Metal Working! Fitting, Machining, Welding, Sheet and General Metal Fab

Urban DH

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Hey Guys

been thinking about it for a while but i'm finally doing it. this is a thread for people to post up stuff they've made, things they're making and the process the went through, also for advice and also to maybe even find people who can help them build things or build things for you, dont slag of others work either!

i'll start with the most recent thing i made, today. a chris king crown race spacer thing jrewing asked me to make, or rather i offered to make

started with some blank steel i had, machined the rust and crao off the out side, drilled out the middle to 26mm, only went up to 10mm in the jacobs chuck and then had a play with the new morse taper drill bits 14mm-30mm in 2mm incriments, turned out the steel was quite pure and nice to machine, then bored it out to 29.8mm machined the bearing race and then the angle for the bearing to sit on, then there was some tricky magic to machine out the rest in 1 piece, then polished the whole thing with 2400 emry, parted it off and cleaned the bottom with some 400 then 600 emry and she's come up good!

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stoo

Likes Dirt

Long Landcruiser roof rack,


Shorty Landcruiser rack,


15mm axle clamp thingy for shorty rack,
 

Urban DH

Likes Bikes and Dirt
very nice! i'm likin' the dt hub tools, alli by the looks of it, nice work guys exactly what i was going for with the thread
 

dug8713

Likes Dirt
Needed a workbench so I ordered 50 x 50 SHS and 50 x 50 mild steel angle from work. TIG welded the legs, MIG welded the rest.

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charlieking97

Likes Dirt
i know this is for posting up works, not questions, but I think most of the more advanced metal workers will checking this thread. I am just using a 170amp arc welder at the moment, but am thinking about upgrading to a mig or tig or cig etc etc. What would be recommended for generally mild steel works and some aluminum jobs? thanks in advanced
 

Urban DH

Likes Bikes and Dirt
i know this is for posting up works, not questions, but I think most of the more advanced metal workers will checking this thread. I am just using a 170amp arc welder at the moment, but am thinking about upgrading to a mig or tig or cig etc etc. What would be recommended for generally mild steel works and some aluminum jobs? thanks in advanced
i'd go (despite my.... interactions with spinner haha ;) ) a 15amp mig/tig/stick inverter with a bottle of argon and heliarc gas, thats what my brother uses, he's a stainless welder/sheety and he's done stainless, 10mm mild plate, alli and everything inbetween, you're looking around about 1000 for the unit plus gas/helmets/wire/filler rod/welder trolly/etc etc i'll find out some more about it and get back to you on it but its a good setup and does just about everything we've needed to do, you could go bigger if you have 3 phase aswell
 

charlieking97

Likes Dirt
i'd go (despite my.... interactions with spinner haha ;) ) a 15amp mig/tig/stick inverter with a bottle of argon and heliarc gas, thats what my brother uses, he's a stainless welder/sheety and he's done stainless, 10mm mild plate, alli and everything inbetween, you're looking around about 1000 for the unit plus gas/helmets/wire/filler rod/welder trolly/etc etc i'll find out some more about it and get back to you on it but its a good setup and does just about everything we've needed to do, you could go bigger if you have 3 phase aswell
I was hoping to stick with a gasless setup, but if you really recomend getting the argon and heliarc, i'll go for that.
Thanks mate
 

Zam

Likes Dirt
Thanks guys for posting your work, really enjoy looking through the pics and admiring the workmanship.
 

muvro

Likes Dirt
i know this is for posting up works, not questions, but I think most of the more advanced metal workers will checking this thread. I am just using a 170amp arc welder at the moment, but am thinking about upgrading to a mig or tig or cig etc etc. What would be recommended for generally mild steel works and some aluminum jobs? thanks in advanced
remember, you'll have bottle rental, as well as the cost of the gas etc. So if you can justify the expence, get a TIG/ARC. Unfortnately, for aluminium you will require a AC-DC TIG, they don't come cheap. Not to mention learning to weld Aluminium is a tedious process, but very rewarding once you have it sussed.

However, it doesn't sound like you'll be using the aluminium side of things very much, so I'd just go for a DC unit at a much lower cost (under 1k and can be had with a full starter kit). Have some fun with it, then as your skills improve and you want to get more adventurous maybe upgrade to a decent AC-DC unit.

The other option is a MIG, get a teflon liner and you can run an ally spool or a steel spool, it's harder to weld ally with a MIG in my opinion, but it can be done and it'd be a fairly cheap way to get into ally welding.

Your best bet would be to head down to a Welders supply shop and tell them exactly what you want to accomplish and they can steer you in the right direction.

Have fun! :)
 

SummitFever

Eats Squid
I was hoping to stick with a gasless setup, but if you really recomend getting the argon and heliarc, i'll go for that.
Thanks mate
You can go gasless mig but there's no such thing as gasless tig. Gasless mig saves having to rent a bottle of shielding gas, but is much harder to get good results and the wire is 3x more expensive than non flux core. If you only do occasional welding or need to weld outside in windy conditions gasless is OK.

Lots of people will tell you that gasless is just total crap. Its not, its just harder to get good results than ordinary mig. If you come from a stick welding background you won't have any problems but you will have to spend a fair amount of time dialing in your machine's settings to the particular job at hand to get good results.

Here's an example of a gasless mig weld I did a couple of days ago on an outdoor job on 2mm gal RHS. You get lots of splatter, there's always some slag inclusion on the edges of the weld and the bead always has that dull appearance. The slag makes it hard to see the weld bead.

With a gas mig you can see everything so much clearer and can really use the visual appearance of the weld pool to get the best possible results.

 

Psimpson7

Likes Dirt
I do a few bits and pieces for different projects of mine - Here are a couple:

Jerry can holders.

CAD:



Real:



Water tank mount:

CAD:



Real:



Custom rear bar:



 
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