thin stainless

[yarpap]

Evening all, just home from a local dairy,the dairies engineer had left me a note saying that he had a problem with one of the bottle fillers,turned out that the (very old ) machine uses a float to control the valve which fills the tank with milk,any how said float had a crack in it and the engineer had atacked it with a stick set,fortunatly he found a spare float !! any way i set up my tig set and promptly made the hole even bigger!!,took me best part of an hour to sort out chasing from one hole to the next,got there in the end but ive just had a phone call asking me to "just bob in tomorow and weld up the other float as its full of hair line cracks! the metal is stainless and about 1/2 mill thick if that i had my set down to 10 amps but it strugled any ideas would be welcome
cheers Dave

 

[irondarren]

at 10 amps it should be ok, i guess its 0.5 or 0.6mm stainless, possibly not the easiest thing to weld, does your tig unit have a lower setting than 10amps and does it have pulse function?

 

[yarpap]

hi,sorry about delay just killed off myy old sip mig! yes set does have pulse but i find it a pain( dont know if its me or the set) any realy low settings wont get the filler to melt so its a catch 22,i got the first float to weld by using a mig rick of pulsing on and off with my thumb switch, more fun tomorow as i have to repair some old wet and grotty mild steel conveyors as well as the float oh well it pays the bills...
Dave

 

[malcolm]

I found stainless easier with MIG than TIG, though I suspect I'm not at the same level as you with TIG yet.

Surely the point of pulse is it allows you to turn up the amps to make it easier to melt the steel while generally getting less heat in. I had a play and loved it.

 

[yarpap]

the way my welds looked the other day i think my sone is on a better level and he is 10,ive mostly used tig as a maintainance eng on stainless in the food and dairy industry any fancy stuff would usually be done by contractors, trouble is now i am self employed the quality of the work is what gets me the next job! fotunatly most of my work is mech/elec servicing to the plant and equipment.still cant get this pulse though, the set is very basic cebora pocket pulse, and come the new year i will be parting with some dosh for a decent set,and some spelling lessons

 

[irondarren]

Interesting you say you found MIG easier than TIG on stainless, i got some stainless bits to do ,doesn't have to be wonderful as its on a tight price, so no chance of the TIG torch going within 20ft of it. I was going to Arc weld them, its only 2mm box to a bit of 5mm flat, makes me think about Mig them. just not sure Stainless arc is easy but would mig be quicker

 

[irondarren]

Yarpap what was you thinking of replacing it with?

 

[yarpap]

Probably (certanly) hf inverter will contact weldtech in new year, a mate has a cebora inverter andd swears by it but it was pricey still you get what you pay for

 

[yarpap]

Just had a play with stick,dissimilar rods and stainless box looked ok, probably why i cant see and spell though

 

[irondarren]

I got an Inverter fusion unit 200amp tig 180 stick with HF and pulse on Tig thats a nice machine excellent duty cycle. I do know they do a welder gen unit with the 200 phf built in to the gen but i believe its over £2000, but an idea mobile DC welder plant

 

[yarpap]

They do look a nice machine,i realy need some thing nice and compact weldtech has a good reputation on the forums and that is good enough for me ,so i will contact him in new year,i may keep the old cebora on the bench or may even let it go to a member who wants to play with tig not sure yet

 

[matt1978]

Can you get hold of any Stainless Mig wire, 0.8mm Dia would be ideal, to use as your filler wire.

You will need to concentrate the arc plasma onto the actual filler wire and then quickly wash it onto the pipe and back again.

This would be much easier with a machine with Pulse facility and a footpedal, but I don't think that you got either luxuary by the sounds of your posts.

Is it possible to purge (fill the float with Argon), this will help with welding (Much better quality on the inside) and also cool the back a little.

Just persevere, its not gonna be easy or pretty but you'll get there in the end.

Good luck!

 

[yarpap]

Cheers ive a roll of stainless mig wire some where i never thought of that ,i will snip off a bit and try it as tig wire,good one thanks

 

[irondarren]

Matt will sell you a nice lorch pulse TIG unit, something like an A1700 or an A 2200, Tig and mig in one machine lol, just costs the price of 4 machines . jokes aside it might be worth you looking into a combined unit yarpap, just means one machine to take on site

 

[matt1978]

Matt will sell you a nice lorch pulse TIG unit, something like an A1700 or an A 2200, Tig and mig in one machine lol, just costs the price of 4 machines . jokes aside it might be worth you looking into a combined unit yarpap, just means one machine to take on site

Haha, fancy a job Darren?

 

[matt1978]

Cheers ive a roll of stainless mig wire some where i never thought of that ,i will snip off a bit and try it as tig wire,good one thanks

Make sure you take the time to straighten it as much as possible, it'll be hard enough to feed in your fingers anyway, without it being shaped like a 0.8mm thin but long Banana!!

 

[irondarren]

Funny i was just looking at the book of welding when yarpap, was describing what he does, in terms of work and it does make you wonder if an all in one machine might be the best answer. something like the A1700, 35amps -170amps on mig, 5 -150 on the tig and 25-150 on the stick one machine no messing job done, but i guess thats the sort of work those machines are designed for maintenace repair, as opposed to workshop fabrication

 

[matt1978]

Yeah they are mainly maintainence tools rather than full on production. Tig had pulse facility too. Nice machine that was. Its not in our build any more, we replacing it next year with a new version, it'll be pulsed mig, about 220-250 amps. Bit of a no frills Saprom. Also plans for 230v Pulsed mig unit.

 

[irondarren]

I like the idea of pulsed MIG as it removes or doesnt produce so much splatter which is rather nice when make gates and railings as i do, not having to spend ages picking off the splatter and cleaning it up. At the moment any sensible pulse mig is £2000 upwards, but pulse mig is relatively new technology and i guess still expensive to produce quality units. Like all things the technology will become cheaper, then i guess we will see sub £1500 units or £50 plus £29.95 p+p for full mig pulse on pulse with pulse tig AC/DC, and MMA all at 250amps at 50% duty cycle on ebay direct from china , oh i forgot with free plasma cutting up to 50mm thick all from a 13amp 240volt supply in cluding the compressor, weighing in at 10kgs and that includes the 15kg roll of mig wire

 

[matt1978]

More like £3500 upwards for decent one.

I am sure the Chinese are working on one that does everything that you said, for even cheaper but also makes the tea at Brew time. It'll "love you long time" too