FWIW first welding job, 2 years on (2025 Update)

Hello all A for what it's worth...

Actually 2~1/2 years since ali. GMAW job. First local job since arriving in Cornwall 2 years ago. Yes - I crossed the Tamar from Devon. Very loaded issue.

Is a fabco. Been MIG'ing steel all day.

Best wishes everyone, Rich S

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Did the US gold mine elevator accident have any effect on your mining museum activities? I was careful to limit what I suggested. The crash of the B-17 "909" nearly shut down US warbird displays, then you lost a Spitfire.

I removed the sawmill rails from my yard a few days ago. They were similar to 22 inch gauge track, upright 3" steel channel on wood sleepers, 24' long to handle 20' logs. Stepping over them was a major nuisance.

Yes - I crossed the Tamar from Devon. Very loaded issue.

---------------------------- One Tamar bridge has a unique design:

I pass that, the Saltash Bridge, travelling back to Devon of I go the South-of-Dartmoor route through Plymouth. From the road suspension bridge the 1850's Brunel railway Saltash bridge is alongside.

It is a spectacular sight. Many Brunel solutions are very special - there is a clean rationality to the design, as best I can put it.

Regards, Rich S

I hadn't even followed the story. I'd vaguely heard of it, but wasn't retained and otherwise mentioned. I'd study the explanation of what happened when it emerges.

Thing is, keeping historic mines open is inherently risky and challenging. I've seen in video how much effort various preserved mines in the US have to go to. eg. there's one on the Comstock Lode, where some of the almost unique features of mining that lode are seen.

So occasional mishaps are going to happen.

The value to society of seeing where our forebearers scraped a living is so very very high. So the risks while known are accepted. Someone somewhere will be in the wrong place at the wrong time - but to lose contact with forebearers and continuity is a "no way" for our societies.

"Our" shaft is only about something like 100ft deep. Is haulage skip only - no person riding. We use a ladder shaft to get in / out of mine.

What was "unique" about mining the Comstock Lode is shown here

The value to society of seeing where our forebearers scraped a living is so very very high. So the risks while known are accepted. Someone somewhere will be in the wrong place at the wrong time - but to lose contact with forebearers and continuity is a "no way" for our societies.

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I live in a somewhat sparsely populated hilly to mountainous state next to a flat highly urban one whose residents flock here for vacations. Over the weekend the TV ran a warning that hiking in the mountains requires more cold weather preparation than many arrive with, being used to always having warm indoor shelter nearby. Specifically, don't climb in October wearing sneakers or even shorts and sandals. Crosses mark where hikers froze to death in July. Several times I've seen mountain hikers very poorly prepared for the arctic wind and cold and deep snow at altitude while it's sunny and warm where they parked, a few miles away. While descending late in the day in January, equipped as for Mt Everest, we met and escorted back a group of teens struggling uphill through the snow in light jackets and sneakers. Another hiker and I made winter gear and were testing my goose down parka and his snowshoe climbing grips.

NH mountains aren't particularly high but their weather can be similar to northern Labrador. We don't benefit from Gulf Stream warmth as you do, we get Norwegian cold (-20C) at Italian latitude (42N). Our urbanites have become used to thinking that the world is safe and not staying alert or taking precautions.

Sounds like a good way to cull the incurably stupid among us ... our culture has pretty much eliminated natural selection .

Sounds like a good way to cull the incurably stupid among us ... our culture has pretty much eliminated natural selection . Snag

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It's not stupidity, they are street-smart in their own environment, just not in the wilderness. I had to stay alert, learn fast and dress to become invisible when the Army stationed me in New Jersey and I had the chance to explore New York City on weekends. I knew I had succeeded when the hookers around 42nd St stopped noticing me. In Mensa NH, MA and sometimes NY and Quebec mingled at functions and learned the rules of each others' turf.

The biggest cultural divide I've experienced was between French and English speakers in Canada. I made the mistake of speaking French when I hadn't noticed that we (black-leather bikers) had passed from Quebec into New Brunswick, and the store clerk was very rude until I switched to American English.

From where I come from in the Pennines in Northern England - "nothing" by continental standards - the local mountain rescue cheerfully lists "popular" ways people get in a mess and/or come by mishaps.

Made it to third day so far... Might have a niche there.

Into fourth week in job. Is tough. New techniques for slightly different situations not previously met. Getting strength back to be welding all day. About 1/3rd of my work is making components for mineral separating machinery. Very Cornish. Best wishes

Done 7th week of weldign job. It seems to be settling-down. My repertoire of customers is very limited, but I am refining my welding technique and getting more efficient hence quicker.

I've had some "golden hints" - eg. for an outside-corner MIG / GMAW joint in the horizontal-vertical position, a weave is needed bacause it will not run stable otherwise (familiar other one is horizontal-vertical T-fillet weld with 6010 cellulosic stick - sometimes will not run stable "straight-run" and needs a "whipping" manipulation). I only needed to see it for one second for "the penny to drop". Others similar-ish. So, has been good.

I have contributed - this has started to happen. I used "the bubble" (spirit-level) on some fabrications, and found that what it cost in time to set things off parallel at the first stage was more than made-up for by the "ideal" time it took to fit-up and weld the rest. Show the approach and the corrections, the owner and designer where on the press-brake with dial-gauges, etc., and made adjustments. ie. there is something positive going on.

Etc.

It is hard work getting back to it, for sure.

I have developed muscles to "float the torch" (GMAW "gun"). While having a guide can give the most "exhibition grade" welds, practically for production "floating the torch" has you quickly moving along the welds presented in-line on your trestles. It is good keeping a consistent weld when the "harness" (tube for the wire, gas, control-cables, etc.) has found something to drag on mid-run and you continue to do an invariant run. Etc.

Best wishes

I have contributed - this has started to happen. I used "the bubble" (spirit-level) on some fabrications, and found that what it cost in time to set things off parallel at the first stage was more than made-up for by the "ideal" time it took to fit-up and weld the rest. Show the approach and the corrections, the owner and designer where on the press-brake with dial-gauges, etc., and made adjustments. ie. there is something positive going on. ...

------------------------- Could you expand on that?

I found out the hard way how much welds can distort a precise alignment, especially a weld across an inside corner. I had to jack the sawmill ladder frame parallel (enough) and mill the shrunken gap in a bending brake hinge assembled from surface-ground plates. The surface welds along the sides of the plate stack didn't destroy the 0.005" fork/tongue clearance, but welding inside the fork did.

Do diagonal or fish mouth/tail ends (vs square) improve stress distribution and/or reduce distortion in butt joint splice plate welds? One end of the splice plate would be bolted, the other welded after aligning the beams.

When I was building custom machinery the press brake operator and welder compensated for distortion, the all-welded machine frames were square to

You are well ahead of me. i doubt i can help.

Press-brake - they have a press-brake, yes - good. Not new when bought. Is small "fabco.". Seeing if corrections / calibrations needed to go in to the settings, I think.

You are well ahead of me. i doubt i can help.

Press-brake - they have a press-brake, yes - good. Not new when bought. Is small "fabco.". Seeing if corrections / calibrations needed to go in to the settings, I think.

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Bending allowance can be determined by bending a small test coupon and measuring the resulting lengths. I've seen welders hammer the cooling beads but my night school training didn't cover that aspect, it seemed to be done by experience and judgment instead of pre-planning.

A practical example is welding a repair in a curved fender. A patch dished to copy the existing fender shape will flatten from weld shrinkage. If there's space behind, like on my pickup truck bed, I can restore the curve with a hammer and dolly, but the integral steel inner wheel well on the car blocks access for a dolly so if it had antique value I'd need to preform the patch 'somewhat' deeper to compensate, or build it up with filler. jsw

Lot of experience there.

Funnily enough, was helping the boss on the press-brake today. Ran out of folded plate pressings and no other work, so did a run. The boss had me involved in his (our) measurements - getting the pressings from "nearly" to matches drawing dimensions and angles. Got some idea of the adjustable variables and what error can manifest as on pressings.

Funnily enough, was helping the boss on the press-brake today. Ran out of folded plate pressings and no other work, so did a run. The boss had me involved in his (our) measurements - getting the pressings from "nearly" to matches drawing dimensions and angles. Got some idea of the adjustable variables and what error can manifest as on pressings.

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I have the 30" central Machinery 3-in-1 shear + brake + roll. Like the 4x6 bandsaw they can be terrible unless reworked. Mine had been orphaned in disgust by a shop that tried to shear plastic with it, without fine-tuning (overhauling) it first. After adjusting it repeatedly until it stopped shifting it has worked fairly well, as long as I stay below its claimed capacity. 0.050" 5052 aluminum is fine on it, 0.063" 6061 is almost too much.

It bends a radius by inverting the fingers and pressing a round rod down with the square back edges. I set its height to accept cardboard padding on the lower die to avoid scratching the stock. The supplied squaring guide makes a good clamp for a ruler.

Thanks for the hints about the 3-in-1 sheet metalworking machine. Something of that size might be doable in my outbuilding if projects were to go that way.

Thanks for the hints about the 3-in-1 sheet metalworking machine. Something of that size might be doable in my outbuilding if projects were to go that way.

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I use sheet metal tools to fabricate electronic enclosures, they aren't much use for building machinery except for cover and control panels, which can be flat, and if aluminium cut on a table saw.

The valuable equipment is a lathe for power transmission components and a vertical mill for the static structure, plus a horizontal bandsaw to cut stock. The lathe and mill need to be stationary, the bandsaw can be wheeled to move to where you have room for long stock.

They don't actually divide that neatly, I use assorted 5C collet tooling to move work between the lathe and mill, and British model engineers have a tradition of making steam locomotives etc entirely on a lathe.

A knee mill is generally considered preferable to a mill-drill if you have the space and funds. In the USA a Bridgeport or clone is the small shop standard though I've built a sawmill, firewood splitter and tractor bucket loader on a knee mill half their size. The small scale mining equipment you've mentioned might be possible if difficult to make or recondition on machine tools the sizes of mine.