On 8/5/2020 5:44 PM, Snag wrote:
On 8/5/2020 11:25 AM, Bob La Londe wrote:
I picked up an AHP201 AC/DC pulse rig a while back. Its mostly sat
on the cart, and other than a few plays at making some beads and trying
to understand the 40 billion possible settings I have not welded
anything with it. For most things the Miller 212 does the job on the
table, and the Lincoln ProCore does the job (if its small) outside.
Well, a couple days ago I had a customer who wanted pull pins for a
mold I made with a T-handle. Normally I either just put an L bend on
small pull pins or on bigger ones I use the lathe to make a pull ring on
the end, by using the lathe and a mandrel to (manually) spin the
mandrel. In the past with much larger pull pins I've threaded the pull
pin and tapped the T handle. It works pretty well and looks good.
I pretty much always make these pull pins out of stainless. In fact
in some sizes I just use stainless TIG wire. In some rare instances
I'll use teflon because it doesn't transfer heat, and allows castings to
fill better, but 99.9% of the time I just use stainless.
These pins were 3/16 inch. Not a great size to thread and I know I
don't have a 3/16 tap. I had the TIG wire on hand, and a fair amount of
304 stainless rod from 1/8 inch to 1-1/2 inch. I actually have owned
stainless TIG wire a lot longer than I have owned a TIG welder. I've
also picked up some other TIG wire for planned future projects as I
develop my skills. ER70S(x), 308, 5356, 4043, etc.
Anyway, 3/16" pull pins with a 1/2" handle with a 3/16 hole drilled through. I got it all setup on the table, tried some settings, grabbed
a piece of 1/16 rod (trying to start small) and give it a go. It was
terrible, and when I tried to clean it up on the belt sander most of the
filler just fell off. Half of the weld looked ok though. This should
have been my first clue.
When I walked back over to the welding table I realized I had
grabbed a piece of 5356 aluminum. Not stainless. Oops. So... I
grabbed some 308 and gave it another go. It welded better, but it
seemed like I needed more current. The weld are is small. I wasn't
crazy about using larger filler. My son suggest I just push the pull
pin through a little further and use it as its own filler. I cranked
the machine up to 150 amps and tried it. By the 4th pull pin I got a
good weld. Oh, it still looks terrible, but it looks like it did the
job. I went back over the first three, cleaned them up on the belt
sander, and they look like one piece of metal.
Am I proud of those welds? No. Absolutely not, but I have the
start of a feel for how to do it, and I'll get better.
The longest journey begins with a single step ... I once did the
opposite of what you did , tried to weld some aluminum with a piece of
1/16" 308L filler . That didn't work either .
A several years ago one of my friends told me a story about how he and
one of his high school buddies struggled to weld up a trailer jack using aluminum wire. They burned and burned and burned and finally it
stuck... somehow. Just a month ago his high school buddy who manages
the local Praxair store told me the exact same story.
I think I figured out how they did it. LOL.
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