Im sorry, I didnt mean to be descriminatory towards women, it just seems like its the opposite as it used to be 50 even 30 years ago. Oh you really struck something big. Ive been telling these guys for weeks months how my hands shake from my meds thats why I prefer not having to use filler material. But you said from Copenhagen!! I have been chewing a can or so a day for over 15 years, whats that have to do with it? Finally, I wanted to put my other question to rest once and for all. these guys always help, but sometimes I dont understand. Can I get the jobs done efficiently that I want to do, bikes cars, with a 300 dollar Lincoln Mig?(the tubing on a bike, sheet metal, no aluminum probably), You say it would take many more man hours to do the jobs w/ O/A, why? thats probably a rookie question, but whats the difference? Thanks for the millionth time guys, buy the way, where you guys from, Im in Pittsburgh. Osu, dont take too much to figure out where youre from. My buddy just built a house out there, yuppy, were 30! And for the record dont you guys think Im some kind of guys jumping on a bandwagon because of these TV shows. Ive loved bikes all my life..I had my fun with a crotch rocket in my early 20s, now its time to move on when I can afford(or build) it!
Thanks
Calabrese,
No offese was taken on my part, just didn't want you to be all too surprised when a young lady demonstrates her welding ability and you are left with nothing but an embarrased expression and a foot in your mouth (this does come from experience). As for the Cope, the nicotine is a stimulant and does cause small twitches even though everyone thinks that it calms you down, like caffeine. Meds may compound this problem, but I have an uncle that had a pinch in the gums for about 40 years, and he always looked like he had a jackhammer strapped to his back. All that said, I plan to be a millionaire and retired by the time it hits me, and have part ownership of that ocean front property right here in Oklahoma... :-)
Now, as for my opinion on the MIG, if the welder works well enough to create a strong weld on what you plan to be welding on, then yes, it will work well enough to create a strong weld on what you plan to be welding on. What I'm saying is try the thing on some of the sizes of tubing you will be welding, see what happens. I have made welds hold on a highly stressed farm implement hitch using a welder worth about 25 bucks. Quality of the WELDER (machine), in my opinion, is not near as important as the quality of the WELDOR (person). Because of this, I would attain some sort of certification (probably something in the area of MIG, small diameter tubing) so that you know a motorcycle frame is not going to snap at 70mph.
As for O/A, you must basically heat up the whole piece before you can weld. An electric arc can get up to around 10000 degrees farenheight and is concentrated, while an O/A is somewhere around 5000 and much more dispersed (someone please correct me if these temps are wrong, I can't really remember and don't have time to look it up). Because of this, the heating time is much more significant, especially on thicker pieces.
Hope that helps and good luck!
G. L.
By -
Date 09-03-2004 03:25
Mr. Calabrese,
Just curious. Are you specifying in the subject line who you want to respond to your questions because you don't want anybody else to respond?
Mankenberg
No, m an not at all stating that I dont want anyone else to respond, on the contrary, I'm a friendly guy who really appreciates inputs from everybody. The problem is is that I have been in contact with billvanderhoof, malcolm, tink, OSU, a few others forgive me for not remebering, and if I want to post a new message again, thats the only way I know of to get their attention again...If I hit reply like i am doing now, I respond to myself.
Just a note about the "reply" button,
Hit the "reply" button under the person's post that replies back to you, this will send an automatic forum email to that person with your reply included, instead of sending one back to youself.
Hope that will help,
John Wright
if you get this then I understood your instructions on replying..
Hey there Bryan,
It worked just fine. :)
John Wright
I didn't know if you got my reply before..But no, I am friendly and wish to have friends and appreciate any nput people give. however, youd think that affter 15 years of using a computer a would understand the bulletin board conception but do not know how to respond without putting their name up in the forum to get their attention! Thanks
Bryan pittburgh
I've no experience building motorcycles but it seems that building custom bikes (or cars) is rather more art than science. Thus the hard part is likely to be building a following of those who admire your work. Learn to weld, learn to work sheetmetal, then I suspect a wise person would apprentice himself to an experienced builder to learn the finer points and also to build a body of work (keep pictures) to be shown to prospective customers in the event that one later decides to become independant.
I don't think process is nearly as important as skill. Learn to weld, then pick the process you like and buy that equipment. O/A will add some time to a project, It's slower and thus it puts more heat into the metal that in turn results in more warping that may need to be worked out. Still it was the process of choice for body men until it was pushed out by mig. If you make three dimensional curves in sheet metal you will probably need the torch anyway to anneal the metal from time to time. If you want me to commit to a mig for you I would guess that you should go a step above the $300 mig to one of the 220 volt models. They are more capable and don't cost a whole lot more.
Even 60 years ago those tube frame planes that I mentioned in another post were being welded together by women (the men were off in the war). I support the right of anybody to do any job they can (my daughter is a fireman) still I wasn't particularly put off by your statement.
I'm from New Joisey
Bill
I'll stay away from the women welder discussion. We had quite a few in some of my CC welding classes and many were working toward various stick certifications. That takes lots of skill and a heck of a lot of practice and patience. Yup, they were getting their certs.
I've had some problems staying as steady as I need to be when doing TIG welding. As we've all said in the past, with that process you're working with very small distances between all the stuff you're trying to manipulate (torch, filler, workpiece). One of the instructors told me that he cut down on both coffee and cokes to help him. I did that too and also developed better techniques of positioning myself. Might be something to the nicotine advice, I don't use it.
I enjoyed working with O/A and made some pretty decent welds. For me the O/A training was a stepping stone to TIG (I'd always heard it was a good idea to learn O/A before TIG) but if I had a rig I'm sure I'd find many uses for it. I'm more comfortable with electricity than gas so I'm focusing on continuing to build my TIG and MIG skills.
Since I think you've decided on MIG I'd agree with the advice the other folks have given you about saving until you can get one of the more powerful MIG units. My MIG is one of the 135 amp 120v units that was given to me a few years ago as a gift before I really got into welding. I've built some great smaller projects but it was really tricky to use it when I built some new rear shock mounts for our sandrail. It was quite a bit of 1/8 - 3/8 plate with a touch of 1/4" that I had to tie into. The rest of it was a bunch of 1" and 1.25" with 0.120" thick walls. Never built a bike but I'm guessing that's also typical stock for a bike. It took a lot of joint prep, equipment tweaking, practice and luck to get a decent joint on some of that. Get a more powerful MIG and I think you'll be less frustrated, more productive and produce a better more consistent weld. My 2 cents..
Oh, and I'm from Southern California.
Just a thought,
I think tinker touched a really good point about the O/A being a stepping stone and have a perfect example of this-- When I started my training, this was the first year that our instructor decided OFW (O/A welding) was too outdated and not used enough to spend a few months on, and the time would be better used to let us practice for our pipe certs. However, once we got to TIG in the course about a year later, most of us produced quite a few welds with some high thoriated tungsten content. After less than a week worth of trying to fix this universal problem, our instructor cracked the tanks and passed out the welding tips and an assignment to do 5-10 O/A welds. These were done in only a few days, and I started my 3/8" bevel plate TIG roots a couple of weeks later.
TIG is fairly picky and extremely accurate (this year's tractor frame was made of .050" mild steel, and not too many of the welds were much larger than that, not to mention the numerous soda cans welded together because I was bored...), but the principles you learn in O/A help out alot. My instructor was very big on getting comfortable before you start to weld if at all possible. Like I said, my hands aren't the steadiest, but learning how to rest my arms so that I don't have to concentrate on anymore than the rod, torch, and amptrol will help the shakes more than anything else.
Anyway, hope that helps...
G. L.
