No gas welders?

[bplayer405]

Nice work.. What did you use for filler metal?

1/16" R4043 tig rod. Took quite a bit to fill in the 28" of joints.

 

[Yomax4]

1/16" R4043 tig rod. Took quite a bit to fill in the 28" of joints.

I'm surprised you could do that good of a job with a torch and tig rod. Using an aluminum stick electrode with the flux on it is much easier. If your in the states I'd send you some to mess with.

 

[bplayer405]

I'm surprised you could do that good of a job with a torch and tig rod. Using an aluminum stick electrode with the flux on it is much easier. If your in the states I'd send you some to mess with.

I'm using the premium aluminium flux from Tin Man Tech also. I've read that aluminum mma electrodes can be used too. I need to come up with a good container for the mixed flux for storage and reuse. I'm using a salt shaker at the moment, lol.

 

[Yomax4]

. Do you just heat the rod and dip in the flux or are you spreading on?

 

[bplayer405]

. Do you just heat the rod and dip in the flux or are you spreading on?

I tried spreading the flux on the joint like I've seen in the videos, didn't work so well. It almost acted as an insulating layer and took longer to heat to welding temp. And the results were pretty much a disaster. I switched to just heating the rod and dipping it in the flux and it works much better for me.

 

[Old Irish]

I love brazing with oxy fuel but welding not so much but I do admire those who are good at it.

 

[Bearskinner]

After gas welding cars together, cutting and sectioning, and now using a modern welder ( MIG with shielding gas) acetelyne is an extremely slow process. There is also heat concerns. It sure is nice to use a Large rosebud heating tip to straighten out something bent, or pick up that large Oxy/Acetelyne cutting tip to remove something fast.

 

[rScotty]

Are there no people who weld with gas (oxy-fuel)?
On 3/8 thick metal or less, I find this to be very enjoyable.

So do I. I prefer the torch for weldng steel and copper alloys. And for all types of brazing & soldering.
My plan this year is to learn some of the more esoteric torch welding skills like pure copper welding, aluminum to aluminum, and Ti.

I do have MIG, TIG, and arc....but prefer the torch when I can.
rScotty

 

[Hardfacer]

I spent 17+ years Hardfacing Globe Valve seats and Discs with Stellite #6 using Oxy Acetylene. I was taught by a 66 year old wizard when I was 18. That was 42 years ago. It is a lost art.

 

[mongo]

I wish I had more Stellite!!!

As a pre-teen I was into electronics and got my parts by deconstructing commercial and consumer electronics. So I am very good at soldering.

As an emancipated older youth, I had things to fix, and brazing was easy. I had diesel Rabbits which were always breaking exhaust pipes, and they are cop attracting loud without a turbo.

45 years later, kids through college, I got the money to get a welder and picked up a Miller Multimate 200, and am still learning how to do things with it.

My torch set, which was an aircraft torch (Linde 200) got replicated as I picked up spare parts, and while I only have one hooked up at the moment, it is used probably 25 or 30 times a year. For heat, cutting, brazing, sometimes soldering, and every so often fusion welding.

Now I have a 35 year old tractor, which has cracks in the loader frame and other wear and tear, and implements with cracks or breaks, and I will be spending the summer trying to fix everything up.

 

[Forger]

I love my OA and I have a large setup with a Victor Journeyman, a Victor Ranger and an Oxweld torch. I have welding, heating & scarfing tips and cutting attachments to fit each. The Oxweld is my favorite torch. I also have a small setup (B) with a Smith little torch for tiny delicate work. I have gas savers set up on both sets.

I also have an Oxweld (Linde) CW400. Cadillac of torches. Love it.

 

[SIO]

Are there no people who weld with gas (oxy-fuel)?
On 3/8 thick metal or less, I find this to be very enjoyable.

Never tried gas welding, though I'd like to some time. Bit of brazing here and there but no welding. Any videos or other resources you'd recommend?

 

[Gary Fowler]

I have been gas welding everything that is too thin for a stick weld, so basically if it is less than 3/32" thick, I would gas weld it. That will change now that I got my TIG machine.
If the base metal is 1/8" it will be TIG welded.

My first construction job was as a welder's helper. I was helping an oxy-acetylene welder to weld 2" gas line in 1968. The gas company had some antiquated welding specs that did not allow TIG welding. It required all 2" and below to be gas welded. IT was slow and very hot work compared to TIG welding.
Years later I was pipe welding and we had another FUBAR welding spec that required stick welding on a 3/4" buttwelded hydrogen line. By the time you got it tacked, you just had to tack between the tacks to finish the root pass then cap with low hydrogen. One day we ran out of 3/32" 7018 and had to cap the little 3/4" pipe using 5/32" rods. Needless to say, that day the half round files got a work out filling down the lumps on the cap pass. It was all 100% xray also.

 

[welding seabee]

As a pipefitter/welder back in the old days before MIG and TIG. I was ASME power piping and pressure vessel certified on both gas and arc. Was silver braze certified for pressure vessels, mostly heat exchangers, and CG certified for silver brazing high pressure piping. Was always a better gas welder than arc. Problem with MIG/TIG was containing the shield gas when outdoors are large spaces with strong air currents so it was not popular except in fab shop environment. Even then most welders were arc only. Had a hard time finding gas welders for projects requiring gas welding so I was a valuable asset to the dispatcher at the union hall. even had contractors borrowing me from a current employer; of course I demanded premium pay for those gigs. For ammonia refrigeration piping all pipe 2" and smaller was gas welded. Hardest position was horizontal to keep from undercutting the upper pipe. We gas was faster than arc as it was one pass with no cleaning required, lot hotter work though; especially large pipe. Gas welding was popular for systems that needed to be kept clean inside w/o the trash arc welding leaves even with chill rings. My largest was XH 12" #6 victor tip and 3/16 rod. Those were the good old days when all overtime was double time and we got a lot of it.

Ron

 

[Gary Fowler]

As a pipefitter/welder back in the old days before MIG and TIG. I was ASME power piping and pressure vessel certified on both gas and arc. Was silver braze certified for pressure vessels, mostly heat exchangers, and CG certified for silver brazing high pressure piping. Was always a better gas welder than arc. Problem with MIG/TIG was containing the shield gas when outdoors are large spaces with strong air currents so it was not popular except in fab shop environment. Even then most welders were arc only. Had a hard time finding gas welders for projects requiring gas welding so I was a valuable asset to the dispatcher at the union hall. even had contractors borrowing me from a current employer; of course I demanded premium pay for those gigs. For ammonia refrigeration piping all pipe 2" and smaller was gas welded. Hardest position was horizontal to keep from undercutting the upper pipe. We gas was faster than arc as it was one pass with no cleaning required, lot hotter work though; especially large pipe. Gas welding was popular for systems that needed to be kept clean inside w/o the trash arc welding leaves even with chill rings. My largest was XH 12" #6 victor tip and 3/16 rod. Those were the good old days when all overtime was double time and we got a lot of it.

Ron

I worked open shop and we never got double time except holidays if we worked which was rare. So rare that in over 40 years with them I only got it one time when I got called out to do TIG repairs on a bunch of Nickel couplings on Thanksgiving day. I worked 21 hours straight before calling it a day. Me and my welding GF were both called in to do these repairs that were screwed up by a couple of hotshot welders. They were seal welding threaded couplings on a caustic soda line. They tried to do it without removing the threaded part and cleaning out the caustic which caused major porosity. We had to grind off all the old weld, remove the threaded part, clean it and the coupling with fresh water then reinstall and seal weld. Most of these were at pump locations and just had a pressure gauge installed so it would not have been a big deal to remove them originally, but it was a big deal after welding. We had to remove all the old weld without to much damage to the threaded pipe.

 

[welding seabee]

I worked open shop and we never got double time except holidays if we worked which was rare. So rare that in over 40 years with them I only got it one time when I got called out to do TIG repairs on a bunch of Nickel couplings on Thanksgiving day. I worked 21 hours straight before calling it a day. Me and my welding GF were both called in to do these repairs that were screwed up by a couple of hotshot welders. They were seal welding threaded couplings on a caustic soda line. They tried to do it without removing the threaded part and cleaning out the caustic which caused major porosity. We had to grind off all the old weld, remove the threaded part, clean it and the coupling with fresh water then reinstall and seal weld. Most of these were at pump locations and just had a pressure gauge installed so it would not have been a big deal to remove them originally, but it was a big deal after welding. We had to remove all the old weld without to much damage to the threaded pipe.

Gary, in both my refrigeration time and industrial piping time we got a lot of overtime. Many times on plant shutdowns for repairs and changes we worked as much a 96 hours straight thru. when doing refrigeration a company I worked for did a lot of work on ships especially Navy. After overhauls they always have sea trials which I was tapped for. They always started at ) dark thirty so we were on overtime when we hit the gangplank. 3-4 24 hr days of double time. I usually had actual 8 hrs working time for proving our installed equipment. The rest was gravy, Lot of stories like that. I got away from the refrigeration side when the kids got older and I got tired of night time and weekend service calls. We fixed a lot of refrigerant leaks on work done in foreign ports and a lot of compressor overhauls. The unions have been forced to drop the all OT is DT and now have 8 hours of 1 1/2 T before DT starts. I left the trade to take a civil service job in management for 26 years. My arc welding days are pretty limited now that I have a pacemaker. Back to the torch as much as possible.

Ron

 

[Gary Fowler]

I dont have a high frequency suitable for TIG welding aluminum nor do I have a spool gun. I have very little use for aluminum but I have thought about buying some of that low temp aluminum "solder" that I have seen advertised just for fun in case I need something for a boat repair or something. Anyone have any experience with this and if so, where did you get it. I know HF sells it and I have seen it on Amazon. I am sure some of it is better than others. Opinions please.

 

[bplayer405]

I dont have a high frequency suitable for TIG welding aluminum nor do I have a spool gun. I have very little use for aluminum but I have thought about buying some of that low temp aluminum "solder" that I have seen advertised just for fun in case I need something for a boat repair or something. Anyone have any experience with this and if so, where did you get it. I know HF sells it and I have seen it on Amazon. I am sure some of it is better than others. Opinions please.

I've usedv the HF aluminum brazing rod. It does work for some things like sealing some rivets and holes if the area is very clean, but I wouldn't recommend it for fixing a crack in a weld or for anything structural with a boat. It is cheap and fairly easy to use. Still have some in my tool box. I do prefer oxy-acetylene and a tig rod with flux over it and mig over that. But, for need of the equipment (mig, tig, etc), a propane torch and brazing rod can seal some troublesome holes in aluminum.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Gary, in both my refrigeration time and industrial piping time we got a lot of overtime. Many times on plant shutdowns for repairs and changes we worked as much a 96 hours straight thru. when doing refrigeration a company I worked for did a lot of work on ships especially Navy. After overhauls they always have sea trials which I was tapped for. They always started at ) dark thirty so we were on overtime when we hit the gangplank. 3-4 24 hr days of double time. I usually had actual 8 hrs working time for proving our installed equipment. The rest was gravy, Lot of stories like that. I got away from the refrigeration side when the kids got older and I got tired of night time and weekend service calls. We fixed a lot of refrigerant leaks on work done in foreign ports and a lot of compressor overhauls. The unions have been forced to drop the all OT is DT and now have 8 hours of 1 1/2 T before DT starts. I left the trade to take a civil service job in management for 26 years. My arc welding days are pretty limited now that I have a pacemaker. Back to the torch as much as possible.

Ron

I hear electric arc welding is not good practice for those with a pacemaker so I guess oxy-fuel is your only choice. It takes longer and is extremely hot, but i suppose just about anything around our homes that can be stick welded can be oxy-fuel welded. I wouldn't try to weld anything more than 1/2" thick with it.

 

[Mark @ Everlast]

Are there no people who weld with gas (oxy-fuel)?
On 3/8 thick metal or less, I find this to be very enjoyable.

I do. I have taught it to others. I find it very enjoyable and useful.