I was watching American Chopper Monday night and they had a frame being fabricated. I was watching the welder on the frame and although I could not see the bead I was watching his foot. His foot going full down and then backing off in a rhythmic motion. Was he basically pulsing the torch and doing overlapping spot welds??? Is this how the stacked coin look is made on steel??? I've never had it explained before or accomplished it on steel. On Aluminum, I've been able to get the stacked coin look by adding filler and a back and forth torch head movement and have not tried pulsing the foot pedal. Is the pulsing technique better on steel for putting less heat in to your work???
Also, can someone explain the term "Walking the Cup" and how it is used.
I shall toss in a couple of pennies based on my own experience with TIG. I watched the same show.
When he was rocking the foot pedal, the hand he held the filler rod in was going in and out of the puddle. His torch hand wasn't moving much. Had he been stacking dimes, there would have been much more movement of the torch hand.
I suspect, but don't know that, "stacking dimes" involves heating and cooling and a lot more movement. This could lead to heat/cool/heat/cool cycles that could affect fusion and penetration. Is the "stacked dimes" look an effective way to judge welds by sight, or just an esthetic? I think it impresses some folks, but I personally would like to see a very smooth
7018 run than a 6010 stacked dimes pass.
Yesterday, I worked at the Power Generation convention in Las Vegas doing setup. I got to see a LOT! of specialized weldments. NONE of them had "stacked dimes." A lot was stainless steel, and had a nice convex appearance and very nearly smooth from puddle marks. Some nice welding, all in all.
And there was a 125' blade from a wind turbine laying on a trailer. I was watching a program the other night, and they said a model with 900' blades was being fabricated in Germany for a 4.2 megawatt generator.
isn't anyone going to mention how bad of a tig welder pauly is? and what about gloves and a hood when mig welding? or maybe safety glasses once in awhile!
dave
ps. I'll be watching next week as always, but that's just because they don't tig weld on Friends.
Saw one of the guys, I believe Vinnie, doing some spot welding with a MIG. He burned his finger, and they cut away. Fast.
In real life, it is truly amazing how many times you see people welding without shirts or gloves. OR on TV, how many times you see someone OA cutting with a welding helmet. Usually a cute blonde.
That stuff burns and causes skin cancer, people. Duh.
Walking the cup means having the ceramic cup touching the work (usually pipe) and you kinda roll it back and fourth slowly inching your way further down the joint...you can keep a very steady arc because the cup is resting on your work ..it is hard to explain but if you saw someone do it you can catch on immediately...another way to describe is that you pivot the torch on either side of the joint gaining may 1/8 inch or so in your travel speed ..
I wish someone would tell Pauly to keep the Argon on his tacks until it cools..it drives me nuts when I see him pull away so fast!!!
We have a squarewave 351 and a syncrowave 250 at work and I can't get the stacked coin look on aluminum...but I think a nice smooth bead is stronger anyway...less stress risers
It drives me nuts to watch a show where they are basically racing through a job to "beat the clock", when they should really be having a contest to "increase the craftsmanship".
I think that it's an insult to put hack jobs on TV, like on "trading spaces". If you were a tradesman and you did work like that for a real customer you would definately be sued, repeatedly.
I agree completely with what has been said above, some of the crap they show is is completely riduculious. My biggest pet peeve is the way they show Jr. simply tacking most of teh stuff up, then leave it sitting on the table like it is finished. I would like to see the person responsible for finish welding that stuff out and cleaning it up get some well deserved credit. The ten seconds that show him tacking some stuff up does not come close to showing what it may actually take to finish it. It is not inconcievable that it could take 4-8 hours to finish one of the tanks(Comanche bike comes to mind), but then the clean up isn't the flashy, scream-at-each-other sort of stuff that sells. I did notice that they were showing where their frames were coming from, sort of nice of them to show that.
Last night, they had the start of the Snap-On Tools bike. There was about ten minutes at the frame shop, then it was delivered to OCC. I am amazed how they make all the stuff in line and true so when it comes together, things fit. Not enough time is spent on that.
I did like the trip to the CNC shop that made the Black Widow wheels, though. IIRC, that is.
Steve, could you please tell me more about the Power Generation Convention? Is there a web site or someother kind of promotion that would describe what you went to? Power Generation (esp wind) is yet another one of my er... hobbies. Particularly, more I'd sure like to see more info about the 125' blade and anything there pertaining to wind power, including this 900' bladed behemoth....4.2 MEGAWATTS is a HUGE REALLY BIG Wind Turbine! The gearbox for that baby must be built like a Sherman Tank!
OK since nobody else tackled your question head on, here I go.
The Stack-o-dimes look can be achieved in several ways. What he was doing on the foot pedal is a poor man's pulser. The technique can be used to fill holes, jump gaps, or pulse a seam weld. It can be a bit hard on your ankles to do it that way.
You can also achieve the look using a real pulser, my preferred method.
The 3rd way is to time your filler metal additions so they are in a steady even rhythm.
The stack-o-dimes look is not a perfect indicator of a good weld, but does show a very consistent hand, and therefore a consistent weld. It could still be a cold weld.
As one other described "walking the cup" is a technique where the ceramic gas cup is physically in contact with the bas metal and the torch is rolled side to side with the tungsten in the weld seam.
This technique is used almost exclusively by pipe welders, steam fitters, and boilermakers. It achieves a very consistent bead even in a blind weld situation.
To do it, you need a very large standard gas cup, and the tungsten is kept very short.
It has limited usefulness outside pipe welding, but is a skill worth learning for a well rounded TIG curriculum.
I don't "walk the cup" because I almost exclusively use gas lenses, which make cup walking almost impossible.
I prefer floating the torch, but you will never convince a pipe welder of that.
You can easily walk the cup with a gas lense, it is the most common combination in use in my circle.
A lot of pipe tig hands don't or won't or can't walk the cup. Less than the number that do, but still quite a few. Some places won't test welders that don't but there are still a lot of places for a non cup walking pipe welder to work.
You mean you aren't supposed to set things on fire, have the part welded to the wire and/or stick, or be able to break things off again with a couple of hammer blows? Or tack weld without gloves, goggles or other protective gear, while having a co-worker "clamp" with his bare fingers? Gee...
[I'm brand new to welding, and self-taught so far, and even I wince at some of the things they do...]
They did that once...with the Black Widow Bike. Paulie tacked together the web work for the fenders and tank, and then passed it off to a much more experienced guy that they spent a fair bit of time on (relatively speaking and considering how much time is spent on anything other than the yelling on that show...). Paulie had all sorts of nice things to say about the guy's skill too.
They've shown him doing finish welds on some sheet metal, and glimpses of welding up bars and whatever. They aren't going to show the entire job though, ever. It's not a welding show. It's not even a "how-to" show. It's a show about a family business and the dysfunctional family that runs it...with some really cool-looking bikes coming into existence along the way.
I find it frustrating too...I'd much rather watch a "how-to" show on building custom bikes, or even running a bike shop, than the "battling bikersons". I watch for the glimpses of "how-to", and "where is" and "who does", and just try to last through the hissy fits and incoherent arguments. I had more than enough of that when my brother and I were kids.
It's also worth remembering that Paulie, Paul Sr. and the rest of the OCC folks don't do the editing of the show. It's the TV folks who seem to be more fascinated by the arguing and yelling than by the work and the technology, and the time balance between welding and fabricating and fighting and slamming is their choice. I'd prefer they do it differently, but I'll take what I can get until something better comes along.
They've mentioned them several times before, but the Tool Bike is the first time they've visited them. They've actually visited many of their vendors at some point. The chromer, the painters, the wheel carvers, and a big parts supplier (the Old School Bike show), among others. They've given plugs to others, especially on the Fire Bike. On that one they visited the frame makers, and had the guys who built the hydrant-carb on the show at OCC to install it (flew up from Houston I think).
They've never tried to claim that they built everything from raw materials. It's the total concept, mock-up and final assembly that they do.
-- Mike B.
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The angle of the torch is certainly less than 90 degrees. And the tungsten is pulled back from what you would use for normal tig welding. I hope I understood your question.
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