Welding
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.......wow...with a forge !!! ...my kinda gal...
I dunno.. you lot are bloody ace sometimes. My ribs are hurting..LOTS.Seems Gio was right in his first post then...
(I thought you lot could decipher giotext by now?)
Woman with a forge.. what I'd give for a woman with a forge...
WTF do you make in a forge then? Can it be used for bikey things or is it just pikey things like horseshoes?Never ride faster than your guardian angel can fly
actually I am..........it's a git when you've nearly got it finished and the perfectionist in you makes you give it one more thump..... then..........PING it snaps in two and disappears off into the dark recesses of the forge or you flatten a bitOkamoto wrote:not like the others ..scared of breaking a nail
I would like to make...... clothing, metal clothing, not necessarily armour. Tools. furniture. Useful stuff.......in fact anything I can make out of metal. Hoping to do repoussage this year and damascus . currently making pet memorials for my ickle pussy cats that are RIPing away in the garden. Then the rest of the copper drum is being made into a big leaf to lean against the oak tree for me to sit on reading a book in the summer.
Forges are very useful things, and a welding unit {WOOT, WOOT rerail, rerail WOOT, WOOT}
will be incredible useful too 'cause fire-welding takes time to get right and isn't sensible on some joins.Ahh the old damascus barrel shotgun 
..when I worked in the fitters shop as a trainee we used to make cannons on the lathe, fill them with black powder and fire ball bearings at each other !! until one went through the craphouse door with the forman on the throne ha ha....bloody mad when I think about it now. 
always wanted to make an iron helmet...not the ned kelly bucket one! .. but the oliver cromwell type, mite have a go through winter.
..when I worked in the fitters shop as a trainee we used to make cannons on the lathe, fill them with black powder and fire ball bearings at each other !! until one went through the craphouse door with the forman on the throne ha ha....bloody mad when I think about it now. always wanted to make an iron helmet...not the ned kelly bucket one! .. but the oliver cromwell type, mite have a go through winter.
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HowardQ
- World Champion
- Posts: 3921
- Joined: Sun Jan 14, 2007 10:20 pm
- Location: Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England
On a related theme, living in the Sheffield area all my life, I've had a couple of jobs in the Steel Industry. I worked as a foreman for a couple of years at a British Steel, (remember them! ), in a billet finishing workshop. We produced billets in all sizes that were sent out to other manufacturing companies and it always explained on the order what the billets were to be used for. One of our biggest customers for 30 foot by 2" square billets was GKN. Evidently they sliced them up and upend forged them to make Posidrive screws.
WTF
How the hell do you start off with billets this size and upend forge them into Posidrive screws. If you can do it, how do you make a profit, perhaps why all the screws come from places like India and China now.
), in a billet finishing workshop. We produced billets in all sizes that were sent out to other manufacturing companies and it always explained on the order what the billets were to be used for. One of our biggest customers for 30 foot by 2" square billets was GKN. Evidently they sliced them up and upend forged them to make Posidrive screws.WTF
How the hell do you start off with billets this size and upend forge them into Posidrive screws. If you can do it, how do you make a profit, perhaps why all the screws come from places like India and China now.
I did a 3 week intensive welding course in my teens; MMA, MIG, TIG, Oxy Acc, but I'm not a coded welder. I've done plenty of light welding over the years, so this is from a DIY perspective.
Upsides of MIG are point-n-click ease of use, very easy to create a good weld, non-live torch, lower light intensity. Post processing is minimal, simply release the welding trigger, allow to cool and put the paint on.
Downsides of MIG is it it limited to about 6mm thicknesses and can't be used in windy conditions, it has more moving parts in the machine and there's the cost of gas. Also the material to be welded needs to be free of corrosion and paint etc. or it will spatter like hell and can easy burn you.
Upsides of MMA are you can weld much thicker material and get better weld penetration, it is less sensitive to dirty materials than MIG and can be used for longer without overheating.
At a stretch, they can also be used for cutting, which is useful for confined spaces where an angle grinder won't fit - but the results won't be pretty.
They are about half the price of MIG units.
Downsides of MMA are many for the DIYer. It needs more skill and a lot more dexterity to use than MIG (a hell of a lot more if you're welding 3mm sheet or thinner, and even more if your elec supply is not up to it). Post processing is dirty and time consuming, and can be annoying - If you stop a weld run and then want to lay more on top, you have to stop and clear off the slag. Also the rods are always live, so you have to be very careful where you put the torch down. The light radiation is also a lot more intense than MIG, something to consider if your neighbours are close.
On that point - Both rigs will dim the lights in your house and maybe those of your neighbours, and they can intefere with TV and radio.
Do you have pictures / links re the forge?
If the forge requires you to weld together components of thicknesses greater than 5mm thick, this is not a DIY job for any part of the assembly which is safety critical. Sure, you could get them to join together but a weak join is easy to produce by mistake, and the forge will be subject to a lot of heat cycling, which can induce cracking.
£200 for a 'coded welder' sounds cheap. Last job I had done was an indoor BBQ in 10mm cold rolled steel. Basically a box that goes in a chimney and also acts as a lintel. Total runs of weld added up to about maybe 2 meters max, and this cost £350. My MIG might have joined them together, but I knew it wouldn't have the balls to give good weld penetration (oo err). The price also included a test piece which was cut and etched to test penetration - point being to test that welder, using that rig and that material on that day.
Back to the choice - Ideally a blacksmith would definitely want both welders. But, you can't go wrong starting with a MIG. The clarke welders shown in machine mart are ideal. If you go for one of these, buy the gasless MIG and get the conversion components to conventional MIG using 0.8mm (sometimes 0.9mm, for the DIY market) wire. Reason: the clarkes come with 0.6mm wire, which is for car body sheet steel. 0.8 will do more. Gas MIG is better, but Gasless can be used outdoors without fear of wind affecting the gas shroud, so it's useful to have both. The clark gas machines can't be converted to gasless, but the gasless can be converted.
Don't go for any that can't handle thicker wire, cos they won't have enough amperage. You will need at least 110A for armour type clothing, but you'll soon outgrow that. 150A would be better. Also important is fine control options. I guesstimate you'd need at least 200A MIG to weld a forge together.
http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/produ ... ig-welders
Upsides of MIG are point-n-click ease of use, very easy to create a good weld, non-live torch, lower light intensity. Post processing is minimal, simply release the welding trigger, allow to cool and put the paint on.
Downsides of MIG is it it limited to about 6mm thicknesses and can't be used in windy conditions, it has more moving parts in the machine and there's the cost of gas. Also the material to be welded needs to be free of corrosion and paint etc. or it will spatter like hell and can easy burn you.
Upsides of MMA are you can weld much thicker material and get better weld penetration, it is less sensitive to dirty materials than MIG and can be used for longer without overheating.
At a stretch, they can also be used for cutting, which is useful for confined spaces where an angle grinder won't fit - but the results won't be pretty.
They are about half the price of MIG units.
Downsides of MMA are many for the DIYer. It needs more skill and a lot more dexterity to use than MIG (a hell of a lot more if you're welding 3mm sheet or thinner, and even more if your elec supply is not up to it). Post processing is dirty and time consuming, and can be annoying - If you stop a weld run and then want to lay more on top, you have to stop and clear off the slag. Also the rods are always live, so you have to be very careful where you put the torch down. The light radiation is also a lot more intense than MIG, something to consider if your neighbours are close.
On that point - Both rigs will dim the lights in your house and maybe those of your neighbours, and they can intefere with TV and radio.
Do you have pictures / links re the forge?
If the forge requires you to weld together components of thicknesses greater than 5mm thick, this is not a DIY job for any part of the assembly which is safety critical. Sure, you could get them to join together but a weak join is easy to produce by mistake, and the forge will be subject to a lot of heat cycling, which can induce cracking.
£200 for a 'coded welder' sounds cheap. Last job I had done was an indoor BBQ in 10mm cold rolled steel. Basically a box that goes in a chimney and also acts as a lintel. Total runs of weld added up to about maybe 2 meters max, and this cost £350. My MIG might have joined them together, but I knew it wouldn't have the balls to give good weld penetration (oo err). The price also included a test piece which was cut and etched to test penetration - point being to test that welder, using that rig and that material on that day.
Back to the choice - Ideally a blacksmith would definitely want both welders. But, you can't go wrong starting with a MIG. The clarke welders shown in machine mart are ideal. If you go for one of these, buy the gasless MIG and get the conversion components to conventional MIG using 0.8mm (sometimes 0.9mm, for the DIY market) wire. Reason: the clarkes come with 0.6mm wire, which is for car body sheet steel. 0.8 will do more. Gas MIG is better, but Gasless can be used outdoors without fear of wind affecting the gas shroud, so it's useful to have both. The clark gas machines can't be converted to gasless, but the gasless can be converted.
Don't go for any that can't handle thicker wire, cos they won't have enough amperage. You will need at least 110A for armour type clothing, but you'll soon outgrow that. 150A would be better. Also important is fine control options. I guesstimate you'd need at least 200A MIG to weld a forge together.
http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/produ ... ig-welders
Cheers BFG, very helpful. The bloke who has quoted me £200 is not a coded welder hence the fact I'm reluctant to give him that much for the work. I've spoken to him before and he's said he'd call the bloke who gave me the forge and find out re. putting it together...... I'm sort of thinking I might just be better taking it up with me when I go on the next blacksmithing course and getting it done then.
If I went for the MIG I was thinking about getting the gas conversion MIG. It sounded sensible. I also had decided on a 150 as that is the max. I can use on the house electrics.
At the mo. I am tending towards the MMA and accepting that I won't be welding my forge together for a good few months until I become more proficient at using the unit. Hopefully by then I'll have found a course to do. I am worried about the safety aspects of the MMA though i.e. live rods.
Don't have any neighbours so don't have to worry about that....... only the church and I'll enjoy annoying them on a Sunday after listening to their beeping horns for ages......Bye...I'll see you a 5......... grrr. The school won't be in at the times I'll be welding.
If I put the forge together correctly the insulation should prevent the welds getting extremely hot as you want to maintain the fire in the centre of the forge and not allow it to spread to the edges or you are wasting heat and coke. But I take the point about safety and continual heating/cooling.
If I went for the MIG I was thinking about getting the gas conversion MIG. It sounded sensible. I also had decided on a 150 as that is the max. I can use on the house electrics.
At the mo. I am tending towards the MMA and accepting that I won't be welding my forge together for a good few months until I become more proficient at using the unit. Hopefully by then I'll have found a course to do. I am worried about the safety aspects of the MMA though i.e. live rods.
Don't have any neighbours so don't have to worry about that....... only the church and I'll enjoy annoying them on a Sunday after listening to their beeping horns for ages......Bye...I'll see you a 5......... grrr. The school won't be in at the times I'll be welding.
If I put the forge together correctly the insulation should prevent the welds getting extremely hot as you want to maintain the fire in the centre of the forge and not allow it to spread to the edges or you are wasting heat and coke. But I take the point about safety and continual heating/cooling.
Ah - don't be. :) The voltage is under 50v and it's DC. Much, much too low for risk of electric shock.Myrkk wrote:I am worried about the safety aspects of the MMA though i.e. live rods.
The danger is that if you put it down on a live workpiece, it can start welding 'by itself", MIG doesn't because current isn't passed unless the trigger is pressed.
The MMC would be fine if you're taking a course. :)
My two funniest ever welding related moments:
Watching the smug look on a cousin's face fade one bonfire night, when he tried to light a welding rod. Serves him right for trying to nick sparklers.
An apprentice getting his much lauded steel toe-cap (real steel on the outside, not yer poncy aluminium ones matey, said he) welded to the bench he was working on, while he was in them.