Welding

[Guest Old_Fart]

I learned to weld when I was 13.

 

My dad was an Engineer. I mean a real one. I dont count anyone that works in a garage as an engineer. Hhe used to design and hand build (with his team) prototype engines. Diesels, mainly, for big generator sets, and then later Gas Turbines.  My dad was a mechanical and maths genius. He also used to fix his own car, and thus I learned to fix mine. Sometimes a car repair would halt for a day while he made a special tool  to do a specific job on a specific car.  When he died, i found a metal chest filled with home made tools of outstanding quality, beautifully crafted, all for totally unknown purposes.   (I shall do a  thread about my dad later).

 

.

Although at first I started with soap box carts. And he taught me to gas weld so I could build better ones than the other kids.....

 

I started to use welding in earnest when I got sacked from the local electronics store for accidentally electrocuting the tea lady.  I got a Bedford 6 cwt van, a probable gas welding set for BOC (Oxygen K and Actylene J) , and started going round  the council estates welding cars on the road, or on driveways.  I became an expert at welding upside down laid on my back. I only did it during the spring/summer/.autumn months., im not laying in snow and rain.  There was one street i did a car at one end, next door asked me to do some work, then the guy across the road....i worked my way along the entire street over a period of two months. I think I welded every car  on the street, that summer.

 

I used to charge for the time, the materials, plus £1 for every burn, less 50p for every cup of tea supplied. Plus there was an Idiot Surcharge of £5 f the customer merited it.

 

I always had a rule that i welded outside on concrete. I had several near misses with cars sinking into the ground or sliding forward off jacks or axle stands. The only time I broke the rule ended in disaster. I agreed (against my better judgement) to weld a floor pan on a car on axle stands in  a cramped garage, over a pit. I dont recall the type of car, but i knew the fuel line was  metal and ran up the side of the chassis rail.  I warmed it up and scraped off as much of the underseal as I could, working on the theory the rest can just drop harmlessly into the puddle in the pit

 

Except it didnt. Unseen to me some twat had spliced in a section of plastic pipe. The torch flame melted it and the petrol tank started emptying into the pit.  Then a small blob of burning underseal dropped into the pit and WHOOMPH off it went. 

 

It impossible to put a puddle of burning petrol out, when its in a pit with a car 9 inches above it, and almost no access.  The car and garage burnt to the ground. It even made the local paper.

 

Anyhoo, eventually, BOC jacked the price of gas up so high it became uneconomic. When I started it was £30 to fill the bottles and £80 a year rent, ten years later it was £80 to fill the bottle and £250 a year rent.  SO i moved onto first electric (hated it) then MIG/TIG - far better. 

 

But you still cant do with MIG what you could do with gas. Gas is much more flexible and useful ,especially for building up paper thin areas. and you can use gas to get nuts/bolts red hot to loosen them off. And temper tools with it. And start barbeques with. 

 

 

[PhillipM]

I do miss gas, given you can't get acetylene for love nor money now, it's handy for unseizing and annealing things. But having said that, I can MIG stuff that's thin enough to put your finger through, so I don't see it as much of an issue welding-wise, I do miss it for brazing as the arc is much tighter with TIG so it doesn't flow as well.

[Guest Old_Fart]

I do miss gas, given you can't get acetylene for love nor money now, it's handy for unseizing and annealing things. But having said that, I can MIG stuff that's thin enough to put your finger through, so I don't see it as much of an issue welding-wise, I do miss it for brazing as the arc is much tighter with TIG so it doesn't flow as well.

 

Interesting. Why cant you get acetylene ?

 

My dad made a pair of adapters, steel bars with a hole down the middle, one tapped 1 inch BSP LH thread each end, one RH thread. You could screw the little bottle onto a big bottle and take a fill off it. 

[BavarianRetro]

I do miss gas, given you can't get acetylene for love nor money now, it's handy for unseizing and annealing things. But having said that, I can MIG stuff that's thin enough to put your finger through, so I don't see it as much of an issue welding-wise, I do miss it for brazing as the arc is much tighter with TIG so it doesn't flow as well.

Errr.....

Money required. No love.

 

http://www.hobbyweld.co.uk/products/acetylene/

 

I wouldn't be without oxyacetylene. I prefer welding with it and still do it often, but mig is just so much easier for most applications.

[PhillipM]

There was a shortage for a few years, with it going to high demand customers only - one of the production plants blew up/had a fire or something, looks like it's much more available again now but, having just checked, if you go to order through a BOC account it does say delivery may be delayed as they can't meet demand at the moment.
 I do have MAPP on hand for general jobs but it's not the same.

[Guest Old_Fart]

Ah i see.

 

there was a similar problem a few years ago when the tsunami hit Japan, it destroyed basically the only plant on the planet making  memory chips. There was a world shortage of memory for several months.

[BavarianRetro]

I use bugger all - 10l twice a year? - and it's always available same day. SIG in Ruthrtglen, Glasgow. Highly recommended.

[Christine]

Old fart.... are you Bob , with the lpg RR Shadow ? 

[pompei]

I started to use welding in earnest when I got sacked from the local electronics store for accidentally electrocuting the tea lady

 

I LOL'd at that

[Guest Old_Fart]

Old fart.... are you Bob , with the lpg RR Shadow ? 

No dear child, im me, and no one else.

[Guest Old_Fart]

I started to use welding in earnest when I got sacked from the local electronics store for accidentally electrocuting the tea lady

 

I LOL'd at that

  I used to build disco equipment on the side at work, when there was nothing else to do, light displays mainly.  I built a really clever one that cycled round a bank of lights (a ring counter) and pulsed each channel according the the sound spectrum.  It was all sat on a naked bit of circuit board  ( 0.15 Veroboard, for those who know and remember), and in the shop window.   The lady who made the tea came along, and picked up the live, naked circuit board,, and promptly got the full benefit of the power station . The tray of teas went flying all over the kit in the shop window. The Boss was fuming. The Tea lady was shook up but ok.

 

Oh well.....

[Uncle Jimmy]

Are you 'the Shadow's' dad?

[brickwall]

I use a wee Mig with the hobbyweld stuff. Fairly cheap and enough in a bottle to get plenty done on a budget.

[Bren]

Mig for anything structural.

 

Gas for wheel arches etc where the type of fusion used is not safety critical.

 

For me anyway.

[twosmoke300]

Problem I find with gas is the distortion in external panels due to the slower nature of the heating slowing it to spread more.

[Jim Bell]

Are you 'the Shadow's' dad?

 

 

No dear child, im me, and no one else.

 

 

 

He's Christine's dad.  Keep up.

[Grundig]

 

 

 Sometimes a car repair would halt for a day while he made a special tool  to do a specific job on a specific car.  When he died, i found a metal chest filled with home made tools of outstanding quality, beautifully crafted, all for totally unknown purposes. 

 

Me too, I made a thingy for a rather stubborn whatsname - shifted it no problem & if it was flipped over, it became a whatsname for a thingy 

[Guest Old_Fart]

Me too, I made a thingy for a rather stubborn whatsname - shifted it no problem & if it was flipped over, it became a whatsname for a thingy 

 

 

Well for example, he made a cunning tool for popping out those bloody steel sleeved void bushes that were all over the Cortina rear end. That actually got used several times, saved no end of time.

[garbaldy]

When you say all over do you mean the two that need replaced on every mot? You simply do not need a tool to remove the void bushes on a Tina as by the time they need replaced they fall out leaving the steel outer ring which taps out with a chisel,

[Jim Bell]

Maybe the cunning tool that he made was a chisel. That might have been the cunning tool that he made.

 

Does sound quite cunning.

[brownnova]

More cunning than a fox that is very cunning...

 

As cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?

[castros_bro]

I learned to weld when I was 13.

 

My dad was an Engineer. I mean a real one. I don't count anyone that works in a garage as an engineer. He used to make bits of YJ diesels at Paxmans of Colchester mainly for big boats. He learned to weld in the REME before the REME existed, he also learned to make wooden wheels for gun carriages at Woolwich Arsenal.  Being Essex it was MMA with one or two car batteries (basic voltage selection method) and a pair of quality jump leads. We did start with a straightened metal coat hanger but graduated to 1.6mm arc rods and later went downhill to a mains powered set. DC MMA always seems to produce a better and neater weld on thin metal and several Heralds/Minors/A35s/Transit vans/Suzuki frames/trailers/farmers gates in SA have suffered from Essex  structural/agricultural welding though now I use a bettered old MIG set on crap bodywork.

 

 

I also taught my dad to weld when i did a bit of chemistry Fe2O3 + 2 Al → 2 Fe + Al2O3, so the old bit of rust from languishing  chod were dried and ground to powder, aluminum as filed to a course powder, the two were mixed in the right proportions to make Thermite. Welding heavy gauge metal was a bit random and out of control but the penetration was good,  cutting a hole through the roof of a Morris Minor was spectacularly inaccurate.

[John F]

WilsonWilson, on 26 Oct 2015 - 08:30 AM, said:

Maybe the cunning tool that he made was a chisel. That might have been the cunning tool that he made.

 

Does sound quite cunning.

 

This fella's got cunning down to a T...

[Guest Old_Fart]

This fella's got cunning down to a T...

I think disrespecting my dead father really does show what a piece of shit you are, doesnt it. 

 

Talk about low life cheap .

[Guest Old_Fart]

When you say all over do you mean the two that need replaced on every mot? You simply do not need a tool to remove the void bushes on a Tina as by the time they need replaced they fall out leaving the steel outer ring which taps out with a chisel,

 

No they need pushing out whilst being kept square with the chassis rail. if you tried whacking them with  a hammer the box section collapsed asymmetrically and prevented them moving.

 

And there was more than two

 

 

[UmBongo]

Hmm, I'm reminded of that novel 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time'.

 

I wonder why?

[Guest Old_Fart]

Considering the entirely unwarranted personal attacks levied against my by a small core of vile bullies, I think ive been remarkable constrained and polite.   I doubt any of them would have the balls to stand in front of me and be so vile.  Baffles me why people get off being a cunt on the internet.

[panhard65]

Considering the entirely unwarranted personal attacks levied against my by a small core of vile bullies, I think ive been remarkable constrained and polite.   I doubt any of them would have the balls to stand in front of me and be so vile.  Baffles me why people get off being a cunt on the internet.

Sorry but you started it by being a twat. I am sure your father was a fine fellow who we would all of liked to of known,. However I am sure he wouldn't be very proud of the actions of his son. This is a very friendly and tolerant forum but if you want to come on here "willy waving" about how wonderful you are then expect to get the piss taken. As I am sure your father would of taught you respect is earned. Now fuck off back to whatever rock you crawled out from under.

[Guest Old_Fart]

Sorry but you started it by being a twat. I am sure your father was a fine fellow who we would all of liked to of known,. However I am sure he wouldn't be very proud of the actions of his son. This is a very friendly and tolerant forum but if you want to come on here "willy waving" about how wonderful you are then expect to get the piss taken. As I am sure your father would of taught you respect is earned. Now fuck off back to whatever rock you crawled out from under.

Such a vile person. I made no attacks on anyone. You simply decided you were going to bully me. . 

[trigger]

Such a vile person. I made no attacks on anyone. You simply decided you were going to bully me. . 

 

No one's bullying you Old_Fart, you've just gone out of your way to upset nearly every member on this forum and enough is enough, you can't behave like this, even if you can't see what you've done wrong.

 

Sorry but the ban hammer is out today and it has your name on it. Goodbye.