CGT80
Well-known member
Around 17 years ago, I bought a tig welder and then took a class in community college. Since then, I have slowly improved. While I am not a welder by trade, I have done plenty of welding for hobby and work. This week, I went outside my comfort zone and worked on some small/thin material.
Last year, I started fabricating a bullet casting machine. There is a thread on Castboolits, but now there are no photos thanks to photobucket. There are some bugs to work out of it, but it is close to completion. Still to build were a couple baskets to catch the boolits and sprues. 98% of the machine was welded with Tig, including the 1/4" wall pipe joining the 3/8" base plate. Why? Because, I could and it was good practice.
View media item 77041
Some left over screen from a gate build, quite a few years ago, was just begging to become boolit and sprue baskets. Steel sheet 0.056" (16 gauge) was cnc plasma cut for the ends (4x6 inches), the screen 0.026" (23 gauge) bent, and the parts tig welded together. At first, the plan was to do small tack welds with the mig welder just to hold the parts together. After working with the thin material, that seemed like a less than optimal idea. Tig welding could give more control and a nicer looking weld.
After playing around with amperage settings on the machine, switching to a 0.040" diameter tungsten with a nicely ground taper, changing the shade setting to 8.5 on my helmet, and replacing the smoke/splatter damaged lenses so I could actually see clearly through them, it all came together. Working with material less than a 16th inch thick is rare for me, but it was nice to have the chance to focus on a challenge, learn, and come out with something half decent looking.
View media item 77037
It just happens that the fab squares (really triangles) for my tab and slot welding table are 4" wide. With two of the largest squares, one was clamped to the table and the other upside down and clamped to that, resulting in a 4" wide shelf about 18" above the table of which the basket parts would fit around and be clamped to. Raising the screen a 32nd of an inch above the end plate gave me some filler metal for the weld. Yes, it is a fusion weld with no filler added. In typical Garage Journal fashion, this went from a simple basket slapped together with a mig welder to something with fully tig welded seams. Go big or go home! The squares help soak up a little heat but were not overly hot and where the recessed joints are in the square, the inside of the basket still looked the same, so maybe the heat was not too much. The amperage was just high enough to get fusion and move at a slow pace but not snail like.
I should have used my newer glasses to see better and a cheater lens in my helmet might help, if I knew which value would work. This work is so small and close up good vision isn't even enough and great vision is almost a must. That tungsten got quite hot/red and should have been 1/16th or 3/32nds with a fine taper so that the full diameter portion wouldn't have heated up so badly. Lately, I have just used 1/8" and ground it to whatever diameter point was needed, but with the 0.040" and even 0.020" on hand, I tried it. The amperage range on my tig welder is 5-460 amps. The first notch, of three on the welder, is 5-60 but it was not hot enough with the pedal to the metal. Either it isn't putting out as much current as it should (no gauges) or I am just not used to working in the lower amperage range. Normally, I use the second notch which runs from 20-250 or so amps and much of the time I crank the dial up to 100% and just run the pedal where I need it for steel and aluminum 16ga on up. For aluminum, sometimes I'll get into the 3rd notch, but that kills a 50 amp breaker after a few minutes.
View media item 77035
Last night's night match burned up most of my 40 cal ammo and I don't want to cast by hand, so it's time to give this 100 pound casting pot another try. If/when I get all the bugs worked out of the machine, it may become automated with PLCs and pneumatics. The goal is to set it to run and just babysit while powder coating the finished product.
Would you guys have done anything different to make baskets that can handle many pounds of 800 degree bullets being dropped into them ?
Last year, I started fabricating a bullet casting machine. There is a thread on Castboolits, but now there are no photos thanks to photobucket. There are some bugs to work out of it, but it is close to completion. Still to build were a couple baskets to catch the boolits and sprues. 98% of the machine was welded with Tig, including the 1/4" wall pipe joining the 3/8" base plate. Why? Because, I could and it was good practice.
View media item 77041
Some left over screen from a gate build, quite a few years ago, was just begging to become boolit and sprue baskets. Steel sheet 0.056" (16 gauge) was cnc plasma cut for the ends (4x6 inches), the screen 0.026" (23 gauge) bent, and the parts tig welded together. At first, the plan was to do small tack welds with the mig welder just to hold the parts together. After working with the thin material, that seemed like a less than optimal idea. Tig welding could give more control and a nicer looking weld.
After playing around with amperage settings on the machine, switching to a 0.040" diameter tungsten with a nicely ground taper, changing the shade setting to 8.5 on my helmet, and replacing the smoke/splatter damaged lenses so I could actually see clearly through them, it all came together. Working with material less than a 16th inch thick is rare for me, but it was nice to have the chance to focus on a challenge, learn, and come out with something half decent looking.
View media item 77037
It just happens that the fab squares (really triangles) for my tab and slot welding table are 4" wide. With two of the largest squares, one was clamped to the table and the other upside down and clamped to that, resulting in a 4" wide shelf about 18" above the table of which the basket parts would fit around and be clamped to. Raising the screen a 32nd of an inch above the end plate gave me some filler metal for the weld. Yes, it is a fusion weld with no filler added. In typical Garage Journal fashion, this went from a simple basket slapped together with a mig welder to something with fully tig welded seams. Go big or go home! The squares help soak up a little heat but were not overly hot and where the recessed joints are in the square, the inside of the basket still looked the same, so maybe the heat was not too much. The amperage was just high enough to get fusion and move at a slow pace but not snail like.
I should have used my newer glasses to see better and a cheater lens in my helmet might help, if I knew which value would work. This work is so small and close up good vision isn't even enough and great vision is almost a must. That tungsten got quite hot/red and should have been 1/16th or 3/32nds with a fine taper so that the full diameter portion wouldn't have heated up so badly. Lately, I have just used 1/8" and ground it to whatever diameter point was needed, but with the 0.040" and even 0.020" on hand, I tried it. The amperage range on my tig welder is 5-460 amps. The first notch, of three on the welder, is 5-60 but it was not hot enough with the pedal to the metal. Either it isn't putting out as much current as it should (no gauges) or I am just not used to working in the lower amperage range. Normally, I use the second notch which runs from 20-250 or so amps and much of the time I crank the dial up to 100% and just run the pedal where I need it for steel and aluminum 16ga on up. For aluminum, sometimes I'll get into the 3rd notch, but that kills a 50 amp breaker after a few minutes.
View media item 77035
Last night's night match burned up most of my 40 cal ammo and I don't want to cast by hand, so it's time to give this 100 pound casting pot another try. If/when I get all the bugs worked out of the machine, it may become automated with PLCs and pneumatics. The goal is to set it to run and just babysit while powder coating the finished product.
Would you guys have done anything different to make baskets that can handle many pounds of 800 degree bullets being dropped into them ?
Last edited: