the good, the bad and the ugly
The good. (Very bloody good). All my welding passed tests. And the guy even mentioned how good it looked. He said "You look relieved." I said "I am! This is the first time I've had any TIG work tested. I've never been trained, totally self taught, so I don't really know what I'm doing!" He just smiled. "I don't know what you're doing either, Love, but whatever it is, keep fucking doing it, because it's great!" (He even said how good the welds looked. I'm very proud, especially as half of them were left handed.)
The bad. The cruciform of the legs I'm welding is twisting really badly with the heat. Really badly. About 20-30 degrees of twist. So now I have to find a way to secure it back, which means adding internal framework. Really not ideal. And could have been avoided so easily, in the design stages. I did tell them the heat would move it a lot. I didn't really appreciate quite how much either, but still, can't believe they didn't think of it.
The ugly. All the MIG welds (about 40 metres) failed the weld test. Failed visual inspection, failed penetration. What does this mean? It means they've got a lot of grinding to do, and then I (and possibly one other) will TIG the reverse side to deliver full penetration. So potentially, I have 40 metres of overhead TIG welding to do. At full chat I can probably weld around about a millimetre a second, but you can only weld as far as your rod lasts. I use rods a metre long. This will deliver approx 40cms of weld, depending on how they grind it. But I'd probably have to stop halfway through the rod to re adjust my hold - you just can't pass the rod through gloved fingers fast enough to get the full metre down in one. So yeah, that's a lot of work, when you have to adjust your posture etc. every time too. As if I didn't have enough work to do!!!
How many clamps can I fit onto one small piece of work?
The ancient welding ritual of daubing your welds with the blood of a virgin, blessing the project and ensuring good luck.
The bad. The cruciform of the legs I'm welding is twisting really badly with the heat. Really badly. About 20-30 degrees of twist. So now I have to find a way to secure it back, which means adding internal framework. Really not ideal. And could have been avoided so easily, in the design stages. I did tell them the heat would move it a lot. I didn't really appreciate quite how much either, but still, can't believe they didn't think of it.
The ugly. All the MIG welds (about 40 metres) failed the weld test. Failed visual inspection, failed penetration. What does this mean? It means they've got a lot of grinding to do, and then I (and possibly one other) will TIG the reverse side to deliver full penetration. So potentially, I have 40 metres of overhead TIG welding to do. At full chat I can probably weld around about a millimetre a second, but you can only weld as far as your rod lasts. I use rods a metre long. This will deliver approx 40cms of weld, depending on how they grind it. But I'd probably have to stop halfway through the rod to re adjust my hold - you just can't pass the rod through gloved fingers fast enough to get the full metre down in one. So yeah, that's a lot of work, when you have to adjust your posture etc. every time too. As if I didn't have enough work to do!!!
How many clamps can I fit onto one small piece of work?
The ancient welding ritual of daubing your welds with the blood of a virgin, blessing the project and ensuring good luck.