A little something for the Art-minded folks out there

Date 10-25-2011 03:25

Hello folks, I know that some of you dabble or might be even be rather serious metal artists out there. I help out with a metal arts class at the school where I teach and kind out of the blue I came upon this. I remember having used stainless steel to back parts with in order to build up missing pieces and sections. So I had a bit of a revelation this evening and tried a little something out to see if it would work. Got a piece of 1/4" SS plate and welded some shapes on it and some writing with the aluminum spool gun. The beads actually wetted out pretty well and were fairly controllable. Once I had completed the welding I took it over to the cooling trough and quenched it. Didn't exactly fall off, yet, with a little persuasion from a hammer and chisel I was able to knock it loose and the resulting picture kind of shows the results. The piece of stainless that I used was one of those with a fairly rough surface, I believe using a piece with a smoother surface might have facilitated the separation of the two metals a bit. If you haven't already tried this and if you have an artistic urge, I do believe you might be able to come up with some rather interesting artwork using something like this. Enjoy and best regards, Allan

By Lawrence (*****)

Date 10-25-2011 04:29

Genius!

By aevald

Date 10-25-2011 04:42

Thanks Lawrence, I rather enjoy helping out with the metal arts class. It is a community education type class, there are around 19 people enrolled and they come up with all sorts of neat items that are basically formulated from a lot of those things that most would consider to be "junk". I am going to mess around with this a bit more and try using the GTAW process to see how it might work, believe a lot more detail and control could be gained, and likely some pretty cool stuff as well. Best regards, Allan

By qcrobert (***)

Date 10-25-2011 12:59

Pretty unusual!

The LCC here would stand for our local community college, Lane Community College.

By aevald

Date 10-25-2011 13:08 Edited 10-26-2011 00:01

Yes Robert, in my case it stands for Lower Columbia College. But, I have made trips down your way for training sessions at WahChang, Albany. Best regards, Allan

By welderbrent (*****)

Date 10-25-2011 16:53

Interesting. I used to work on Log stackers down there Allan.

Hope all is going well in the great NW.

Have a Great Day, Brent

By aevald

Date 10-26-2011 00:26

Hello Brent, I have to apologize for not commenting on much of what you and others have included on the forum for quite some time. I don't quite know if I am still thinking that we have some summer left to experience around here or what, I guess I'll blame some of my disinterest and lack of comment on not quite re-charging my attitude and energy with our lackluster summer.
Sounds like you're still staying plenty busy, although possibly in a direction that isn't totally of your choosing, I am mainly referring to the shop. To some degree I have experienced a few of those sorts of issues with my boys. They had discussed with me, and I of course had supported them on, some of their future plans and when those directions went out the window I was left in somewhat of a lurch. I'll just have to backup, regroup, and prepare for another charge of one form or another. Talk at you later Brent. Best regards, Allan

By aevald

Date 10-26-2011 00:15 Edited 10-26-2011 00:36

Well folks, had a chance to mess around with this whole thing a bit more today. GTAW didn't have results even close to the GMAW application. Couldn't get it to puddle up on top of the SS at all, instead, it just sheened off like water on a RainX'd window. Tried AC, DCEN, and DCEP, still pretty much the same result, wire is apparently the way to go if you're looking to have any way to control the deposits. Found out something else, if I increased the size of the pattern much the bead cracked into pieces. I was using .035 ER-5356 filler, this could very likely have contributed to the cracking issues. When I get a bit more time I'll try the same thing with ER-4043, a rough guess tells me that the cracking issue might go away. If not, I may need to apply a bit of preheat to the SS backing material so that it doesn't cool so quickly and maybe helps to limit the cracking.
I was able to weld various pieces of this together with very little trouble with GTAW, so this might support my intent to make up some 3D type stuff from various pieces. If I come up with something else I'll include it on here for you folks to laugh at. Best regards, Allan

By Rafter_G_Weldin (***)

Date 11-04-2011 03:13

I wonder if it would have the same effect using aluminum stick rod on stainless. i dont have a mig machine or even access to 1

By aevald

Date 11-04-2011 05:35

Hello Shad, I don't even have any stick aluminum to test that theory. I guess it's because I have a personal vendetta against stick aluminum welding. Best regards, Allan

By Rafter_G_Weldin (***)

Date 11-04-2011 13:15

Its not easy that's for sure. But when its all you have you do the best you can.

By aevald

Date 11-04-2011 23:29

and you probably get good at it....... all the while letting go of a string of expletives@%&**$ Best regards, Allan