A place to talk about the WelderSkills platform, general shop talk, current events, video ideas, etc. Keep it clean and keep it civil! Thanks for being a member
-Jody
Alex Weeks
Dave K
Hello gentlemen, thanks for putting this thing together. I've been TIG welding since 1975 having started trade school in 1974. I pretty much let stick and MIG fall by the wayside and held on to TIG welding while wearing many other hats as well. In my 45 year and counting career I've worked as a welder, machinist, precision sheet metal man, draftsman, mechanical designer and mechanical engineer. I currently run a prototyping machine shop for a US government agency. Through all these roles I've been able to utilize TIG welding to great effect. The man who taught me to weld put me on a career path that has been amazing. He was a good friend and nothing short of a second father to me from 1974 until his death in 2012. So why am I here with all that background. I figure I'll hang around here for a few months to relearn all the things I've already forgotten and pick-up some new things along the way and to see how you might approach this subject that's different from the way it's presented on YouTube.
H. Jack MORGAN
brian vanderbeek
Kim Lee Lemire
Shaun Tilby
Alex Weeks
+3 more...
I have attempted to watch 6 or 8 videos so far and every one has played so herky jerky as to be unwatchable. I'm watching on a Kindle tablet that's probably 10 years old but this is the only site where I have ever experienced such erratic video. Hopefully it's just growing pains. I'll keep checking back to see if it improves.
I have the same problem with the videos. My laptop is a New Lenovo Ideapad3 windows 10. Suggestions are encouraged and welcome. I'm a completely self taught welder with my own shop and its a full time business, all mig welding. 2 Hobarts, and a Hobart Plasma Cutter. Also a suitcase stick welder thats real "Hoss". Growing up "way back in the hills" taught me how to make the best of what You have and also taught me how to improvise. Many of my customers are old school farmers and their off spring. I often get complimented on my "McGivering Skills". Love this website, have learned much and will continue to do so. Keep'em coming.
Alex Weeks
I feel like it might be to the fault of the video hosting service...that's the way it seems to me, have you tried downloading a video first then watching it?
Hi, I have been welding for many years but only as a hobby. I hope to advance my skills and by joining this training, I may get out in the hot shop more as I will have some great incentive. I have watched a lot of Jody's videos and he is awesome. I have seen some of the other instructors videos when Jody had them as a special guest. I have the machines (Miller Syncrowave 250 Water Cooled). and an HTP Invertig 221 Water Cooled (but with about 0 hours on it). I am basically retired but doing the hobby thing. Thanks for making this for us.
Dave
Alex Weeks
Roy Crumrine
I'm a sculptor working on a 304 stainless steel sculpture that has to be taken to a mirror polish. What would be a good way to seal it for weather conditions outdoors in Idaho?
I am not an expert on this but maybe call these people and ask any questions you may have.
Dave
I had some 304 stainless machined parts that needed to stay shiny for outdoor use near the ocean. I took them to a local auto body shop for clearcoat. The customer was very happy with the parts!
Hello -- thank you very much for presenting this welding video collection and the willingness to share. I am a total newbie. As a semiconductor test engineer my job and skill have no relation to welding -- none whatsoever -- the closest to welding is soldering some circuits. For decades however, I have had my hands itching to do hands-on trades. I now have a brand new Fronius Transteel 2200 (DC only) with all the MIG, TIG, and stick accessories. I have a welding table on order... I am looking forward to to picking up this trade up to and including certification tests ...and putting together many projects along the way. Perhaps even starting a side hustle because I want to get out from behind the computer monitors. Enough dreaming... Looking forward to the instructors' support. Many thanks again for committing to share your welding skills.
Alex Weeks
Hi everyone, thanks for putting together this site. I'm a guy who is trying to start a small welding business. I did welding years ago, then got out of it and now want to get back into it. I gotta a lot to learn but, am learning things every day. This site is really going to help a lot.
A question I have is, can I upload pictures of my welds to be critiqued? I need all the feedback I can get.
Looking forward to learning as much as possible form this site.
Thanks,
Jim
You may be able to post a link. Get yourself a FREE Imgur account here: https://imgur.com/
Here is a test of an image of my welding positioner I built:
And you can also post it in the forum here with some other tags from Imgur but a link is probably better. The other tags leave some markup text before and after the image but they do work:
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That looks awesome!
Dave K
Hi everyone, thanks for putting together this site. I'm a guy who is trying to start a small welding business. I did welding years ago, then got out of it and now want to get back into it. I gotta a lot to learn but, am learning things every day. This site is really going to help a lot.
A question I have is, can I upload pictures of my welds to be critiqued? I need all the feedback I can get.
Looking forward to learning as much as possible form this site.
Thanks,
Jim
Just joined the site and look forward to participating. Put myself through college as a welder working on a large ranch in northern NM and then in the oil fields in the Four Corners area. Became very proficient with stick and oxy/acetylene but was never exposed to MIG or TIG. After grad school, between my professional career and pursuit of other hobbies I never gave much thought to welding up to about a year and a half ago. Project in my woodworking shop required fabricating some fixtures and was bitten by the bug. Bought a Miller 211 and 161 and got to work. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed welding. Started watching Jody on youtube and said to myself I need to try this TIG stuff. Tig welder was added to my shop and have been practicing most evenings after work and going through lots of coupons. At 66 this is purely a hobby and small projects for friends and on my FIL farm.
Roy Crumrine
I got interested in welding a number of years ago for DIY projects. I took some adult continuing ed classes at a local community college. We started with stick, then tig, and a bit of mig. I liked tig the most. I bought an Everlast 255 Stick,Tig & plasma machine. Later I got a Miller 211 mig machine. It had been at least a year since I did any welding. I need a cart to hold wood and metal stock, so I came up with this design. Its 4' wide by 12' long. Though not fully shown, each of the cross members in the A frames will have 1/2" L runners between them. That will have masonite on it to make sliding stock in and out easier. The A frames are 1" 14ga. The base is 1x3 11ga, covered with 18ga sheet. I'll lean plywood and sheet metal up against the A frames. This will live outside, since I have not other space for it. At some point I hope to make a canvas cover for it. A tarp will do in the mean time.
Sorry. the forum isn't bringing in the pictures inline, but if you click on the links, they show up. Dropbox won't allow them to be shown inline. Grrrr.
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Here I'm getting ready to do the first A frame. I practiced a fair bit with scraps, but the first 2 A frames have butt-ugly welds. They are begging to be ground down and fixed up. After that I got much better. Not professional level good, but not too ugly either.
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The cart does not need to look great, but it is a good excuse to learn how to paint with an LVLP paint gun. I wanted to strip all the mill scale off, but that would be a lot of grinding. I live in a residential neighborhood, so I try to keep the noise down. I didn't want to deal with muriatic acid to strip them, so I built this troth, coated it with liquid rubber, and am using 9% vinegar. Its slow, but with a bit of 220 grit sandpaper to remove the remaining mill scale, it comes out nice.
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I look forward to learning more here.
Looking good Andy. I really love your welding table. Where did you get it and how much was it? They are normally expensive so you must have got a deal. I am jealous. I need to build a horizontal steel rack some day but with my tall workshop I just have some arms coming off off the girts on the steel building to stand the steel in between for a vertical rack. Is that cart going to roll around outside on cement I hope as it will be very heavy so use some rated steel casters. I used to use flap disks but now I just use regular flat flexible disks as they seem to last longer in the long run as far as cost goes. Mill scale is a pain. I use muriatic acid for removing galvanized before welding but it must be done in a safe manner. Mill scale is best ground or sanded off but if you are painting the steel it isn't really necessary, just where you do the welds. Get a FREE Imgur account for the pics.
Dave, not too much of a deal on the table. I was going to buy it online, but then I talked to Stronghand Tools. Their regional distributor rep said my local welding supply company carried them. Online the freight and residential delivery was expensive. I ask the welding supply shop if they could come close on price.They came out about $75 over, but went with them anyway. I'd rather my dollars stay local. It was a completely unjustifiable purchase. But that said, it will outlast me, and I'll enjoy having it. It am a firm believer in "buy once, cry once". I bought my previous van new, and kept it 20 years. I just replaced it last year.
One of the first things I made on the table was a cart for the clamps. Its tall and skinny to fit under one edge of the table. I have very little space in my garage.
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I bought casters rated at 1000lbs each from Caster Connection. They bolt on, so if by chance they fail I can replace them. Think they will be fine though. They feel pretty stought.
I've gone the muriatic acid root before. Works well, but I just didn't want to deal with it. The vinegar works well. Yeah, I know I don't really need to that far to a piece of shop furniture. I'm pretty good at finding a harder way to do things. :) Its also satisfying to let the chemistry do the work. I will have to give flexible disks a try.
I looked t the Imgur terms of service. They prohibit hosting photos. I have an old photobucket account, but they are the same. Used to be free, but now they want $5 a month. I really hope that WelderSkills ups their game a little bit and hosts pictures directly. I really hate it when I find something promising in a web search only to find that a crucial picture was externally hosted and no long available.
magnus aune
Andy, great job on the cart and I love that table. I bought a lot of things using your "cry once" policy, but I have a lot of things so I am always crying. :) I still drive a 1988 Dodge Caravan (I have a 1993 too) and wish I wouldn't have sold my 1983 Ford F150. My wife has the newest vehicle and that is a 2007. That is because I was an ASE Certified Master Auto Tech for half of my life.
I don't see where Imgur prohibits posting photos. They even offer about 5 different ways to do it. Photobucket hosed me and many other people for the last time.
My wife had a '97 Honda Accord until she accidentally backed into a retaining wall a few years ago.
Yeah, a drug habit would probably be cheaper, but it seems that tools are my addiction. I keep threatening to make an inventory so my son will have an idea of the value of my various tools. He won't be interested in most of them, but I want him to get a decent price for the better ones when that inevitable day comes.
I'll check out Imgur again.
All of our old vehicles would be worth a lot today but back then we thought of them as worn out or not important or we needed $$ etc. I had a 1966 VW with the stock 1300cc engine with the 6V system. I sold it for less than $1,000 after some kid pulled out in front of me and I took evasive action and sideswiped a fire hydrant. The drivers side had a big groove along the lower part of the door and the running board was damaged and the impact knocked a push-rod off of the rocker. At the time I needed money so I sold it. Should have kept it. On the inventory thing, I think of the same thing and know if I go first, the wife won't know what all my tools are worth. So I just have to live longer than her. LOL
Hi. My name is chia. I'm in the south Seattle King county area. Anyone else here ? I'm starting a little mobile welding business and I'm trying to get bond insurance... anyone got any info on that ?
hey we are working on making this forum better and more response and I am sorry this question has gone unanswered for a while. I have heard the Geico is a good place to start https://www.geico.com/business-owners-insurance/
Also, Instructors Brad Goodman, JD Brewer, or Jonathan Lewis all have businesses so if you leave a comment on their most recent videos, you should get a response
Alex Weeks
I mentor high school robotics students. We have an old, very abused, finger brake. I would like to reface the fingers. I can tig them, but what filler would be good for this? My plan is to mill off say an 1/8", build it back up, and then mill them to length. It might be faster to just make new ones from scratch. However, I've never done a buildup like this before, so its a learning excise. It doesn't matter that it takes a little longer.
Thanks.
Its hard to know exactly what type of steel things like that are made from but I think you can definitely build them up and resurface.
There are probably several filler metals that would work ok but one main concern is you want to be sure the weld material is not too hard to machine after welding.
a preheat of around 300-400F should help.
I would suggest welding a small test area first to check hardness with a file or see how it machines. A filler rod that comes to mind that should give you a bit of hardness (around 40hrc)without being too brittle is 410 stainless. 4130 filler might be easier to obtain and if you are not that concerned about hardness ER80SD2 might hold up fine and will not harden much. If someone tries to bend round stock, it wont matter LOL
hope this helps
Jody
Thanks. Its high school kids. Round stock would not surprise me. Especially the boys. Tool abuse is their specialty. The girls tend to think things through a bit more. Actually they are all good kids. The abuse comes from lack of knowledge and experience, not malice. Thank you for the recommendations.
brian vanderbeek
brian vanderbeek
Andy Howell
Hi Joseph,
Just wondering if you might consider a request. Would it be possible to arrange something with techniques in TIG weilding/brazing automotive panels. I think some of us buy TIG welders with that specific use in mind.
Regards
Thanks for the suggestion, Michael. We'll add it to the list!
Joseph