Sub Arc Fotos

[Delgado]

Thought this might be of interest to some of you.....




They're pics of some Sub Arc work I was doing this year, I'm by no means an expert but was kind of thrown in at the deep end as the guy who normally did it retired (got about an hours training at the end of his last day )
The job was facing some mild steel rings with stainless 309l filler ready to be machined. It was kind of cool as you don't have to wear a mask, but did get a little boring after a couple of weeks

The power supply was a ESAB LAF800, 3.25mm (then 2.5mm when it ran out) 309l wire, I think the flux was lincoln P2000 and the machine was set at about 350/400 amps with between 33/38 volts.

 

[Robotstar5]

Interesting, do you program it to do concentric rings or is it a spiral?

 

[TechnicAl]

The welding head is static and the ring spins slowly. The operator has a screw adjuster so he can move it out so the current bead slightly overlaps the previous bead.

Delgado...........P2000 tends to give you that wavy edge you appear to have on the first pass. You can mask it on the subsequent passes but its not ideal. Its not really a very good flux for this type of work. The Oerlikon flux is much better (I cant remember the number off hand).

 

[Delgado]

We were doing it manually, the old guy that retired used to do one ring, stop, then move the head and do the next. Not sure if that's the correct way to do it, or if he was just hanging the job out so that he didn't have to be mag welding instead.Once we got the hang of it, me and the guy that was helping decided that it was far quicker, and more interesting to do a single spiral, although it was certainly 'interesting' trying to reload the flux container without making the head shake. If you look closely at the first foto you can see a scribe like guide for lining up the beads, and in the second foto the billet of stainless that you can see sticking up was used as a marker to tell us when to move it across.

 

[Delgado]

The welding head is static and the ring spins slowly. The operator has a screw adjuster so he can move it out so the current bead slightly overlaps the previous bead.

Delgado...........P2000 tends to give you that wavy edge you appear to have on the first pass. You can mask it on the subsequent passes but its not ideal. Its not really a very good flux for this type of work. The Oerlikon flux is much better (I cant remember the number off hand).

Yes, the head moves side to side via remote control handset and the base has screw adjusters to move the whole arm into start pos. while the rotary table has a seperate remote to adjust speed.

Thanks for the advice about the flux, if I ever have to do this type of work again I'll bear it in mind.

 

[subarc boy]

pass change over

when i used to do sub arc welding we just used a chalk mark to indicate when to move the weld head over - simples

 

[aametalmaster]

I ran a sub arc with 2 heads to weld both ends of a pipe. They are cool machines. This a bad pic but its all i have of the memories. Then after the pipe was welded i turned the ends in a big lathe for bearings...Bob

 

[Delgado]

when i used to do sub arc welding we just used a chalk mark to indicate when to move the weld head over - simples

Sure, I guess there's more than one way to skin a cat. Did you not find that the point at which you had to move the head over changed slightly each time you moved over?

Have you got any photos?

I ran a sub arc with 2 heads to weld both ends of a pipe. They are cool machines. This a bad pic but its all i have of the memories. Then after the pipe was welded i turned the ends in a big lathe for bearings...Bob

Bit hard to see from your photos (thanks for posting them up, BTW), but did you have the sub arc heads mounted over the lathe, or am I looking at it wrong? Glad you enjoyed it, it's nice when you do a job that gives you satisfaction!



Any more photos anyone?

 

[subarc boy]

yes the changeover point changes every pass. sorry no pics ,the last time i used sub arc was about 10-12 yr ago.we also used iron powder weld in front of the weld pool which was also covered by the flux this gave a double deposition of a normal wire only weld.the iron powder was also in a hopper beside the flux hopper

 

[aametalmaster]

Bit hard to see from your photos (thanks for posting them up, BTW), but did you have the sub arc heads mounted over the lathe, or am I looking at it wrong? Glad you enjoyed it, it's nice when you do a job that gives you satisfaction!
Any more photos anyone?

Yes it was an old lathe from the early 1900's fitted with 2 Lincoln Sub Arcs. It worked great for about 50 years then we quit doing parts for that company...Bob

 

[TechnicAl]

yes the changeover point changes every pass. sorry no pics ,the last time i used sub arc was about 10-12 yr ago.we also used iron powder weld in front of the weld pool which was also covered by the flux this gave a double deposition of a normal wire only weld.the iron powder was also in a hopper beside the flux hopper

Lewis Offshore?