.
This is called an edge weld. Because it’s on the edge. Craziness. Do I know how to live life, or what???
Hey, at least there wasn’t much frowning after this one was done.
On the edge
Reply
Tag Archives: welding
Need a coupon?
.
They call these things “coupons” in the welding world. They’re two-inch long pieces of eighth-inch thick steel. You just put two of them edge to edge longways, and then you weld them together. Then you frown at the result, throw it on the floor, and do another. You do this until you stop frowning at the result. It’s a little boring, but it’s kind of cool too. It’s a good way to consistently practice the exact same thing, so it’s easier to track your results and figure out what you might be doing wrong (or right!). This pile of coupons was made by yours truly from for pieces of four-foot long flat stock. I cut them up using a reciprocating saw one at a time. Oh sure, it would have been easier to use a band saw, but I don’t own one. For now long, noisy, and slow is the way I have to do these things. Fun, right? You’re jealous, admit it.
Over, and over, and over, and over, and…
.
I keep practicing. After screwing up a number of welds on the sculpture itself, I figured I’d do a test piece like this and make a zillion practice welds (okay, ten or twelve) on it and see if that helped. The reason I didn’t try to take a better picture of the welds here is because they’re pretty crappy. You get the idea, though, that I’m doing this repeatedly. It’s not pretty, but it’s necessary. This is progress. In years past I would have thrown this all out and been really disgusted, and maybe even given up on welding all together. This is the sort of thing that would have stopped me dead in my tracks, or would have kept me from just simply keeping at it for another hour or two that evening or the next day. It’s the sort of thing where I might have thrown it angrily in the trash (or on the floor), and just walked away for a week, a month, a year.
Well, I’m not overjoyed or anything, but at least I’m not setting unrealistic expectations for myself (maybe?). This is the way things are for me right now, and they will improve if I keep after it, and I’m going to keep after it!!!!
It seems so easy
.
You think when you weld something that you just…weld it! Not so. What do we have here? Well, there’s a big sheet of steel on the workbench, and there are some two by fours on that, and there’s a special aluminum clamp on there, and then the standard quick-clamp holding the small “U” piece, and then at the far end is the clamp for the ground for the welder itself. Then, consider that all this stuff had to be lined up and steadied so that it wouldn’t fall or move while it was being welded. Then, of course, there’s always the chance that the weld itself is going to be lousy (in my case), and none of the aforementioned work will matter anyway.
Just…weld it. Sure!
The Miller has landed!!!
.
It’s here! It arrived in all its Miller Blue glory! I have been patient. I have been good. I have been selling things to get this thing, and now I have this thing!!!! I got the notice in the mail yesterday that they’d tried to deliver it, and first thing this morning I ran over to the post office with my little orange piece of paper to claim my own personal lottery prize.
Isn’t it cool????? ISN’T IT?!?!?!!? (I know, it’s a blue box, but just…lemme have my moment. I didn’t have a knife to cut off the zip tie around the handle, but I had to capture it in all its just-arrived glory.)
Just wait until I get this thing home and opened up!!! JUST. YOU. WAIT! Cool stuff is about to happen, kids! I’m tellin’ ya, something huge is on the horizon here!
Nirvana
.
The search has led me here, Sutton-Garten Welding Supplies and Gases, the end-all and be-all of welding goodness. They have everything, and they know everything. This morning I picked up my bottle of argon for the TIG welder. It was a glorious morning indeed, although I kinda startled the guy who walked past my car about five seconds after I took this photo. I don’t think he was prepared for someone to be sitting in the parking lot with a camera taking pictures at 8am in the snow. That doesn’t strike me as unusual at all, but I’m a little different, perhaps.
Rolling with steel
What?!?!?! Tom built an RBS? SHOCKER!
Yet another glimpse at my experience with steel fabrication sculpture at the Indianapolis Art Center. This is a kind of terrible photo, but I imagine you can get an idea of what’s going on here. I was in the process of building this RBS when we had to knock off for the end of the workshop. I busted butt and really did a fair job of getting through things. The parts that I completed actually function all the way to where the track ends, which I consider to be some kind of minor miracle.
I used a MIG welder on this mild steel piece. I was told to come back and now that I’m a member I can get studio time and complete it! Oh, and the red things on there are actually big magnets that are being used to hold things in position while I work. They don’t stay on there. Yet more detail on this to come. Stay tuned – it was SO COOL!