My son, 35, wants to put up some robust shelving in his garage. We talked about it and schemed some last weekend, came up with a plan. I said I'd be glad to pick up the steel but he wanted the experience of going to Discount Steel -- and it is definitely an experience. So he did -- and he definitely enjoyed the experience. He also picked up a sixpack of zinc-rich primer rattlecans at Grainger during the week. Today we welded up some shelf brackets. The shelves will be
3/4" good-quality void-free 7-ply or 9-ply. The cost difference at Depot between cabinet-grade plywood (no hardwood veneer) and crap is surprisingly modest. The uprights are 1 x 2 x 3/16" channel, the shelf supports 1-1/2 x 1-1/2 x 1/8" angle, two 12" shelves per support. We had a perfect day for cutting steel in the back yard: nearly 60, not sunny but not rainy or windy either. I acted as mentor and gofer. Kev did all of the measuring, marking and cutting with the portable bandsaw. Then he drilled the 5/16" lagbolt holes on the drillpress and learned a coupla things about drilling steel -- drop of cutting fluid, brisk initial plunge to get a chip going, then just enough pressure to keep a curly chip going (smoke is OK long as the chip is curly), ease off just a tad right when it breaks thru so it doesn't grab. Y'all know the drill, now he does too. Thence to the weldatorium. Did that indoors with the doors open since MIG makes very little smoke or sparks and no slag. I can move Mr. Miller out on the apron, but didn't see any reason to do so. Kev did all of the welding, every bit of it. He's never welded before. I offered some verbal suggestions, handed him the autodark and the gun and invited him to have at it -- which he did with enthusiasm. We consulted a coupla times about settings -- let's try adjusting the wirefeed rate and the voltage, see if we notice any difference in how it runs and sounds and looks when the mask goes up. He sure did! His first welds weren't bad at all, though he did go over a couple of them again and I did patch one a bit for him. Had one jigging eau chitte so he got to learn how to "unweld" with angle grinder and thin cutoff wheel -- and saw that his weld was definitely sound. He learned how tack welds in some places work better than others in that they'll suffer some bending and twisting but they don't stretch for crap so location counts if adjustment might be desired. Got so our "jigging" amounted to me getting a piece oriented to the line and square, then holding it (with gloves) and shutting my eyes while he shot a tack. After about the third one we didn't need the hammer anymore! They all came out straight and about blackout square. All of his welds will unquestionably hold their loads, and his later ones were quite respectable in appearance as well. It's easy for a beginner to make a cold no-strength weld with MIG and not know it, but I know what a good weld looks like whether pretty or otherwise. His weren't all pretty, but they were all good -- eventually. No photos because the paint is wet -- and they're not *that* great but they're certainly a hell of a lot better than the best buzzbox stick welds I made on my first day or my third way back when. As usual, I learned a thing. I now see the value of knocking off mill scale in selected situations. I've never worried about it with stick or MIG and never had a problem -- but some of his tacks were cold until we started turning up the heat for tacks. Hm! I now think that once one gets a good puddle going the scale gets blasted off and mostly floats to the top of the puddle. Hey, we're not doing nuclear containment vessels and we don't need to pass Xray! But a MIG tack doesn't seem to get enough of a puddle going to do that unless the heat is one full step higher than it would be for running a bead without punchthru. It is unquestionably best to remove all millscale from all weld zones, but I don't generally regard it as worth the bother and I've never had a weld fail in service. However, I think I will now make barespots for tack welds with MIG.- posted
17 years ago