Which welder to use

If you want to run fifty feet of weld, wire is the way to go. But, with distortion who would want to weld fifty feet at a time?

Wire is nice for a lot of short welds, yes. But wire has its limitations re: cold lap, penetration, and lack of fusion.

Every job requires an assessment of different things to choose the right welder. One size does not fit all.

Steve

I agree, Leon. It's just that it's not a good idea to tell newbies that it's totally okay. They might go out and weld on a trailer, or something that is critical. An experienced welder would know, as you and I do that watching the puddle to make sure the parent metals are melted is the thing to do. And how to position the metal so that a big crucible of molten metal can be created easily and effectively. But a newbie might not.

So, rather than have something like that on my mind when I read about a trailer taking out the minivan and the three kids in Sheboygan, I am reluctant to give hard and fast recommendations. That's why I said that each job requires the weldor to choose the proper welder.

For me, when I want to weld something and KNOW it's three times stronger than it needs to be, I use 7018. But most people can't run a stick of it with two weeks practice. I have four x ray certs with it. So, I don't tell them they need to use 7018 even though it's probably the thing to use on some heavier applications.

Welding is fun. From there, if you are welding anything structural, roadworthy, or just plain has to stay together under hard use, you enter another dimension.

These MIGs today are a heck of a thing for the average hobbyist. Anyone considering getting one, please do yourself a favor and buy only Blue or Red.

Steve

Not me!

Those are more limitations of the guy using it than of the method or technology. Any method can make both good and bad welds. I stick-welded (7018) my 4000 lb trailer because my little 110-volt MIG box wasn't nearly up to that job -- but if I were building another I'd use the Millermatic 210 wire machine with no hesitation at all. Decent fit, clean metal, enough heat, watch the puddle = welds every bit as good as stick welds -- without slag if not done outdoors in wind where FCAW is necessary.

Wire is also very nice indoors because of the freedom from clouds of smoke and gasses.

I definitely agree with that, since I have TIG, MIG, stick and O/A at my disposal. But assessment is real easy if one only has once choice avaialable: do it, or have it done? When in doubt, if strength or safety is a question, have it done!

Don, is that 4,000 gross? Got any pictures?

i

I had the ancestor of the 210, the MillerMatic 200. Best damn welding machine I ever owned. All I did was change the guns. Would like to know where the old boy is these days. Probably working every day.

And yup, go to the .045 wire or FCAW and it would do most anything.

Steve

Gross perhaps as in gross exaggeration. I really regard it as a 3000 GVW trailer because that's what the tires are good for and I put a

3000-lb springset on it, (40 bux at Northern) but I know my neighbor has loaded it considerably heavier than that with no problems.

I probably do have photos, but they're in an archive somewhere. It's just a 5 x 9 utility trailer with stake (removable) sides, nothing fancy. It can tilt, but we've never done it. I was going to put a hydraulic tilt jack and damper on it but never got around to it. The axle has drum brakes but we never got around to hooking them up to anything. Tongue is 4" x 4" square tube, I think the frame and bed cross supports (2) are 2" x 4" rect tube. I once saw another remarkably similar to it at the steel yard, and the owner said he routinely loaded his to 4000 lb.

Very nice.

You know, I thought about making my bed tilting, but in the end decided against it for safety reasons. Right now the bed is attached to frame in, maybe, 15 points or so, but with tilt there would be only two points.

That seems like a nice practical trailer. Mine is approximately 6x10 feet, IIRC. Works for me. My brakes are electric.

i

My 5x10 utility trailer was a tilt. Those two 3/4" bolts holding the frame to the tounge started bothering me, so I pulled em to check em. Found both of them nearly worn half way through. No bushings or bearings....just steel to steel.

So I replaced em with grade 8s, then drilled another pair of 1/2" holes through the frame and tounge, and bolted everything down tight and solid. I was thinking about welding them together..but...someday I may want to tilt. Scary shit when you pull those bolts and find only 3/8 of material left, considering the loads Ive had on it.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Thanks for the good follow-up Steve. I knew you were a welder, now I know you were just being cautious. Welding items/stuff that can cause serious injury when it discombobulates shouldn't be take lightly.

I tell you what though, if I crank up my machine high enough to weld 3/8 inch in single pass you end up with one hell of a puddle. I would guess that the metal is solidifying anywhere from 1 to 2 inches behind where you are currently welding too. You need some pretty good positioning and thought given to what you are doing or you'll get a bum weld. Several passes at lower settings is a whole lot more controllable.

That is the machine I have Steve. Bought it new in ~1988. It has never given me a lick of trouble. It is a nice feeling to be welding hard for ~20 minutes or so before the cooling fan kicks on and then only runs for a bit. Sometimes I get the whole job done and the fan never comes on :)

I had it fired up a few weeks ago after several years of rest to fix a neighbors mower deck. No different than the last time I used it. Need to push myself away from the computer more often I guess...

Tomorrow I will be welding some pipe to make something like a swing set that I can use with a come-a-long to lift stuff. I have a wire feed welder and a TIG welder, but expect I will be using an AC stick buzz box. Why? Why not. I would have to change the wire to use the MIG, and the stick welding is slightly faster ( IMO ) than TIG. Also don't have to turn on and off the gas and water.

Dan

After a Computer crash and the demise of civilization, it was learned Gunner Asch wrote on Sun, 18 Nov 2007

00:47:13 -0800 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

Well, obviously, the bolts you had in it were too big. I mean, if it will hold with half of a 3/4 bolt gone, that's to much bolt in the first place.

pyotr

p.s. "Try wait" - it just occurred to me, though, that if the bolts had been 3/8, they would have worn through before you checked them. You'll need to run the Preferred Maintenance according to the schedule, in that case. Or just go back to using the 3/4 bolts, and over engineer things. :-)

-- pyotr filipivich "Quemadmoeum gladuis neminem occidit, occidentis telum est. " Lucius Annaeus Seneca, circa 45 AD (A sword is never a killer, it is a tool in the killer's hands.)

IMHO to do a tongue-pivot tilt you really need an A-Frame style tongue, and depending on how you do it that would leave three or four attachment points - the two pivot points at the framerails, and the two saddle points where the tongue A meets the body front apron or the frame front crossmember. You could leave the straight tongue you welded into the chassis structure as a stub for the tilt cylinder to attach to.

Gunner: But someday you may *need* to tilt, there's a huge difference. You get a load on there that for some reason has no other way to be safely unloaded than to be tilted and slid off.

Next time you are messing with it, take out the bolts and tip it a bit, then hog out the holes and weld in bushings. Then you can apply some serious clamping force with those bolts, and the friction of the frame arms against the tongue will keep the whole thing from moving.

If you try clamping down hard as it is (with the holes unbushed) you can distort the tongue - and that crease in the normally nice straight load-bearing sidewall of the tongue tubing will create a starting point for a bending failure of the tongue. Hitting a sharp bump and having the tongue fold under is not a good thing.

Don:

While you aren't in a "Gotta do it right now, pay any price" rush, I would go look for a surge control tongue or an Electric-Hydraulic brake controller for your trailer. It's not the dead-weight load the trailer can handle, it's the GCWR of dynamic mass that your tow vehicle can get stopped quickly and safely. And with smaller cars and SUVs comes smaller brakes.

It's no fun to need to panic stop and feel the trailer start dancing the watusi behind you. BT, DT. If you ever have to do it while going around a corner, you are seriously screwed - it'll jackknife you and if you're very lucky you'll end up out in the cornfield, if not you'll be in oncoming traffic, picking ARMCO or K-Rail out of your teeth, or following Wile E. Coyote off that conveniently placed cliff...

The Electric-Hydraulic ones are nifty - it's a little pump that applies the hydraulic trailer brakes with standard electric brake controller signals (*but the controller has to be rated to drive them, the old ones aren't) and a breakaway system with backup battery that clamps them down hard just in case. Note that there are separate designs for drum or disc trailer brakes - residual pressure valves for drum.

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What I do for this is, I drive my truck's rear wheels up on makeshift ramps. That raises my trailer tongue quite a bit. I did that recently. It pretty much requires a 4WD.

i

Hey, if you built it as a solid trailer that works too. (4WD not required as long as the ramps are sturdy and you don't floor the gas.)

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I guess, but I found climbing ramps smoother with 4wd in low...

i