Thread: Need someone to look over my welds

Originally Posted by steamingbill

I have a pair of wraparound safety glasses.

The bottom section of the glasses is 3x magnification the top half is normal.

They are great for seeing things like mcirometers readings angle readings etc on tools in the shed.

$20 local safety shop.

Bill

Now that is an excellent innovation! Maybe less useful for welding, but I can see some real possibilities elsewhere in the workshop.

getting down some better welds now i have the correct polarity, ran a bead joining two pieces of scrap flipped it over and hammered it with a sledge hammer and it only bent the tubing by around 5mm the weld didnt break

i removed the gas nozzle but the heat was incredible and burnt my finger thru the TIG glove (had both hands on the gun)

cant upload pics for some reason

Why not use TIG? If it's a big project and you want to do it right (you mentioned trailer) and you're better at TIG, buy some bigger argon bottles and some quality steel and get stuck in. Surely if any process is going to be achievable with your vision issues then it'll be TIG.

When I built a road trailer I also made sure I used Australian steel for the drawbar, of whatever specifications I thought were sufficient at the time.

i would love to tig the trailer together but ill be at the mercy of the wind outside as i dont have a large indoor area

i seem to be going ok at mig welding but still cant see much, done some inside corner welds they look ok to me now i have the cross members tacked in place i need to weld them in than ill start looking at the A frame, i was thinking for the A frame of having one long piece of 65x65x5mm run strait from the center of the rectangle frame up to the coupling than running two pieces of 50x50x3mm from each corner of the rectangle to the coupling sound ok?

i welded together some scrap into a L shape the metal bent and nothing happen to the welds so i think they are ok

I TIG outside all weekend long. I never thought it'd work either but it puts up with more wind than I expected. It'll soon tell you if it's too windy.

That's a beefy drawbar.

Legion when i started tig welding with my first tig machine i was trying it outdoors with the welders fan blowing across the work piece and i was welding aluminium at that haha i did however manage some bead welds

im looking at making two of these from 4mm steel to hold the front wheel in place, do u think my sheet metal bender is capable or should i just go see a metal fabricator?

Probably don't need a fan with TIG, that's the whole point isn't it? That's why I find it very hard to pick up a stick electrode nowadays. The mess and the smoke. If there's smoke you definitely didn't clean enough.

Sorry, can't help with the bender question. I'm not a sheety and don't know what bender you have anyway.