Cost to weld frame

[FJDonny]

Looks like winning bidder is $525 for TIG welding. I did not pick the cheapest but the guy who had solid reference and best approach.

 

[FJDonny]

I will send out pictures of the completed job.

 

[3_puppies]

portable tig? nice

 

[HandForged]

portable tig? nice

Dry rig most likely. I had one setup on my Miller big 40. Worked well but scratch start was a pain sometimes.

 

[brian]

Dry rig most likely. I had one setup on my Miller big 40. Worked well but scratch start was a pain sometimes.

scratch start is dead....even the 110v tig boxes these days are lift arc.
high freq and a foot pedal is a pain, and thumb control just eats a bag of dicks. water cooled torches only hold their own in the world of alum.

 

[HandForged]

scratch start is dead....even the 110v tig boxes these days are lift arc.
high freq and a foot pedal is a pain, and thumb control just eats a bag of dicks.

I think you missed something. Scratch start is the only way to run a tig off of an engine driven welder without buying the additional HF box. It's called a "Dry Rig", meaning the engine driven arc welder provides current through a power block. Gas is controlled through the torch and is essentially opened and flowing. The only way to start the arc is to contact the material. Scratch start. I agree that most if not all dedicated tig machines have some sort of lift, pedal. torch start but the engine driven add ons do not. I own three of the four iterations mentioned here.

 

[brian]

on old machines.....millers had lift arc on their machines for over 20 years now.

 

[Varty Yo]

Look into local welding classes and go see if they want a project for the students to work on!

When i was in welding school all kinds of random things came into the shop for us to get real world exp. Anything from a D10 dozer blade to stacking stools we would oxy/acc weld up.

Man i wish i would have stuck with welding 20 years ago....

 

[FJDonny]

Hi all- thanks again for your help. $550. Took 2.5 hours. Great couple of guys.

 

[brian]

Pix of the inside?

 

[FJDonny]

Pix of the inside?

 

[FJDonny]

Note that the replacement section was 1/16 thinner than original frame. They did a nice job of making it look as seamless as possible.

 

[brian]

So the new stuff is 0.125 vs 0.1875"?
I see several things that shouldn't have happened.

 

[FJDonny]

On the top it was not as wide as original.

 

[HandForged]

I don't mean any offense here but that looks like crap. The outside looks ok I guess but it's been ground to high heaven, the inside looks like something I would tell a welding student to grind out and do it over. For 550.00 and 2.5 hours work, I would have expected a lot cleaner work than you have there. Sorry man...

What happened to the guy that was going to Tig weld it for you?

 

[Varty Yo]

oy........

 

[WaTrout88]

I had a sizable amount of welding done on my FJ40 frame at a shop. It was plating the entire front of the frame. He supplied the material and I get a great discount on labor. It was a hair under your $1k price. Of course, this is done by a VERY reputable shop that is beyond OCD. I forget the hours he put in on it.

Here is outside edge:
View attachment 2184839

Some places will give outrageous quotes for jobs they don't want to touch but are too polite to say "I don't want your cr^p in my shop"

that has to be some of the nicest welds I have ever seen and I was not referring to frame welding from Ynn

 

[Jdc1]

that has to be some of the nicest welds I have ever seen

Those look like FC187 welds. Google it, his stuff is a work of art.

 

[FJDonny]

I will leave comments up to the welding pros. To me it looks good, strong and nearly seamless from the outside. The replacement brackets are not a perfect match and some amount of grinding was required. Also, the cut line was right at where the frame angled up and that had to be smoothed out. Welds had to exist on inside to keep the weld strong.

 

[FJDonny]

The guy who did the work does master welding on ships at the Philly Navel Yard and does this work for extra money.