Why do my TIG welds suck?

Tom, tell us a little about how you did the design and bending. Did you have drawings or a chair to copy? What bending equipment did you use? How did you set up and bend the angles, especially compound angles?

Sam

Reply to
Sam Perkins
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Just a follow up to my post a couple of weeks ago. Got the right shielding gas, fixed the leak, found another problem at the shop and got that fixed (diameter of hose between tank and welder.) All the changes allowed me to change the welding techinque from semi-controlled panic welding to nice and easy slow welding. The welds are an order of magnitude better. Thank you so much to all who helped out! :)

I made a page of some of the new welds:

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The old welds:
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Someone (sperkins) asked about the chair and the bending:

I didn't have measured drawings, so I used a picture of the chair I found on the net. It was kind of hard to find one that wasn't sideways, but I found one eventually. I printed it out and measured the angles with a protractor. Then I made templates of the angles with cardboard from a cereal box.

The tubes were bent using a tubing bender I bougt from speedwaymotors.com for $100. You get what you pay for so it's not the greatest bender in the world, but it bends tube. They say you can't use it to make roll cages because it kinks tubes. With the diameter of tubing I was using I didn't get kinks. (I only got kinks when I bent it too far for a given position of the dies. I relocated the dies by drilling holes in the pipe bender and installing the dies at a better location)

Then the simple angles were made by just using the tool and comparing to the cardboard templates. When I went too far with the bend I managed to unbend using the dies in the new location. The long curve was done by making small bends every two inches. A bit time consuming. Then the hard part was to get the two pairs to match.

Welding the two tubes: I used a tube notcher (also from speedwaymotors.com), but could have just notched them using a round file. The notching wasn't perfect so I had to use a file anyway afterwards.

I'll post a pic once the chair is done. (In about 5 years... :) ) Tom.

Reply to
Tom Boston

Lookin' much better!!!! now just practice, practice, practice!!!

Good luck

Doobie

Reply to
Doobie

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