Welding on factory frames Tua’h (10 Viewers)

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I bought this book many moons ago and read thru it a bit but mostly hunted out certain things I was curious about. Here is a link to the PDF. IF you go to page 162 it doesnt talk about how to weld a frame, but it does talk heavily about the structure of metal before, during and after it has been welded. I like this guys way of making pointy head topics fun to read.

 
I don't know much but I'll give it my best shot if you have questions about anything that we have been talking about..
Unless it's about the book "Metallurgy Of Welding 3rd Edition By J F Lancaster" Then we will defer all 3rd Edition Questions to @gonzopancho
Just don't ask any questions about the 5th edition cause we aint read it yet 😲😳😮🤔🧐😏😘🐖👈🤣🤣🤣
 
I don’t remember a damn bit of this from my stick welding in Ag class as a senior. Think i got screwed!!!
My last stick welding lesson was in 8th grade. All I remember is I could make a pretty bead at the time if someone set everything up for me.

Nothing to do with frames but everything to do with our pigs, my body guy says the steel in the body of my 55 is the hardest steel he has ever dealt with on a Toyota body. Not sure of everything he has worked on but certainly 40s, 60s, 80s, and a few 7x variants. He is judging "hardness" by how fast it eats up his tools while cutting, removing spot welds, etc. Besides repairing rust, he has had to repair numerous cracks and has a theory that the cracks are due to the hardness of the steel. I guess there is some correlation to hardness and brittleness.
 
Yeah but let's not get drug in the weeds with a bunch of non-important information and lose track of trying to help each other like you said earlier.

So ol'Jack was the guys name that taught me so much early on and I believe he was a sailor or at least he cursed like one.
Anyway he would claim every time we had something foreign in the shop that "those MF'ing JAPS melt down old battle ships and razor blades to make their steel" and you better pre-heat before you weld it because you never know what you got.
I'm out in the shop now and thought I'd do the Jack chase the moisture deal and see what temperature you actually get the steel to and if it's appropriate for medium carbon steel.
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Chuck of 5 or 6 inch channel and you can see the moisture form on the surface when you hit it with a torch.
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Chase that moisture away and BAM that old SOB was bang on the money... 300 degrees is the starting temperature for welding low and medium carbon steel...
Thank you Ol'Jack..

I was looking for something that was helpful on pre-heat but I'm out in the shop on my cell not working on my project and found this that's close but not exactly what I was looking for. Anyway it has some interesting stuff if you get time to read..

Good Ol Jack! Who da **** doesnt swear like a mother ****ing sailor ⛵️🛳 on ****ing occasion 😲😳😮😘🐖👈🤣🤣🤣🤣
 
My last stick welding lesson was in 8th grade. All I remember is I could make a pretty bead at the time if someone set everything up for me.

Nothing to do with frames but everything to do with our pigs, my body guy says the steel in the body of my 55 is the hardest steel he has ever dealt with on a Toyota body. Not sure of everything he has worked on but certainly 40s, 60s, 80s, and a few 7x variants. He is judging "hardness" by how fast it eats up his tools while cutting, removing spot welds, etc. Besides repairing rust, he has had to repair numerous cracks and has a theory that the cracks are due to the hardness of the steel. I guess there is some correlation to hardness and brittleness.
Also carbon content and rust.
In my experience, higher carbon/harder steel is more prone to rust and our fj55s are certainly no exception.
 
OK @bobm I asked the question and it looks like it’s going to go un-answered so it’s just you and I now to laugh at our own jokes…

My question was is the lower case cursive “e” technique good or proper weld pool “puddle” control?

I took welding night classes at the junior college when I was younger man and the 3rd Edition By J F Lancaster was still a new book at that time.. They were prepping us to pass the certification test and would tell us the root and fill passes would be straight with very little side to side and forward motion only, the cover pass would have some side to side but again forward only in a sideways Z or U pattern but never moving back through the weld pool “puddle”. Later in life when I did have to take the test I just followed this technique and did alright so I’m guessing it works.

I did read about an hour of the 3rd Edition and he talks about geometry of the molten pool and the peak temperature and cooling rate are important variables, particularly in the welding of steel and that would lead me to believe again direction and speed are more important than trying make your GMAW (MIG Welding) on steel look like your TIG Welding (GTAW) on aluminum with that stack of dimes look. I know this is all the rage right now and I see a lot of very “good” fabricators doing it on frames and frame components and you don’t read about them having wide spread failures so again I’m assuming my information is either outdated just like the 3rd Edition or these guys are sacrificing good for pretty..
 
OK @bobm I asked the question and it looks like it’s going to go un-answered so it’s just you and I now to laugh at our own jokes…

My question was is the lower case cursive “e” technique good or proper weld pool “puddle” control?

I took welding night classes at the junior college when I was younger man and the 3rd Edition By J F Lancaster was still a new book at that time.. They were prepping us to pass the certification test and would tell us the root and fill passes would be straight with very little side to side and forward motion only, the cover pass would have some side to side but again forward only in a sideways Z or U pattern but never moving back through the weld pool “puddle”. Later in life when I did have to take the test I just followed this technique and did alright so I’m guessing it works.

I did read about an hour of the 3rd Edition and he talks about geometry of the molten pool and the peak temperature and cooling rate are important variables, particularly in the welding of steel and that would lead me to believe again direction and speed are more important than trying make your GMAW (MIG Welding) on steel look like your TIG Welding (GTAW) on aluminum with that stack of dimes look. I know this is all the rage right now and I see a lot of very “good” fabricators doing it on frames and frame components and you don’t read about them having wide spread failures so again I’m assuming my information is either outdated just like the 3rd Edition or these guys are sacrificing good for pretty..
What question 🤔🧐😮🤣🤣. Just ****ing wit ya. Answer is yes but would be irrelivent to anything on the 55 frame. If you look up some pipe welding you'll see welds that are not only a work of art, but are strucually sound and strong! As far as Lancasters 3rd edition there are different ways for different people! I did go through some of it, but there is no ****ing way I'm gonna sit there and read 267 pages of weld theory ( my brain don't function like that anymore. ) Let's go back to Root pass and fill welds. The initial root pass like say on a 6" gas line is basically your penetration weld seeing the pipe has a very large bevel and your root is Arc (stick) welded in a straight line, your seconary pass will also be in a straight line but wider, your finish pass will should bring to or above the outside diameter of the pipe will require the Z or U method to complete. This method can be used with Mig or Tig. With the Z or U you will go back into the molten puddle without affect and it only needs to be minimal. Note: I'v seen welds inside gas fired boilers you would swear were tig welded but were stick welded 😮. Those guys are artists and perfectionest, they have to be, they carry R stamps which is required for welding pressure vessels. Propane tanks, air compressors, boilers fire ext blah,blah,blah. Nuff bout dat🤔🧐. So back to my original thought! Long time ago my teacher Mr. Gasparello told me forget about stick or mig focus on Tig and you'll be able to do the other 2 easier, so I did! That's what I mean about learning, you can read that book 3 times and it will never replace expierience 🤔🧐😮😲😳😉😘. Direction and Speed are very important and they are different with every weld no matter the method or material. For instance welding a vertical inside corner made of 1/8" aluminum with mig is going to require you to increase your speed halfway through the weld to prevent burn through, with tig you would control with the pedal. Welding copper or brass requires low heat and high speed using same material for filler, so variables for all types of welding and materials 😘. So let me finish with STACK "O" DIMES W.T.F. this in my opinion is the biggest bunch of 🐂💩 flying around wether expierienced or not. Someone who is concerned more about this is going to have a failure at some point or another and someone can get seriously hurt or killed if this is there goal welding on there vehicle. Most important things are fitup including fixturing, proper machine settings, clean and safe work environment, positioning and your comfort, penetration and speed and the PRETTY 💩💋👄😘🐖👈 Should be your last concern, because it will come automatically by following the other steps. My ****ing Dink finger hurts and I ran out of Oxygen 🤔🧐😮😲😳😏😉😘🤣🤣🤣🤣🐖👈💨👈. Hope this answers a lot of questions 😏😉. My 3rd edition will be out soon 🧁sweet 🐖👈🍑👈s 😘😘🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
 
Just gotta check the frame on this 55 real quick. You guys seem to have a point. Everyone knows high carbon steel rusts faster than cast iron, and heating the frame to 200F will solve the inherent cranking of a vertical weld. 🤪

If you think your welds are great, Here’s a test: Weld a derrick, put 100T of load on it and stand under or even work under the ****ing thing. I dare ya.

Making this pump rig was one whole summer under the hood in Las Vegas, and there were two of us on it. The other guy was the only person I ever heard dad say could weld better than him. (Grandpa had passed by then, but they always argued, sometimes about whose welds were better.) I can’t remember his name, but I do remember he could cuss better than anyone I’d ever met, and he was .. highly critical of my welding, but I learned some from him, including how to pull that derrick back straight when it started to move without tearing the existing welds.

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That picture is from 30 years later when I had to help dad repo it from the POS that tried to use the law to steal it from him. Last I heard it’s somewhere in the panhandle of Texas, still working.

Dad and grandpa taught me that controlling the pool / puddle was important. I didn’t hear anything about making ‘e’ shapes until the past couple years as I’ve been getting back into it. MIG is all new to me. Always ran stick on a Lincoln 200 back then.

Went into high tech shortly after I dropped out of college, and didn’t weld again until I bought a tiny Home Depot flux core machine in Hawaii to rebuild the trailer for my wife’s sailboat back in … 2007 or 2008. Everything rusts with salt water, so it was more “build a new trailer” than rust repair. After we were done, it seemed to carry the boat just fine. Pulled straight. Didn’t do any failure testing though. Did get a lot of lookie-loos from the Waikiki Yacht Club membership, but not as many as the crowd I had in Kaneohe (other side of the island) when I re-poured (sand cast) the 1,200 lb keel bulb for the larger boat we had at Kaneohe Yacht club. Lots of people telling me I didn’t know what I was doing then, too. That’s fine.

(You try finding bentonite to make “green sand” for casting in Hawaii..)

Anyway, they wanted too much for delivery of that tube, so we moved the 2”x3” tube for that trailer on top of the fj62 (it had bars for carrying my surfboard.)

Ken (brother, gone in 2011) laughed at me trying to strike an arc with that wire feed flux core machine.. “just pull the trigger!!” 💩 damn thing would overheat and force a break about every 2’ of bead.

Way back in 83 or 84 I spent several weeks in Lovelock, NV drilling a supply well for a huge natural gas storage tank site. Every inch of weld on that tank was x-rayed. Turns out certified welders can’t weld perfect either, Bob. The on-site engineer there taught me a lot about welding, and it damn sure didn’t have anything to do with drawing es or zs with a pencil.

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Really glad mine passed the “visual” in the 2 hours between chemical cleaning and e-coating. 😂

Edit: Never stand under a suspended load - period.

You won’t last a shift with that attitude. 🤣

Someone has to put the slips in the bushing or pull them, or step in to guide the joint into the stem, or to place the next 40’ section of casing on top of the last one.

Sometimes if the string of casing is heavy you have to use a hammer to set the slips or even run a bead above the slips to give it all something to grab. That means you’re heads down / ass up under the load, so not standing and I guess “OSHA approved”?

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Dad and grandpa taught me that controlling the pool / puddle was important. I didn’t hear anything about making ‘e’ shapes until the past couple years as I’ve been getting back into it. MIG is all new to me.
This making MIG welds look like TIG welds with the circular (lower case cursive e) is what all the high-end hot rod shops are doing now, Porter built and the Roadster Shop are two I see a lot of parts come from and they are close to the top for MIG welded parts, you are getting into TIG welded race car parts once you get too far past them. I would say the guy that welded on your frame is right up there with the welders at these two shops for weld appearance and clearly these welders can make good welds. I believe in every case the stack of dime MIG weld is more than sufficient on the automotive structures we see them on or I would think you would hear about more failure's. Hard for me to wrap my head around it after yeas of thinking smooth is good and lumpy is bad and watching these talented guys intentionally put lumps in their welds...


Short video talking about the process..




And another with some testing and probably why you wouldn't do it if MIG welding on a new pump rig that you would have to stand under..

 
This making MIG welds look like TIG welds with the circular (lower case cursive e) is what all the high-end hot rod shops are doing now, Porter built and the Roadster Shop are two I see a lot of parts come from and they are close to the top for MIG welded parts, you are getting into TIG welded race car parts once you get too far past them.

You seem to have (intentionally?) skipped the bit where I said “past couple of years”.

I found a little early 80s millermatic 35 in Boise and Mark has a hobby giving old miller welders a home. He insisted on restoring it for me, which I appreciate.

You can see I’ve not even unpacked it yet. Time is in short supply. Apparently there are papers inside one of the boxes with a bunch of drawings of ‘e’s and ‘x’s and whatever looped together.

Hollywood welding is a thing, but I’m not here to critique anyone but me. It’s a fact that Mark and Johnny (@Cruisers and Co) both weld better than I do, and I just want to relearn what I knew and pick up TIG, eventually. They’ve both been friendly and generous with their advice.

I considered enrolling in community college, but they’re mostly all goaled on certification, and I don’t want to take someone’s spot who was trying to get a job, so I bought @Bump It Offroad instead. So far I mostly just sweep the floor though. 😂

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@J Mack is probably enjoying the drama he created with this thread
If having casual conversations about interesting topics is triggering you then I apologize again...
You seem to have (intentionally?) skipped the bit where I said “past couple of years”.
No I caught that part but you might have missed the part where I said I agree with you and believe the stacked dimes MIG weld is probably good enough on the automotive applications we are seeing it on but you probably won't see it in structural applications anytime soon...
Did you read the 3rd edition metallurgy book?
 
If having casual conversations about interesting topics is triggering you then I apologize again...

You can’t trigger me. I got to drive my pig today for the first time in many months.

No I caught that part but you might have missed the part where I said I agree with you and believe the stacked dimes MIG weld is probably good enough on the automotive applications we are seeing it on but you probably won't see it in structural applications anytime soon...
Not sure anyone asked or asserted that stacking dimes is what you want on structural welds.

But on street-driven vehicles? I’m gonna quote the best opinion I ever heard, “it’s a hobby, there are no wrong answers.” 😀
Did you read the 3rd edition metallurgy book?
Seems to be silent on the subject, fren. Got a page number?
 

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