Now that I have my workbench done I started on my first welding project with the new Miller Millermatic 180 MIG welder. It's a simple bracket I can mount on the wall behind the welder to hold the power extension cord.
Here are the pictures of the project...
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It's just so fun being able to do these things at home now. I've got a gowning list of new projects to work on now.
I bought the small cart with the welder and one of the first things I want to improve about it is the fact it doesn't have a handle you can push the cart with. You have to either push on the welder which slides around on the cart (it just sits in a tray and is not attached to the cart), or bend down and try to push the cart itself. I'll have to add a handle to the front of the cart to make it easy to push (or pull) around the garage. I'll probably include a simple box tray for holding small parts and tools as well (like you see on O/A hand carts), and design it to double as a cable holder for the MIG gun cable and ground wire.
But first, I really should get back to the storage shelf project I used as the justification for buying the welder in the first place. :)
Curt, why do you drill the holes after you do the welding? Seems so much easier to handle if you do it before.
If you have trouble with one or two little bits of weld spatter, try a small sharp chisel and about a 1 pound hammer. If you're going to all the trouble to make something look real pretty, you don't want *any* spatter left.
Nice work, especially on the technical communication. Much appreciated. I like your design too. I have some stainless drops left over, and I might make up some of your style of cord hangup racks.
I suspect you didn't predrill large enough or deep enough and that's why your lag screw sheared. I generally drill the minor diameter of the thread, almost full depth.
Just felt like welding first instead of going to he basement to drill. :) I gave it quick thought and decided it would be easy enough to drill after the welding and just put it off. You are right of course, it would in general be better and easier to drill before you weld.
:)
Yeah, exactly. I switched from a 1/8" drill bit to something about two sizes larger, (maybe 3/16?) after the first one broke. They were 1/4" lag screws. I'd have to go check what the minor diameter is on them but the second drill bit was about that size. I drilled as deep as I could with the 1/8" drill but it was probably an inch shorter than the lag screw. The second attempt with the larger drill and the shorter lag screws ended up with the drill hole being about as deep as the screw.
I've drilled and installed a lot of lag screws in my time, but I've never seen one break like that. They normally get too hard to turn if the wood is too hard and the pilot hole too small (or the wood splits). This one wasn't really very hard to turn so it caught me by surprise when it broke off like that. Live and learn. :)
I am interested in the powdercoating. I send "special" projects out for powdercoating now. How much cleaning and prep work is required to do your own powdercoat? Where did you get your powdercoat gun and supplies?
It depends on the quality of results you want I guess. I'm not expert. I just started playing with it a month ago. However, I do nothing more than wipe it down with some acetone. But I can get a minor defect here and there. In general though, it's real easy and simple to work with. Much easier than paint to get a decent finish. The power coat seems to be a thick gel like substance that does a very good job of covering over minor surface imperfections and scratches. I don't for example bother to sand off the mill scale on the hot-rolled steel and though parts of the bracket was sanded and parts were not, you can't see that fact in the final piece.
But it also depends on the which paint you use. The red paint I used for the die I posted about is translucent and you can see every little detail on the metal. If you leave a mark on the metal with a sharpie marker, you can read it though the powercoat. When working with something like that, you do have to sand and clean the metal to whatever finish you want before the powerder coat.
From Eastwood.
I bought their starter kit for $100.
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That plus a compressor and oven will get you started. I also bought a small regulator which I added to the gun so I don't have to keep the air turned down so low (it needs only about 8 psi). I found out about Eastwood when someone in rec.crafts.metalworking mentioned it.
Eastwood has videos an information on their site about it as well.
One trick of course is that you can only powder coat items that you can fit in your oven - or else you have to build or buy a biger oven.
It's just a dry powder which is held on the part by static electricity. If you touch it or bump it at all as you move it to the even it knocks off the powder and you have to start over (just blow off the coating and start again). So not only does it have to fit in your oven, there has to be enough room that you can get it in there without bumping it. I always practice the move from my coating rack to the oven before doing the real thing.
One thing that surprised me was the fact that it doesn't seem to care about the orientation of the surfaces you coat. Flat, vertical, upside down, the powder doesn't seem to run at all as it melts and cures.
The only tricky part is getting it inside tight spots. But that's tricky with paint as well.
Powder is easy compared to liquid painting. You want the part CLEAN though because powder doesn't like rust or dirt under it. About the best surface for powder is fresh sandblasted metal. Next comes chemically cleaned with no rust.
Guns can be had from a few places, from Harbor Freight, Eastwood and others make consumer grade guns. Mine is a former commercial factory gun that I bought at an auction.
Oven wise you need something that can raise the temperature of the part to between 250 and 500 degrees (depends on the powder type, and part size) Then hold it there for 10-40 minutes. A common electric oven works pretty well.
Back when I was dealing with powder 10 hours a day I HATED it, but it was handy to have the ability to coat anything from small screws to race car chassis!
VERY nice work, on the welding cart. You might want to do what I did with mine. Toss the factory tiny wheels, install larger ones.
Then make the shelf higher so you don't need to bend over all the time. (I like having the welder controls at a level where I can grab them while on a seat or while standing) Also make a few tabs and attach them to the factory screws then to the rack that will keep the welder from sliding around. I used some clips for mine, that way I could remove the welder fast for portable use if needed. Then add the handle and add a torch keeper to the handle to give you a handy place to put the welding grip between uses. I also added a set of drawer glides and a metal drawer under the welder. Makes a great place for replacement tips, tip pliers, gas nozzles and such. Just a few ideas.
Nice bracket. I probably would not have even painted it, but we get so little humid weather each year here, that rust is not a huge issue. What got my attention though was your powder coating setup. It was in the back of my mind after seeing your red milled die, but it never really came the surface and gelled until now when I saw your more basic black powder coating setup. As soon as I saw it I called my wife over to show her your setup, oven, and final product. She and I used to customize motorcycles. We always sent out for paint or powder coating, and had custom parts made for us, but we enjoyed our bikes a lot. Actually she was more the "customize it for show person," and I was the, "how can I get more mid range roll on power?" type. We compromised. I had an EVO Electraglide that would pull my large self, and a trailer with 500 lbs+ of gear at 95+ without getting hot, and she had a Softtail Fatboy that would have made Liberace grimace. We have grown out of it into other things (we still have a few bikes in the stable), but we still have an eye towards that from time to time. We both agree that at some point we want to take advantage of our EPA allowed one per lifetime homebuilt bike to build ourselves a mismatched pair of ground up originals.
After looking at your powder coating setup and the red milled die she said, "You can have the oven in the kitchen for your shop when we get a new one."
Thank you Curt. Another break through. LOL.
P.S. When I say we were both into customizing I really meant both of us hands on. I recall once she wanted some fancy new handlebars installed on her bike the night before a run we were going on. I've never been one to do a major change before a long ride unless it's a necessary repair. I just don't want anything to fall off or fail 500 miles from home. I told her if she wanted those bars on her bike before the run she was going to have to do it herself. I was hoping she would just wait until we got back, but no. She headed straight out to the shop and got started without me. I went to bed.
In the past, I've always dealt with splatter using a wire wheel and what that wire wheel doesn't get off, I'd take of with a grinder and flap wheel (if I care enough to bother).
Yesterday I tried a cold chisel for the first time (on the shelves I've been building) and damn if it didn't work great! I could cleanly pop off the weld splatter which the wire wheel wouldn't get off. Because the wire wheel didn't take them off, I had always assumed they were too welded on to be knocked off but using the sharp cold chisel got them off with no problem at all leaving a nice clean surface. Thanks for mentioning the idea, I've learned something new!
Yeah, now that I know they can be popped off with the right force, there is no end to the number tools I have sitting around to help. I just never thought to try them!
I've added a brick set to my collection as well now. What a great tool for cleaning off weld splatter from a wide area like a workbench! As a matter of fact, I just used it a few hours ago to remove a spot I noticed on the vice.
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