panels (only welded a couple of lines now patching one panel to another) and exhaust flanges (warp very easy). I also need to get some leathers as I've burned through many sweatshirt arms, thankfully not to my skin.

IIRC, the holder is 8 feet long by 6 feet tall. About 40 square feet of storage. Even fully stocked as it was in the below picture, there was no flexing.

It is now two years later and the holder is still standing. The only downside is that the U channel is a great home for bee nests.





I hope to get through more of this thread to see everyone's projects.

 

[IONH]

My father and I built a tube bender as a project a few years back. It was our first fab project - we were a bit nervous as the precision here was important.

A pile of steel was bought, measured, cut and prepped before continuing.


Drill, drill, drill drill....... drill some more, and did I mention some more drilling?


Ok - we drilled a few holes, always stepping bits and went through probably a gallon of thread cutting oil (we found this stuff to be the best lube, bonus was Menard's carried it and it was cheap)


I welded and ground the pivot block


Then came the clamping and welding - lots of careful measuring and clamping.


Hey, a couple of hacks can measure, cut AND weld while retaining square!


Getting there-



Bzzzz


Final product:


I shot some hammered paint on it - I'm damn good with a rattle can


Our first project turned out awesome -

(Project not completed in this pic)

That's an awesome fathers on project! Did you think it all up yourselves or did you find a write-up somewhere? Can you either link us or provide a materials list?

Where did you source the hydraulics from?

I agree that being able to see is critical but I have a question. Have you found a good way to have bright illumination of the work without triggering the helmet darkening?

I've had pretty good success by using a directional drop light. So long as the back of it were facing my helmet and opaque, I've done some good welding without triggering the helmet until the spark was flying.

I do get nervous though that if I am close to the weld material, my light might be blocking the weld and the helmet might not darken. Thankfully, that has never happened.

 

[b_dub]

My dad and I were bored a few years back and decided to make a bbq grill. It went from a simple deal to an indirect heat rotissery style deal that needed a trailer built for it aswell. There are 4 stainless steel racks that are 4' wide by 1' deep. Everything was built except for the wheels/tires, axle, fenders and motor.

 

[Travis E.]

b dub,
You're making me hungry. The grill looks geat.

 

[IONH]

That looks great b dub. What is the cord for in the 2nd to last picture?

 

[ZTFab]

new here. figured i would make a post in here. been welding for about 3 years, started tig and aluminum about 1 1/2 years ago. most of these pics are random and old. have produced better stuff. i also have alot of car fab stuff i can post up that i built. anyways

Great looking work silhou!!

 

[ZTFab]

My dad and I were bored a few years back and decided to make a bbq grill. It went from a simple deal to an indirect heat rotissery style deal that needed a trailer built for it aswell. There are 4 stainless steel racks that are 4' wide by 1' deep. Everything was built except for the wheels/tires, axle, fenders and motor.

That looks great b dub. What is the cord for in the 2nd to last picture?

See above

Awesome looking grill b_dub.

 

[NUTTSGT]

Here's what I finished up today, 3/8" drive socket holder. You can check out the thread if you get bored.

 

[55shoebox]

I just built the same bender - plans off the internet gottrikes website if i remember right. plans are great and gives you a complete material list - the ram is a HF air over hydraulic.
It uses Pro tools 105 dies - fun project to build. have built 3 cages with it works awesome.

Tracy

 

[reznunt]

I just built the same bender - plans off the internet gottrikes website if i remember right. plans are great and gives you a complete material list - the ram is a HF air over hydraulic.
It uses Pro tools 105 dies - fun project to build. have built 3 cages with it works awesome.

Tracy

ditto.

 

[monkers]

you guys that built the got trikes bender, did you make any changes or do anything a little different? Would you change anything if doing it over? I bought the plans and hope to get to it this winter. I have all the material, just have to purchase the jack and casters and of course a die set.

 

[55shoebox]

nope wounldn't change a thing - just need to improve the cart i made and die storage. Really like the vertical style bender - get yourself a good digital level when you start bending.