Blacksmithing Anyone?

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sburns said:
I need to patch up something inside one of my HD exhausts. Probably aluminum (guessing).
Garage isn't 240v. I don't think I want to do this in the house.
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110v is fine. There is some smoke, so yes in the house is not a good idea.
 
timtune said:
Not my quote "anyone with a grinder can be a good welder"
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A grinder and paint makes me the welder I ain't.

In all seriousness, get penetration, try to avoid porosity and you should be fine. Let the grinder fix cosmetics. If you don't have penetration, there is no point welding.
 
sburns said:
I need to patch up something inside one of my HD exhausts. Probably aluminum (guessing).
Garage isn't 240v. I don't think I want to do this in the house.
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In the garage (or house lol) is due to MIG not liking any wind/breeze as the gas gets dissipated before shielding the weld. FCAW is better outside.

Odds are the inside is steel as aluminum does not tend not like the internal exhaust temps...
 
All this said welding thin metal that's likely found in a pipe will still be tricky. Thick material is forgiving unlike thin stuff that you can blow a hole through.
Even if you can't fix the exhaust a welder is still an awesome tool.
 
sburns said:
I need to patch up something inside one of my HD exhausts. Probably aluminum (guessing).
Garage isn't 240v. I don't think I want to do this in the house.
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I mean inside as in garage. Welding a fence post with MIG can be a prick as the wind blows away the shielding gas and you are left with something awful.

Welding aluminum is harder than steel. Steel gives you a nice colour change to let you know how it is feeling. Aluminum goes from not hot enough to liquid without warning. Not insurmountable but it requires more experience. Are you sure the exhaust parts are aluminum? That would be a strange choice of material. You can weld aluminum with a spool gun but for most home gamers, it's not worth the investment given the number of times you need it.
 
Princess Auto has a 120v FCAW unit on sale for $188. I have heard good things about these newer cheapy ones but no experience. It is inverter based so it weighs in at 1/4 the weight of my Lincoln!
 
backmarkerducati said:
Princess Auto has a 120v FCAW unit on sale for $188. I have heard good things about these but no experience. It is inverter based so it weighs in at 1/4 the weight of my Lincoln!
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The inverter welders are so small and light it's amazing. I would bet money on your lincoln working in 50 years even if it was left outside for a bit. The smoke seems to escape quite easily out of the cheap inverters.
 
GreyGhost said:
The inverter welders are so small and light it's amazing. I would bet money on your lincoln working in 50 years even if it was left outside for a bit. The smoke seems to escape quite easily out of the cheap inverters.
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The Lincoln will be working far past the point I can move it...

At $188 it would be interesting to try an inverter on a lark (even with risk of letting out the magic smoke, but I bet if you don't push it too hard, maybe...), I would have to paint it red, otherwise my wife will notice a new welder...
 
Thanks guys, good start, most of stuff doesn't make sense to me. But I will come back to this once I get closer to doing the work. Right now it's down on the priority list, for now...
 
timtune said:
meaning it should run on a dedicated 40amp service
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That's not how it works.The welder is MOSTLY a big transformer, which converts input current to low voltage/High amperage
They output about 120v with no load, but 15-25v under load.
 
Sky_high said:
Silly question...does anyone in this forum know how to weld on brass? My mom has an old damaged lamp, that I would like to fix for her.
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Brass lamps anre often soldered, pretty easy to do.

A broken casting or a fitted joint that has separated can be soldered then polished.

Brass needs way more heat than copper, but solders the same way.
 
sburns said:
Hmm can anyone buy a welder? Curious what you have? I've a couple of things I'd like to weld. I wouldn't get a lot of use out of it but it's something that's not to expensive.
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you can buy a hobby stick flux core mig combo welder off Amazon for less than $200. Add another $150 for a helmet, gloves, spool of wire and small angle grinder. Mig is easier than stick.

I’ve used the Jungle website welders, shockingly they weld just as well as an entry level $1000 Hobart or Miller 140 (don’t touch Lincoln or Century small migs -Chinese junk).

Hobby welding is easy to self teach, but takes practice. Thousands of good YooTube videos, even better is to take a 1 day course and be welding way faster than self teaching off YouTube.
 
sburns said:
I need to patch up something inside one of my HD exhausts. Probably aluminum (guessing).
Garage isn't 240v. I don't think I want to do this in the house.
Click to expand...
Exhaust pipes are usually steel, not aluminum. 120v is fine up to 1/4” plate for an inverter Mig welder. Could be slow, but it’s gonna work fine.

Aluminum Mig welding isn’t easy.
 
GreyGhost said:
I mean inside as in garage. Welding a fence post with MIG can be a prick as the wind blows away the shielding gas and you are left with something awful.

Welding aluminum is harder than steel. Steel gives you a nice colour change to let you know how it is feeling. Aluminum goes from not hot enough to liquid without warning. Not insurmountable but it requires more experience. Are you sure the exhaust parts are aluminum? That would be a strange choice of material. You can weld aluminum with a spool gun but for most home gamers, it's not worth the investment given the number of times you need it.
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I never weld with gas outside, shielding gas washes out even in calm conditions.

Welding AL on a cheap hobby welder doesn’t need a spool gun! Their shorter 10’ line that will feed AL wire on the flux core drive wheel. Just change to a $10 Teflon sleeve. Still not easy to weld AL, I don’t bother - get a $40 Mapp torch and some Benzomatic AL braising rods.
 
Mad Mike said:
you can buy a hobby stick flux core mig combo welder off Amazon for less than $200. Add another $150 for a helmet, gloves, spool of wire and small angle grinder. Mig is easier than stick.

I’ve used the Jungle website welders, shockingly they weld just as well as an entry level $1000 Hobart or Miller 140 (don’t touch Lincoln or Century small migs -Chinese junk).

Hobby welding is easy to self teach, but takes practice. Thousands of good YooTube videos, even better is to take a 1 day course and be welding way faster than self teaching off YouTube.
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I did welding in shop class, it was a while ago, but I did it!
 
sburns said:
I did welding in shop class, it was a while ago, but I did it!
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I bought one of these to keep at my son’s house. I did a bunch of repairs to his small trailer, It works as well as my Hobart Handler 140 that cost me $1000. I haven’t tried the stick part, but I’m guessing it’s fine for small stuff.

The big challenge with these cheap inverter welders is duty cycle. If you’re running the machine on full, you can only run about 5 seconds on then 15 seconds to cool off.
 
I have one of these and a newer master craft flux core. 99 % of the time I just use the flux core one
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Sent from the future
 
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