Theraputic tig welding? Really!

[chevy2]

How many times do you hear "i love tig welding, i find it theraputic"

So why do i always seem to end up tig welding loads of cages in cars with either my legs in the air or squeezed in a tight corner and a pedal between or under my knees!
heres one of the more normal positions i got in over the weekend while doing a 4130 cage.

 

[Paul.]

I've had the same thoughts about people who think its therapeutic, usually when laying on my back on a wet floor in a temperature controlled factory, trying to repair some item of food machinery, or cramped up inside something with not enough room for a head let alone one with a mask on,
Real world welding is nothing like those cosy welding bays you find in college workshops.

 

[optima21]

rather you than me. I could manage doing some mig welding in that position without much of a problem, but when I ran out of gas and tried tig welding instead I gave up. tig welding out of position is on a different level of skill, and I would like to be able to do it

 

[langy]

It's alright for you as your so skinny you can get in anywhere !!!

 

[chevy2]

Yeah bench welding is pretty easy, its not what you encounter in the real world,
when i go out on site jobs i've no idea what it'll often be,
Up a ladder or a confined space on the verge of getting cramp is normal,

I'm used to out of position stuff and not phased by it one bit,
Heres an example,
Combination of 18 and 20 guage sheet silicon bronzed onto 4130 tube,
all done on my back in tig with the pedal under the side of my knee,
biggest problem i find is not the welding but neck ache after a while, normally find something to rest my head on.

 

[daleyd]

In my last job we used to repair industrial dryers and oxidisers.

I'm no professional welder myself, but some of the places our welders had to tig weld in were atrocious! I'll post some pics from the inside of a combustion chamber tomorrow if I still have some!

 

[norlander]

Love the challenge of getting a bead in tricky spots-had to weld on a ship in mid Atlantic once, OH and no reactive mask and the oggin rockin n rollin the other side of the guard rail.
Not fluffed up by rolling around in merde n mud welding the prop shaft tube on the farmers bleedin tractor though.

 

[Kent]

It beats drilling anyhow after doing many hundreds of 16mm holes through 10mm this past week I can attest to that! To be fair I don't do a lot of TIG work so it kind of is a bit, honestly I don't totally get the pure hobby welding personally and though I am often bored rigid by the cutting, drilling, prep and finishing work I can crack into a big pile of welding and often don't notice the time go- so perhaps I do get it after all

 

[mart]

Personally I’ve found that laying down some welds can be quite therapeutic (and unsure why exactly) , but not in the positions (and conditions) that some of you guys need to adopt in the real world out there. When I was making my large gates, I would drag them out of the garage in to the fresh air & sunshine. I’d spread some old sofa cushions around on the drive for kneeling on. I realise that is a world away from many of the work-place environments.

 

[SBK]

Yeah I thought it was a nice hobby until started doing it for a living,30ft up in the air right next to a wall etc etc definately not relaxing.

 

[PhillipM]

I hate the front corners of cages, always upside down, neck cricked in the footwell, light coming the wrong way through the doorhole so you can't see well. Pain in the ****.

 

[Tinbasherdan]

I find bench welding very therapeutic, I do enjoy site welding, even the stood on your head, dislocating arms to fit in type tho!

 

[Hitch]

I've had the same thoughts about people who think its therapeutic, usually when laying on my back on a wet floor in a temperature controlled factory, trying to repair some item of food machinery, or cramped up inside something with not enough room for a head let alone one with a mask on,
Real world welding is nothing like those cosy welding bays you find in college workshops.

We do bits for a local food factory, been laid inside a giant deep fat fryer on more than one occasion. Oil drained, obviously
More often or not its some rubbish that been repaired time and time again by their maintenance staff.

 

[Paul.]

We do bits for a local food factory, been laid inside a giant deep fat fryer on more than one occasion. Oil drained, obviously
More often or not its some rubbish that been repaired time and time again by their maintenance staff.

Yep, usually someone has splashed an electrode at it, covered it in slag and its failed again, then you are supposed to come along and fix it as if by magic.

Not tig this one but CD stud welding, inside an industrial microwave, sitting on top of a slimy conveyor belt, hot oven just shut down, still full of steam and fat, 2 machines side by side with 48 studs to weld in each one, no light other than the torch my assistant had outside, no space for a faceshield, just after this was taken the bloke helping me flashed the torch across a fire sensor and triggered the aqua mist, made me a bit damp to say the least, all done while the factory was in production.

 

[Maker]

Yep, usually someone has splashed an electrode at it, covered it in slag and its failed again, then you are supposed to come along and fix it as if by magic.

Not tig this one but CD stud welding, inside an industrial microwave, sitting on top of a slimy conveyor belt, hot oven just shut down, still full of steam and fat, 2 machines side by side with 48 studs to weld in each one, no light other than the torch my assistant had outside, no space for a faceshield, just after this was taken the bloke helping me flashed the torch across a fire sensor and triggered the aqua mist, made me a bit damp to say the least, all done while the factory was in production.

Scared the crap out of me when it went bang. What's CD stud welding/how does it work.

 

[Wendelspanswick]

Scared the crap out of me when it went bang. What's CD stud welding/how does it work.

CD = Capacitor Discharge.
Caught a bit of Richard Hammonds weather program last night and they were recreating lightning in the lab. They charged up a large bank of capacitors and then discharged them through a short length of thin copper wire. The noise and flash was incredible!

 

[Maker]

CD = Capacitor Discharge.
Caught a bit of Richard Hammonds weather program last night and they were recreating lightning in the lab. They charged up a large bank of capacitors and then discharged them through a short length of thin copper wire. The noise and flash was incredible!

Oh yeah, obvious now I think about it. They must be huge capacitors - I once collected loads of capacitors from power supplies and general crap that I'd taken apart and wired them in parallel, it probably totalled around 100,000μF, charged with a 9 volt battery it was enough to stick 10 pence pieces together.

 

[Bill Edwards]

I don't do TIG but can agree that welding can be therapeutic.

Or it can be when you're working on clean metal, well set up joints, in a quiet environment, nice gear, comfy seat, clean and without time constraints or other pressure.


The other 95%+ of the time...


I don't get to do the work in factories that is spoken of above. I 'get' to do farm work instead.
Which too often involves trying to find a bag to kneel on to keep most of the slurry from soaking through your clothes. Bitter cold, rain and sometimes even snow. A horrible little buzzbox run off an extension lead that's 3x as long as is good for welding with. A welding rod that's too big for the job. Damp rods. Impossible jobs requiring skill/luck/contortionist abilities. Nobody to hold anything heavy, awkward while you tack it. No fancy reactive mask. Every single tool covered in slurry/oil/grease or often a combination. Every other tool (such as those you need) a long way away, no van to work from. Cattle trying to pull every bit of your clothing and every power cable while you weld. Cattle destroying things if you walk off to find the tool you forgot you'd need that's out of reach.

On these jobs, therapeutic isn't one of the words typically on the tip of the tongue.

 

[daleyd]

The burner chamber of an air flotation dryer/integrated oxidiser that runs about 800 deg C. The chamber itself is 253MA stainless, with ceramic blanket insulation. You can just about crawl down on hands and knees. A real nasty place to work, if it had problems the welders could be in there for days patching it up..... no mug for scale sorry!

There are 2 ducts either side which it's JUST possible to squeeze down to access a heat exchanger above the burner, usually we just cut a big hole above the burner and accessed it that way if it needed repairing. I'm glad I don't work there any more.

We did a smaller design which was round and you could just about fit down, but you couldn't turn around, you had to reverse out the same way!!

 

[norlander]

I hate the front corners of cages, always upside down, neck cricked in the footwell, light coming the wrong way through the doorhole so you can't see well. Pain in the ****.

Well, next time you are at the zoo, keep to the path with the rest of the public

We do bits for a local food factory, been laid inside a giant deep fat fryer on more than one occasion. Oil drained, obviously
More often or not its some rubbish that been repaired time and time again by their maintenance staff.

Yep, usually someone has splashed an electrode at it, covered it in slag and its failed again, then you are supposed to come along and fix it as if by magic.

Not tig this one but CD stud welding, inside an industrial microwave, sitting on top of a slimy conveyor belt, hot oven just shut down, still full of steam and fat, 2 machines side by side with 48 studs to weld in each one, no light other than the torch my assistant had outside, no space for a faceshield, just after this was taken the bloke helping me flashed the torch across a fire sensor and triggered the aqua mist, made me a bit damp to say the least, all done while the factory was in production.

That welding stuff near cooking oil and fat is well spooky-as is welding on any factory stuff, I did not do much of it, but I was always bricking it in case somebody somehow pressed a button and I ended up in a tin of beans or summat-makes me shudder thinking about the deep fat fryer.