What do you weld with ?

[Lee H]

View attachment 274730
Still the old dc600 with this even older ln8 feeder....

35$ auction purchase, with cables. Put over 3k worth of wire through it these last couple months. Figure it was worth the 35$ lol

And what are you welding with that machine. Quite impressive. Big wire there.

 

[Red97]

And what are you welding with that machine. Quite impressive. Big wire there.

The frame of a 3500ton mechanical forge press. Some crack repairs, and adding some material back that had been milled off over the last 60 years.

 

[Moparmyway]

kev..how does the little STR stick weld ?

The Blue Star 185 is dc only, but welding dcen with 7018 on structural inverted takes practice

 

[Spladle160]

View attachment 274739

The frame of a 3500ton mechanical forge press. Some crack repairs, and adding some material back that had been milled off over the last 60 years.

Ever tried any of those giant 3/4" rods from cor-met? seems like this could be a good application if you happen to have a 1000 or 1500 amp power supply.

 

[Red97]

Ever tried any of those giant 3/4" rods from cor-met? seems like this could be a good application if you happen to have a 1000 or 1500 amp power supply.

Not used any big rods over 1/4"

Do have a 1000 amp power supply if these 600's crap out. But only running 550-575 amps.... this .120 wire flows so nice, be hard to imagine rods being quicker. Being hand held anyway. On a good 12hr I can get 200lb of wire normally 150+ on a flat like this.

 

[mdavlee]

Not used any big rods over 1/4"

Do have a 1000 amp power supply if these 600's crap out. But only running 550-575 amps.... this .120 wire flows so nice, be hard to imagine rods being quicker. Being hand held anyway. On a good 12hr I can get 200lb of wire normally 150+ on a flat like this.

Stick would be more work I think for less deposit in the end of the day for your application. 1/4” rods do lay a huge bead down.

 

[Catbuster]

At the shop we have...

-Miller Syncrowave 350 LX
-Miller Dialarc 250 (mostly left set up for carbon arc)
-Miller Dynasty 280 DX
-Miller Dynasty 200 DX
-Millermatic 251 (.045 dual shield)
-Millermatic 252 (.035 hard wire)

On the service truck we carry a Trailblazer 325 diesel, a suitcase feeder, 75/25 gas and straight argon if we take the Dynasty 200 out in the field.

Up until recently I had a Syncrowave 250 and we had a Maxstar 280 in the shop for a while thinking it would replace the Dialarc, but as good a welder as it was the Dialarc carbon arced better and it’s predominately use the big DC power source for.

If you count plasma cutters/oxy fuel rigs in with welding, I use Hypertherm plasma cutters (45, 85 and 1000) and use Smith torches.

No, I am not biased against Lincoln Electric, their stuff is fine and I’ve built race cars and a myriad of other things with their Precision/Square Wave TIG machines and their Power MIG machines.

 

[Red97]

Stick would be more work I think for less deposit in the end of the day for your application. 1/4” rods do lay a huge bead down.

I try and stay with 2x12x.250 bead size. The old boys I learned from used to do these jobs with 1/4 stick. They said the wire is much quicker.

Now those big rods in a machine can prolly fill die blocks quick.

 

[Spladle160]

Thinking about it you're probably dead on the money. You can probably get a single 8lb rob in quicker than 8lbs of wire but I bet you would end up with significantly more wire in at the end of the day than 3/4" rod if both were by hand.

 

[Red97]

Thinking about it you're probably dead on the money. You can probably get a single 8lb rob in quicker than 8lbs of wire but I bet you would end up with significantly more wire in at the end of the day than 3/4" rod if both were by hand.

Yep, and have to get close to the heat. The entire workpiece I'm sitting in is wrapped with a furnace. Held at 550* the entire time. Then post heat/slow cool.

With the wire I have 2,3,4,5ft extensions I can put on to stay out of the heat, and reach my area.

I melt enough grounds running 550+ amps hate to see 1000+ lol

 

[jacob j.]

Yep, and have to get close to the heat. The entire workpiece I'm sitting in is wrapped with a furnace. Held at 550* the entire time. Then post heat/slow cool.

With the wire I have 2,3,4,5ft extensions I can put on to stay out of the heat, and reach my area.

I melt enough grounds running 550+ amps hate to see 1000+ lol

The work you're doing reminds me of a Quartz mine we had near my house when I was a kid. The Quartz would wear down the blades and tracks of the dozers fast so they had three welders that ran beads
on the pads, grousers, and blades of the dozers all day. At one point they had seven D-8s and three of the big excavators working the mine. They were getting about 15 loads a day out. Most of it was going
to the electronics industry at the time. Big, big $$.

 

[Red97]

The work you're doing reminds me of a Quartz mine we had near my house when I was a kid. The Quartz would wear down the blades and tracks of the dozers fast so they had three welders that ran beads
on the pads, grousers, and blades of the dozers all day. At one point they had seven D-8s and three of the big excavators working the mine. They were getting about 15 loads a day out. Most of it was going
to the electronics industry at the time. Big, big $$.

Similar, just this takes longer lol

This frame was from the 50/ 60's originally made for Chrysler. Only 7 were made.

The bed has had just over 1" machined out over all those years. Plus the crack repair.


I'm about .5" shy from my 1.5" goal. This pad is 25"x50" fill the middle then finish the ends. Overall 50x72x1.5 hope to be done by next weekend.

 

[Catbuster]

The work you're doing reminds me of a Quartz mine we had near my house when I was a kid. The Quartz would wear down the blades and tracks of the dozers fast so they had three welders that ran beads
on the pads, grousers, and blades of the dozers all day. At one point they had seven D-8s and three of the big excavators working the mine. They were getting about 15 loads a day out. Most of it was going
to the electronics industry at the time. Big, big $$.

I can confirm this, I worked for the Big K (with the distinctive-color yellow trucks)... Before I went into business for myself & we worked on the Skagit Gneiss formation and we wore out extreme duty rock buckets, even as we hardfaced the snot out of them. That rock tested out at a Mohs hardness of around seven. It made the Komatsu 1250s and 385s we were running look pretty tame, and a turned up PC1250 is a strong machine. Kinda makes the big pile of Dolomite and blue shale I’m working on in most of the region I work in now that’s hard on equipment seem like easy digging.

 

[jacob j.]

Similar, just this takes longer lol

This frame was from the 50/ 60's originally made for Chrysler. Only 7 were made.

The bed has had just over 1" machined out over all those years. Plus the crack repair.

View attachment 275474
I'm about .5" shy from my 1.5" goal. This pad is 25"x50" fill the middle then finish the ends. Overall 50x72x1.5 hope to be done by next weekend.

That's really cool - I dig obscure industrial application machinery and infrastructure, like that.

A guy I cut timber with years ago has a retirement hobby of refurbishing and building steam engine boilers for vintage locomotives and tractors.

Back in the early 2000's, he built a big one from scratch for a Shay locomotive a non-profit organization was restoring up in Keizer. It took him about
three months to get it all together.

 

[timg]

I gotta ask you your secret on hardfacing build up @Red97. If that hardfacing is built up that much how do you keep it from cracking and chunking out during the wear process. We normally build up blades, buckets, and shears with 7018 and then single pass hardfacing over that to cover up the 7018. Or is that what went on there and that was the final overlay?

 

[Catbuster]

@timg

I can’t comment for him, but what I’ve always done and my shop guys do is layer hardfacing & low hydrogen all while everything is still hot to the desired buildup. The LH process, be it 7018, dual shield, spray MIG (those are the 3 we primarily use) are ductile to alleviate shrinkage stress and prevent cracking of the hardfacing material.

 

[Red97]

I gotta ask you your secret on hardfacing build up @Red97. If that hardfacing is built up that much how do you keep it from cracking and chunking out during the wear process. We normally build up blades, buckets, and shears with 7018 and then single pass hardfacing over that to cover up the 7018. Or is that what went on there and that was the final overlay?

No sir not hardface at all.

This is Lincoln ns3m wire. High fill rate, minimum substrate mixing. Hardness/type matches really well to the cast steel.

This project has a furnace built around it. Holding 500-550* while we are welding. Then we will stress relieve all 200k lb of frame at 1200*

Will have all of 8k lbs of wire In this without the pre/post heat it would likely bust real good...

 

[timg]

Got it. Thanks for opening up my eyes LOL!!

 

[merc_man]

Picked this up tonight. Kinda excited to try it out.

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

 

[Red97]

This half (50×35)ready for the final/finish pass.