Welders? Any welders on this site?

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You gotta remember welding is only a small portion of the trade, i happen to do a bunch of it but that's a small fraction of the work. I basically really got into rigging too, and before long you start branching out into how other trades rig stuff and then i found tree work. When you are doing industrial rigging any sudden movements usually means things have gone horribly awry, so tree rigging is a lot of fun comparatively :lol:
 
I had to one hand a lot on this project. I am hardly steady with 2. But I guess I pulled through. I often had to pre bend the rod in 2 places to hit angle. Run 1/2 a rod in one place, save the other half for another. Just needing the length of the rod to reach some spots.
7018 I had to use the diag pliers to nip the tip when I needed more flux than rod. Temperamental stuff. I thought you may have pointed out, or Bob did, that pre heating helps. But I just went at it. But yeah, once it got going. Not that I welded much with it. Just the two bolts. Everything else was 6011. Can't fit a 4" grinder in there or wire wheel in most places. So the descaler I bought for this type project payed off in spades. Just wish I could have cleaned up welds more with a grinder. Maybe need one of the pneumatic dremel type thingys.
 
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Both the straight and the little 90' die grinders are handy, i even have a cheap harbor freight electric straight one i use on the welding rig, handy for cleaning up torched holes sometimes. The carbide bits are not cheap, and you gotta make sure they don't pull out because it's like a bullet bouncing around. They make rotary tiger paws (flap disk), nothing better for shining up for a tig root, and the spin on sanding and scotchbrite pads turn the right angle type into a very controllable setup for fine work. When welding tractor cabs we used anti spatter spray to coat the fenders and floor, a 4" masonry chisel for chipping berries after welding, and then polished up auto body style with the right angle grinders, topping the welds so they could be safely blended with a caulk and making everything completely smooth, first with 80 grit, then wet used up 80, then the scotchbrite.

They also make extra long carbide bits, sometimes doing repairs nothing else works. There's the little cutoff wheels, nice to buy a cheap dedicated one with the gaurd, good for blind cuts. The little wire wheels are amazing for cleaning slag and stuff, and they make both wheel and cup types. They have a scotchbrite flap disk that polishes stainless tig welds beautifully, i gotta remember to ask for one of those. Another really good option for grinding the inside of stuff is a cone wheel on a grinder, they make various sizes and shapes for different things.

Huge fan of bending rods, super handy. I use a 1 position stinger, and I'll bend almost every rod i run, a 90 right where it comes out. This allows me infinite rod angle adjustment for the most comfy position, and it can be adjusted as you go by simply pushing on it. It also allows you to put the lever in the back so it's out of the way, and makes for a handy hook to hang it on your pocket when tacking stuff up. In tight spots, i most often find bending (or using the dedicated groove on a tweco) the rod straight out in line with the handle, minimizing the room it needs to fit somewhere. There you can do another bend or two as needed, and it moves your hands a bit further away so you can cram your head in there deeper. It surprisingly can really make the difference sometimes, so much so that's my sop if i gotta bend one. You can also vary heat by adding bends, it creates resistance cooling the puddle on the fly, handy when your machine is a ways away and you need to turn down a touch in a spot.
 
Damn these roads. Tearing my kit up. Hitch welds cracked again. So cut and grind and weld again. Added a 1/4" strap to maybe help a little. Kyle. I hate 7018 bud.
I have one more Idea for the othe front side of the receiver but will require more bending and some 1/4" channel iron. I have some that I was saving for another project. So I'll take some measurements and see if what I have will work better for this, or the other and buy accordingly. 2 hour round trip for steel.
Hey Kyle, did I mention I loathe using 7018.... :P 20230721_143247.jpg
 
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Camera angle makes it look crooked. But that bottom piece of channel iron the receiver is resting on is exact from the receiver hitch frame its all welded to. I need one more of the same channel iron size pictured. But I am going to cut a slot in it for the receiver and then weld it on its side over the top of it to try and lose more flex. Might need to drill another hole as well. But I saw one of our county trucks done like that trying to solve their little problem towing their Bandit with their truck. Makes a nice plate basically the receiver runs through and Stiffens the lower support.
 
I hate 7018 bud.
7018 will lay down ,run over head or walk straight up smoother than anything made .However you have to have clean metal and dry rod at DC reverse polarity .The AC stuff made by Forney and others is okay but not as good as standard Hobart or Lincoln rod IMO .I use the AC stuff at the house because I have an old buzz box that came over on the Mayflower .However at my shop I have a 400 amp DC machine I can burn anything with ..I might add on those beads don't leave a crater on the end because that's where it will crack .
 
Unfortunately, Forney is about all I can get local. I'll be ordering something diffy in the future. It does lay down nice. Made sure my metal was clean. Easy when its basically new and never painted.
Getting the stick to start is a PITA. Diagonal pliers very busy today. Does not bend well for position either. Flux just falls off.
 
I’ve had a sheltered life as far as welding goes. Been welding for 52 years and to this day I’ve never used AC for anything other than Tig on aluminum so I really can’t give you any advice on using it. One thing I will suggest is to keep those magnets as far away from anything you’re welding on or going to weld on. They will cause arc blow faster than anything. Put one under a plate and try to weld across it and you’ll see what I mean.
 
Try holding a tighter arc like lightly dragging the rod against the flux coating as it’s melting. 7018 are usually a joy to run in my experience.
 
The first welding instructor I had wouldn’t let us run 7018 until we passed all position bend tests with 6010. He said 7018 runs itself and you won’t learn much from it, he was right. Now 90% of stick I run is 7018, 8018 and 11018.
 
Finished my little fab project today. I get to do most of the stump grinding because I don't bitch about it. I got tired of having to spend up to an hour mobilizing in the morning, and then 15-20 minutes unloading at the end of the day. Our 550 dump truck has no tool storage, lso you have to unload the bed anytime you want to load grindings. Additionally, there was no assigned blower or M18 grease gun for the stumper, so you had to poach those from another chip truck. Ideally the dump truck should have had a big box behind the cab, but that would mean replacing the truck. There was one at the welding shop last month, F550 with an aluminum box and a 9' dump bed. $106,000. I had to come up with something cheaper. I realized that there was room for a job box on the trailer, but it was going to take an 8' box to do the job. I didn't find one available online, so I got two 4' and welded them together and cut the middle out. It cost around $1,500 in materials and labor. I think that will get paid back very quickly, especially if it saves a set of cutterwheel bearings, which allegedly were ruined from lack of grease.

Waiting on the BR800 blower, and there is room for my boat anchor 390xp.
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I might suggest iron powder like 7014 and 7024 for those with buzz boxes .Again though you need clean metal .The best rusty metal is 6012 .6011 runs hot and 6013 they call farmer rod .6010 of course is a DC reverse rod .
 
I found that preheating does help to solve my crappy welds issue. What a discovery !
Usually the beginning of my welds looks like shit, but that becomes better when the pieces are hot from the first weld.

Beside, for the broken hitch... the design of the added part could be responsible for the cracked welds of the part in the truck's frame. I mean, it looks like some serious steel, but basically, the added part is just a square suspended at the bed's back. With the leverage of the long hitch tube, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a lot of torsion and side to side oscillations. Probably vertical too. The front end of the "wobbly" hitch tube is anchored to a sturdier point inside the truck's frame, so something has to give. I'd suggest to add some braces to rigidify this added part. Vertically inside the square by a V from the upper corners down to the middle of the hitch tube, and horizontally from the middle of the hitch tube toward the corners of the main truck's frame (the ends of the oem transversal square tube).
i don't know if I'm clear. A drawing may help but it's a little late now.

edit, not the middle of the hitch tube, but actually the back end of the receiver tube.
 
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