beatupjeep
03-12-2015, 05:09 PM
Im trying to make some brackets for a winch mount on my XJ, the situation at hand ended up being needing to somehow hold a 3/8" steel piece to a 1/4" thick piece, so I could bring it over to my bigger 250A TIG welder on the other side of the house. Yes, the welder is not in the garage, it gets used quite heavily back in the shop, although now I think I may put in a breaker and get a second tank of argon so I can have garage use too.
Anyways, I cant get the jeep back to the shop. And I cant "freeze" the relationship between the two pieces without making them non-removable from the jeep. Unless I drilled and tapped a threaded hole just to clamp them together with a bolt. Or maybe tried some kind of epoxy. Just needs to hold together long enough to walk from one side of the house to the other. They need to be VERY precisely located together because of how things are arranged..scribing lines wouldnt be good enough.
I have my 8 year old hardly freight MIG welder..lists its max thickness as I think 1/8" (the one they sell now is a bit beefier at 3/16" I think). So I though it would be a stretch that it could tack weld the 3/8" and 1/4" pieces together, but worth a shot since its just a matter of plugging it in and pulling the trigger. Moving the TIG welder would be a huge pain and require me to put in a circuit breaker for it.
It worked! Im not sure how strong the welds are but good enough to hold together until I can finish the job on the bigger welder.
I swear this welder has been the perfect tool for the job a dozen times. Its also been the wrong tool for the job a million times and I almost never use it, but when I have some little glitch problem like this its perfect. Totally worth the $90 or whatever.
I was able to clean up one of the MIG welds with the tig, but the other one just seemed like a pain, plus I think I put down enough bead to make things plenty solid. The first two weld pics are the HF mig welds, quite blobby. The other pics show after I went at it with the TIG.
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff197/acannell/20150312_140225_zpsrao8f5qe.jpg (http://s242.photobucket.com/user/acannell/media/20150312_140225_zpsrao8f5qe.jpg.html)
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff197/acannell/20150312_140218_zpscsd9b1rf.jpg (http://s242.photobucket.com/user/acannell/media/20150312_140218_zpscsd9b1rf.jpg.html)
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff197/acannell/20150312_140230_zpsclfe7usy.jpg (http://s242.photobucket.com/user/acannell/media/20150312_140230_zpsclfe7usy.jpg.html)
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff197/acannell/20150312_140234_zpsve1bsrb7.jpg (http://s242.photobucket.com/user/acannell/media/20150312_140234_zpsve1bsrb7.jpg.html)
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff197/acannell/20150312_150523_zps8f4luwsw.jpg (http://s242.photobucket.com/user/acannell/media/20150312_150523_zps8f4luwsw.jpg.html)
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff197/acannell/20150312_150544_zpsmxodmdui.jpg (http://s242.photobucket.com/user/acannell/media/20150312_150544_zpsmxodmdui.jpg.html)
Anyways, I cant get the jeep back to the shop. And I cant "freeze" the relationship between the two pieces without making them non-removable from the jeep. Unless I drilled and tapped a threaded hole just to clamp them together with a bolt. Or maybe tried some kind of epoxy. Just needs to hold together long enough to walk from one side of the house to the other. They need to be VERY precisely located together because of how things are arranged..scribing lines wouldnt be good enough.
I have my 8 year old hardly freight MIG welder..lists its max thickness as I think 1/8" (the one they sell now is a bit beefier at 3/16" I think). So I though it would be a stretch that it could tack weld the 3/8" and 1/4" pieces together, but worth a shot since its just a matter of plugging it in and pulling the trigger. Moving the TIG welder would be a huge pain and require me to put in a circuit breaker for it.
It worked! Im not sure how strong the welds are but good enough to hold together until I can finish the job on the bigger welder.
I swear this welder has been the perfect tool for the job a dozen times. Its also been the wrong tool for the job a million times and I almost never use it, but when I have some little glitch problem like this its perfect. Totally worth the $90 or whatever.
I was able to clean up one of the MIG welds with the tig, but the other one just seemed like a pain, plus I think I put down enough bead to make things plenty solid. The first two weld pics are the HF mig welds, quite blobby. The other pics show after I went at it with the TIG.
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff197/acannell/20150312_140225_zpsrao8f5qe.jpg (http://s242.photobucket.com/user/acannell/media/20150312_140225_zpsrao8f5qe.jpg.html)
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff197/acannell/20150312_140218_zpscsd9b1rf.jpg (http://s242.photobucket.com/user/acannell/media/20150312_140218_zpscsd9b1rf.jpg.html)
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff197/acannell/20150312_140230_zpsclfe7usy.jpg (http://s242.photobucket.com/user/acannell/media/20150312_140230_zpsclfe7usy.jpg.html)
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff197/acannell/20150312_140234_zpsve1bsrb7.jpg (http://s242.photobucket.com/user/acannell/media/20150312_140234_zpsve1bsrb7.jpg.html)
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff197/acannell/20150312_150523_zps8f4luwsw.jpg (http://s242.photobucket.com/user/acannell/media/20150312_150523_zps8f4luwsw.jpg.html)
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff197/acannell/20150312_150544_zpsmxodmdui.jpg (http://s242.photobucket.com/user/acannell/media/20150312_150544_zpsmxodmdui.jpg.html)