I'm about to build a 304 stainless steel chair frame and was wondering if I should pickle the welds when I'm finished. it's going to be used only indoors so it won't see much water. an aluminum version of the chair can be found here:
thanks, dave
Pickling wouldn't be necessary, but it would be smart if you plan on selling them.
As pickle's go I prefer Citrisurf.
If I may comment, I think the design stinks. The open tube ends will catch on just about everything. The open tube ends at the bottom of the legs will destroy just about any flooring or floor covering. The tubes sticking ount in front, even if they weren't open would catch clothing, legs, fingers, ...
Just my opinion.
BTW, why SS instead of Al?
Ted
What he said.
If you're going for a "new design" it's pretty poor (and pretty much basically a recycled 1950's design).
If you're going for retro 50's design, you have the overall shape down, but you need to look at some of the details that make 50's style modern furniture actually work. The seat horizontal tubes should definitely get lopped off at minimum, and if you don't cap them, they need a lot of smoothing and polishing to make them safe for furniture use (and they'lll still collect crud).
Actually, I ended up cutting the horizontal tubes to end at the cushion and I plan on capping all the tubes when I build it out of stainless. I'm building it out stainless to get some experience working with the material and because I don't particularly like working with aluminum. As far as the design stinking, other than the open tubes and protruding horizontal tubes which will be different, I'm surprised such a simple design drew such harsh criticism. The only other modification I planned to the next chair was to sew the cushion covers instead of stretching and folding vinyl like I did on the one in the picture. Any recommendations?
Warning: Ignorance is about to be displayed!
Okay, so what is "pickling a weld"? I've been lurking on this group for several months, and thought I'd learned just about all the terminology--nowhere near all the technique, mind you, or even all the permutations of metals and filler rods and so on--but at least the basic terminology. But I have no clue what "pickling" a weld would involve!
Could someone take pity on my ignorance and explain? Thanks!
In *my* opinion, the chair design seems pretty good. I might shorten the forward ends of the horizontal side tubes maybe an inch or so to avoid snags, but the rearward projections look interesting. I can't see anything catching on those. Certainly capping the open ends and making solid pads for the bottoms of the feet would cure the other possible problems.
Andy
If I remember correctly, you can pickle your weld, but you would never want to weld your pickle.
This link goes to a maker of the stuff and briefly explains the need for such a product.
Thanks!
Its an acid treatment to clean the weld and stop corrosion.
Speaking of citric acid, today I saw a 50 pound drum of dry citric acid powder listed on eBay for $35. What other ingredients (aside from water) would be needed to make an effective citric acid based pickling solution?
Lots of baking soda and you have lots of soda rockets !
Martin :-) IIRC, it is hydroscopic - absorbs water.
Tidrix wrote:
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