Still welding away in sunny downunder

[SiPMerlin150]

Good morning everyone!

I thought that I'd post an update for it has been a while.

I'm currently working at a motor body builder based in Brisbane, I've was laid off from the place August last year and did some work elsewhere until one day a phone call came out the blue and it was my old workplace asking for me to come back and work with them now business has picked up again,

So I'm back behind the welding mask, building tow bars, carrying out modifications, installations, etc.

All MIG again, no TIG or MMA.. ah well, whatever is faster I suppose.

Here is a picture of a towbar fabbed, fitted and eventually painted all done from start to finish, by myself
Designed to carry a maximum of 3.5 ton tested to around 6 ton. I have another 5 to make.

The design is of a 8 ton towbar with the re-enforced gussets down each leg of the towbar, the whole thing is overspec, for queensland rail road maintenance, they put a lot of demand onto their vehicles, so the tow ball tongue is 20mm plate made by me, drill to 7/8 or 22.50 mm , the side plates or legs as I call them consists of 180mm x 10 plate cut to 700mm length and the gussets that run each side to strengthen and reduce any side movement are 50 x 10mm bar @ 600mm length.

The whole thing is anchored to the rear with 10 X high tensile 1/2 inch bolts as no welding is permitted on these chassis. (that sucks)

 

[cumbriasteve]

Nice to hear from you and glad it's still going ok and you have avoided all those things down under that either bite, sting, poison or eat you

Looks interesting work and at least involves a bit of fabbing and not just standing in one place throwing molten metal onto joints.

 

[Robotstar5]

Do you use the ISO standard 50mm ball or American spec 2" in Oz?

 

[octo0072000]

so you gave up on the cranes with the inlaws then

 

[SiPMerlin150]

Do you use the ISO standard 50mm ball or American spec 2" in Oz?

50 mm ISO, all metric here except for the chinese bolts they sometimes order. It's always good practice to keep drill bits all imperial unless the holes to be drilled are specced for size, (like tow balls for instance) I fitted up a monster 70mm ball the other week. Before then I never knew Nyloc nuts were made to accept a 30mm bolt!!

 

[SiPMerlin150]

so you gave up on the cranes with the inlaws then

Ah yep, I gave the old man two separate chances, never again! His vehicles are old and tired, I broke down twice in the same vehicle. I've never broke down in any vehicle I've owned (i've owned some old beaters!) The last straw was when I saw the harmonic balancer pulley rolling down the road in my rear view mirror followed by a streak of black oil... :\

I tend to favour isuzu engines for their hard to hurt nature, but after so many kilometers of a 3.0 turbo diesel 4 cylinder pulling a 5 ton body loaded with tools along with a 2.5/3 ton trailer
which puts me way over the 4.5 ton car license limit here..... (Luckily I've some experience driving 7.5 flatbeds so i'm well aware of additional braking distance)

 

[SiPMerlin150]

Nice to hear from you and glad it's still going ok and you have avoided all those things down under that either bite, sting, poison or eat you

Looks interesting work and at least involves a bit of fabbing and not just standing in one place throwing molten metal onto joints.

Well, damn mozzies are plaguing me haha, had one job where i had my hands deep in a chassis trying to throw a nut on the end of a bolt and noticed a guy spraying the crane on the rear of the truck, I asked what he were doing.. He said that he's just seen a few redback spiders (bad news!) running around on the chassis.. I was a little edgy for the rest of that job! hahaha

Been nipped off a jumping spider, and thats it so yeah, I think I'm doing well!

The job is a good variety of sheet metal folding, forming (not my cuppa) mixed with fabbing, heavy welding, oxy burning, mods and some wiring along with installation and fitting, with occasional head scratching trying to work out something that wasn't though about during the blueprint stages

All in a days work!

 

[SiPMerlin150]

I always see room for improvement, but I'm pretty happy with my weld appearance and techniques currently, I guess we find our own little method, i tend to keep mine as hot as the material can take, cool it a little on larger gaps to prevent shrink cracking but I like to see the arc dig into the parent material

 

[skotl]

Good work!

I was in Melbourne, then Sydney, then Brisbane for work last year. Didn't like Melbourne, liked Sydney a fair bit better, and loved Brisbane.

 

[SiPMerlin150]

Cheers, Haven't been to Sydney or Melbourne yet, Brisbane lots of times but as most big cities are with the traffic jams and many round the houses routes you have to take, it's not all that bad. Traffic getting in at the mornings can be a shocker.

 

[skotl]

I was amazed that an average house, an hour's commute from Sydney, was £1m!

Brisbane seemed far more "normal". Best of luck with your new life

 

[SiPMerlin150]

I was amazed that an average house, an hour's commute from Sydney, was £1m!

Brisbane seemed far more "normal". Best of luck with your new life

Thanks Skotl, though as nice as it is here, and you'll call me barmy I do miss England and would like to come back at some future date. Its the cold mornings, frost and snow along with the smell of autumn, that early morning earthy smell in the air and skidding around on wet leaves that I miss. OF course, the countryside scenery and the fine selections of beer!

 

[octo0072000]

Thanks Skotl, though as nice as it is here, and you'll call me barmy I do miss England and would like to come back at some future date. Its the cold mornings, frost and snow along with the smell of autumn, that early morning earthy smell in the air and skidding around on wet leaves that I miss. OF course, the countryside scenery and the fine selections of beer!

you can always brew your own beer
don't they get frost etc up in the west

 

[SiPMerlin150]

frost? nope, In the South East never frost, though randomly get golf ball sized hailstorms..Trust me.. they are scary! coldest it has ever been for me was 12oC and that's when heaters and jackets are dragged out into use lol!

 

[skotl]

you can always brew your own beer
don't they get frost etc up in the west

Given the price of beer in Oz, I'd definitely be brewing my own!

 

[SiPMerlin150]

Given the price of beer in Oz, I'd definitely be brewing my own!

ah yes.. been there done that.. often made more than i could drink.. eyes bigger than the beer belly! haha

 

[candor]

Nice work, glad to hear you're enjoying it down there!

What mig you using?

 

[F.J.]

Hi Luke,

Good to hear from you. Just a guess but I bet the welder you used for those welds is a tad bigger than the one you used on the merc we did?

 

[SiPMerlin150]

Hi Luke,

Good to hear from you. Just a guess but I bet the welder you used for those welds is a tad bigger than the one you used on the merc we did?

Hi mate! Yeah just a bit, think it was about the same size unit as your 3 phase lincoln? 260 amps 3 phase. It's not up to the task of the 25 ton towbar i'm making some time in the next week or so... haha!

How's your business going? Did you settle into a factory?

 

[F.J.]

Hi mate! Yeah just a bit, think it was about the same size unit as your 3 phase lincoln? 260 amps 3 phase. It's not up to the task of the 25 ton towbar i'm making some time in the next week or so... haha!

How's your business going? Did you settle into a factory?

Yeah, I moved off that estate into a bigger unit just down the road from my house. I sold that Lincoln not long after and now have a newer lincoln Powertec 360, it's one of 6 welder that I now have!!! I've just knocked down the office and built one on the mezzanine so to give me more work space as I do quite a bit of work on diggers and other big machines. Your job looks and sounds right up my street, I may have to try and convince the wife to up sticks to oz with you