Dcal
Member
- Messages
- 3,858
- Location
- Antrim Northern Ireland
Hi all been lurking around the site for a while and this is my first proper post so please go easy on me.
Anyway bought a tig welder a few months ago and instead of running a lot of beads to try and learn tig welding properly, I decided to jump in a make some thing instead. I know there is far too much welding and it would have been easier and quicker to mig or arc weld it but that wasn't the point.
So I bought a shrinker stretcher on flea bay for £80. Works really well but its a pain to work the handle at the back to operate it while its clamped in a vice.
Looked on the internet and found lots of foot operated ones, this is my take on a stand.
The design was really driven by what I had laying about.
I gathered up a bit of 4" x 2" box angle, plate and bits and bobs.
Plate was cut with a cheap Draper plasma and a hole saw
The pivot is a 1" shackle pin and bush that's I've had kicking about for years wondering if I'll ever use it. I then found a bit of pipe that fitted the outside of the bush with a bit of fettling. I welded a length of this pipe the full width of the box to keep it square and then cut out the middle for the pedal arm
The operating arm I made out of a bit of 25mm scrap plate, I drilled a 1" hole in it and cut and tapped it to form a clamp to keep the shackle pin in position I then welded it to a bit of 34mm pipe. The bit of scaffold tube and clamps in the above picture is a stand I made up to stop my hand shaking while i try to Tig weld
To transfer this movement up to the stretcher I made two pull rods from 10mm thread bar and home made forks or clevises. I originally though I could get away with one rod but I welded the first clevis too close to the pivot so I needed to put an intermediate lever to increase the amount of movement. (That's the lever sticking out half way up the finished article.)
I then made and welded the main box sections and pivot to a base plate . I tacked the base plate to a lump of heavy scrap to stop it warping.
I then made a simple base frame out of the same 4" X 2" box and 2" angle. As the box is only a couple of mm thick, I welded 10mm nuts into it to allow the base plate of the stand to be firmly connected to the base.
Next problem I found was the 10mm clevises I got (from three different places) are about 9.5mm. I drilled the clevises out to 12 mm and use 10mm nylon top hat insulating washers as bushes but they were still slack so I made clevises out of 10mm bar. That worked a treat, but does anyone supply actual 10mm clevis pins?
It was then a simple mater of putting it all together and giving it a couple of coats of epoxy primer followed by some Ford tractor blue.
The finished article.
The return spring I got online, its for a trampoline and works great. I put 4 rubber feet on it and a couple of casters so it's really easy to move about.
I also put an offset on the foot pedal so you stand right in front of the work piece when operating the tool.
Anyway bought a tig welder a few months ago and instead of running a lot of beads to try and learn tig welding properly, I decided to jump in a make some thing instead. I know there is far too much welding and it would have been easier and quicker to mig or arc weld it but that wasn't the point.
So I bought a shrinker stretcher on flea bay for £80. Works really well but its a pain to work the handle at the back to operate it while its clamped in a vice.
Looked on the internet and found lots of foot operated ones, this is my take on a stand.
The design was really driven by what I had laying about.
I gathered up a bit of 4" x 2" box angle, plate and bits and bobs.
Plate was cut with a cheap Draper plasma and a hole saw
The pivot is a 1" shackle pin and bush that's I've had kicking about for years wondering if I'll ever use it. I then found a bit of pipe that fitted the outside of the bush with a bit of fettling. I welded a length of this pipe the full width of the box to keep it square and then cut out the middle for the pedal arm
The operating arm I made out of a bit of 25mm scrap plate, I drilled a 1" hole in it and cut and tapped it to form a clamp to keep the shackle pin in position I then welded it to a bit of 34mm pipe. The bit of scaffold tube and clamps in the above picture is a stand I made up to stop my hand shaking while i try to Tig weld
To transfer this movement up to the stretcher I made two pull rods from 10mm thread bar and home made forks or clevises. I originally though I could get away with one rod but I welded the first clevis too close to the pivot so I needed to put an intermediate lever to increase the amount of movement. (That's the lever sticking out half way up the finished article.)
I then made and welded the main box sections and pivot to a base plate . I tacked the base plate to a lump of heavy scrap to stop it warping.
I then made a simple base frame out of the same 4" X 2" box and 2" angle. As the box is only a couple of mm thick, I welded 10mm nuts into it to allow the base plate of the stand to be firmly connected to the base.
Next problem I found was the 10mm clevises I got (from three different places) are about 9.5mm. I drilled the clevises out to 12 mm and use 10mm nylon top hat insulating washers as bushes but they were still slack so I made clevises out of 10mm bar. That worked a treat, but does anyone supply actual 10mm clevis pins?
It was then a simple mater of putting it all together and giving it a couple of coats of epoxy primer followed by some Ford tractor blue.
The finished article.
The return spring I got online, its for a trampoline and works great. I put 4 rubber feet on it and a couple of casters so it's really easy to move about.
I also put an offset on the foot pedal so you stand right in front of the work piece when operating the tool.