My neighbor brought me a couple of receiver hitches that came off the fleet of snow machines that are used to groom the Iditarod trail before the sled dog race is run each spring. These machines take a pretty good beating, and the hitches have a couple of common failure points. He wanted me to see if I could add a few additional beads to beef them up. After burning off the powder coating and bead blasting, they were good and clean. Added a fillet around the three un-welded faces of the tubing, starting and ending on the ends of the lone factory weld. Then butt welded the inside end of the tube to the flange. He was very happy, and will be bringing in six brand new ones to receive the same mod, before they install them on the fleet. I chose ER312 filler, as I wasn't sure if it would be 100% clean, and it's supposed to leave a ductile, crack resistant weld. Plus, I just like the way it welds! Turns out the weed burner/bead blast got it plenty clean, so I'm sure plain old ER70S-2 or -6 should be fine for next ones.
Happy New Year! Hope you all have a great 2025. Last night Mother Nature put on a great light show for us here in Alaska. Better than fireworks!
Here's what I think is a good question. What can be done with the filler rod chunks after it gets down so short you can't feed it into the puddle? Brad Goodman
the latest installment of Sam's welding rig is up now
Sam Hagan - Welding Rig (Pa...
Prizes for contest #1 should go out in the next day or so! Thanks again for all who participated. Next we're thinking we'll do a stainless Tee joint. More info on that coming soon!
Quick fixturing trick with hold down clamps. Sometimes the wrong tool is the right tool. Be creative with tooling.
Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday. We plan to keep hitting it hard in 2025 with lots of new stuff. Anyone have any welding related new year's resolutions they'd like to share?
This was brought to me by a locksmith. First time with an cast aluminum repair. Should I use high amps and move quickly, or lower amps and progress at a normal travel speed? What settings would be generally recommended for such a small part made of cast aluminum? Also, I am using CK Lazer green tungsten with my Primeweld 325x. Any help would be highly appreciated!
I wanted to practice on some .063 x 3" aluminum tube, so rather than cutting short pieces I decided to make pie cuts. After making 2 90's I went a step further and made a ram's head. Then a couple of saddle cuts into a cross, on to 3 more 90's of different radii. Then what the heck, put them all together. Man, did I learn a lot, like how to fill holes and the criticality of torch angle, and so much more.
What causes the cystally finish on the right?
The one on the left is an earlier bead.
The lower are with filler. Ignore those for now.
Thanks