Welding | Eastwood Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Welding’

Eastwood Metal Working Tip- Forming Metal with Items You Have Around the House

Jan 16th, 12 / 1 Comment

Metal working is definitely an art that takes a lot of practice to master. In the grand scheme of things I am definitely wet behind the ears when it comes to metal working. It seems each time I tackle a new project, I learn a little more. A common misconception when someone thinks about metal working is that you need a huge shop full of industrial sized machines to successfully shape and form metal. It’s easy to see why people come to this conclusion; watch just about any Hot Rod, Chopper, or custom car TV show, and you see them using all of these giant industrial sized machines that cost a fortune. Those tools are great,and amazing to use if you have access to them. But you can build a lot in a home shop with an arsenal of a few essential tools. Some of these you can even make yourself!

Bending radiuses in metal is one of the more difficult tasks you may come across when honing your metal working skills. This is something that was often a mystery to me, and a task I thought required an english wheel. Once I started doing some poking around on a few popular metal working forums, I noticed that many of the seasoned veterans were using homemade tools to form curves and even recreate original embossed shapes in panels. They are using everything from logs and tree trunks to metal pipes and pieces of scrap metal to build some pretty beautiful things.

This got me thinking, with a few simple Eastwood tools, and a couple of items you could find laying around your home, you could really build some neat stuff! I decided to show how we recreated the curve in the driver’s door of Project Pile House using a stainless pipe, a vice, and a couple of our Metal Forming Mallets.

The picture below shows the condition of the door when we started. Not only was it rotted out, it also had a bad dent repair done many years ago. Because of this we decided to replace the door skin just above the damage.

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Once we cut off the outer door skin I took the picture below to show the slight radius the panel had to it originally. This is what we wanted to recreate.

After putting a flange on the new door skin, we cut a slit in the top of the flange to allow us to form the radius in the panel we need to recreate. We grabbed a piece of stainless pipe we had that is about 3″, and clamped it in the vice. We then took out our Metal Forming Mallet Set and began slowly beating the edge of the panel over the pipe to get a radius started.

After some hammering and test fitting, we finally got the radius very close. We then used the backing strips in our Panel Install Kit to to get the new skin attached.

Once that piece was tack welded into place, we test fit and continue welding like we’ve already shown you in previous tech entries (you’re on the home stretch!).

Once you get over the idea that you always need to use special tools to form metal, you will find yourself looking at things differently when working in the garage. I know I’ve got the word out to some neighbors about getting one of those big old stumps they have laying around. I plan on making it into a metal working “station”! Give us a shout if you have a cool idea for a metal working tool, we’d love to hear your ideas!

1950 Dodge Pickup Project, Matt's Motor head Talk, Tech Corner

Watch and Listen to your MIG Welder, It’s Telling You Something!

Dec 19th, 11 / 0 Comments

When learning to MIG weld, one of the biggest things you can do is to listen to the sounds your welder makes when welding; and also knowing what the error is when looking at a weld. Once you understand what to look and listen for, you will notice your welds improving dramatically.

A properly adjusted MIG welder should sound like it is frying up bacon when laying a bead. You want a nice sizzle with little “pops and spits”. The final weld should be relatively flat and even throughout. Above you can see some examples of MIG welds. The first weld has our MIG 175 settings dialed in pretty good. Notice how the bead isn’t protruding from the work surface too much, and the bead is fairly uniform in width. The backside of the work piece will show a nice outline of where the weld penetrated properly into the metal.

On the second bead we turned the wire speed up way too high. You can instantly tell the difference in sound and look of the bead. You can also feel it in the MIG gun when welding. The problem here is that the welding wire is coming out too fast for the surface you are welding on and the heat settings you are using. The wire is hitting the surface and not melting into the metal fully. You will feel the wire pushing back on the MIG gun because of this, and you will hear a lot of random popping from the welder. Lastly, you can see in the picture that as we moved along the welder just made individual “globs” but no puddle was formed. With this weld you won’t see an outline of the weld on the backside of the metal as it hasn’t penetrated into the metal. This is very bad, and is a weak, dangerous weld.

The third bead we did quite the opposite, we turned the wire speed far too low. When you do this you will notice a pronounced “hissing” when welding. This will sound like you have a gas leak. You will also notice the wire burning before it even gets to the surface and the inability to move the puddle. You can see in this example the puddle started, but as soon as you move a little bit, you lose the puddle and the welding wire isn’t coming out fast enough to keep up and add to the puddle. Because of this you can see the arc was still present, but the puddle didn’t start again until we stopped moving and let the puddle form. This is also a weak, unsafe weld, and should not be used.

The fourth example is a common mistake when you first begin welding. In this bead we left the shielding gas bottle turned off, and attempted to run a bead without the aid of shielding gas. When this happens, there will be an extreme amount of popping and hissing, as well as an excessive amount of sparks and slag flying from the work area. The shielding gas cleans the weld puddle and keeps contaminates from entering the weld and making it weak. Here you can see the weld is very porous and much darker in color. Keep this in mind when welding. If you see a weld like this, make sure you check that your gas bottle is turned on, the tank output pressure isn’t too low, and the tank isn’t out of gas. DO NOT attempt to use anything you have welded without shielding gas, all of those pores are imperfections that will make the weld weak.

Now go out in the shop, set up your welder, turn the music down, and listen to what your MIG has to say. It has a lot to tell you!

Tech Corner

Lower Door Skin Restoration

Dec 12th, 11 / 0 Comments

We are currently working on restoring the lower inner and outer door skins on Pile House. Man; these things were bad! We will be doing a full video tech feature on it here shortly. We also will be featuring the process on our February catalog cover! Stay tuned! Here are a few pics to hold everyone over for now.

1950 Dodge Pickup Project

5 Beginners TIG Welding Tips

Dec 5th, 11 / 0 Comments

More so than MIG and ARC welding, TIG welding requires a lot more practice to be proficient in. There are a lot more ways to control the arc, puddle, and final outcome of your weld than with a MIG welder. Here are 5 tips that are essential to keep in mind when learning the basics of TIG welding.

1. Cleanliness- TIG welding unlike other types of welding requires a very clean surface to produce a clean arc and nice welds. Make sure you are cleaning the work surface extremely well before you weld. For aluminum and stainless we like to use a dedicated stainless brush for each type of metal we are welding on. DO NOT use the same wire brush you use to clean rust and scale off of your chassis! You will find the more time you take cleaning your work area before welding, the better your final results will be.

2. Choose the correct Tungsten- Depending on the surface you are working on, you may need to change out your Tungsten. Traditionally green tungstens are used for aluminum and red for steels, but some people prefer the red tungstens across the board. We suggest trying the “traditional” use of each before making a decision. Believe it or not, it’s possible to use too small or too large of a tungsten for the thickness material you are welding. By using too large of a tungsten you will have to turn the heat up far too much to strike an arc and could risk warping or burning through the workpiece. On the other side, using too small of a tungsten can cause damage to the tungsten from being overheated. Below you can see an overheated 1/16 tungsten.

3. Touch the Tip, Regrind- This is one of the most frustrating parts of learning to TIG weld, as well as one of the hardest to obey. If you happen to touch your tungsten tip into the puddle, even for a split second, you have contaminated it and you MUST regrind the tungsten. You will know if you have done this because the arc will start to wander badly, as well as a it will be difficult to keep a focused arc on the metal. Below is a picture of a tip that was just touched for a split second, notice the sharp tip now has “splits” in it.

4. Keep up productivity- There are a few things you can do to keep you welding longer, and without interruption. Distractions and interruptions will make a beginner easily forget what they have just learned and will make it more difficult where they left off. A few things can be done to optimize your time learning to TIG. A big one is to keep extra Tungstens ground, and ready in case you contaminate one. Also keep any pieces you plan to weld cleaned and in arms reach. Lastly, keep plenty of extra filler rod in a close arms reach (it goes quick!).

5.Grind your Tungstens Correctly- A common first-time error beginners make is to not correctly grind their tungstens. Make sure you are grinding the tungsten length-wise, and as even as possible. Grinding the opposite way will make for an unpredictable arc that tends to wander on the workpiece. If you aren’t using a tungsten sharpener, we suggest using a dedicated bench grinder to only grind tungstens on, otherwise your tungstens can be contaminated if using an all purpose grinder.

Matt's Motor head Talk, Tech Corner

Mocking up the Bed on Pile House.

Nov 30th, 11 / 0 Comments

Now that we have the cab and front end sheet metal mounted and they are a “bolt-on” affair, it’s time to start tackling the job of making bed mounts, as well as stretching the bed to fit the chassis. I initially was going to shorten the chassis to match the original Dodge wheelbase, but after some time of staring at the truck, and pictures of other trucks, I decided that I think I dislike how “unproportioned” these old short bed trucks look. After some measuring of the truck, and looking at pictures of other trucks, I think the overall appearance of the truck will look more “balanced” with the front of the bed lengthened to meet the cab.

So today we chopped out the metal that was fouling the chassis from the original bed floor first, then once we dropped the bed down we found that the S10 gas tank was hitting the bed and not allowing us to move it around freely. After removing the tank we got the bed sitting about how we wanted it height-wise, and tacked up some metal rods to hold the front part of the bed at that ideal height. We also added some cross bracing inside the bed to keep it from twisting while we are chopping it up and locking it into place. This should be a great exercise to hone my metal brake and bead rolling skills that I need some freshening up on! Check out the pictures below, and keep an eye here on the blog for a lot more updates to come.