What did you do today?

[Cenedd]

I think you'd have lost already Bob! Currently it's half-in, half-out and half-piled! I'm not good at tidy...can ya tell?!

[nickel-city-fab]

What's the deal with these gas/petrol engine-driven welders? I was thinking it was portability...but bolting an entire engine to anything (without wheels!) renders it LESS portable, surely. Then wondered if it was because you couldn't draw enough power from most sockets for really big welds. Is it smoother power delivery by ditching the AC-DC conversion?

The deal is that there isn't a socket available when doing off-road and on-site repair work. One could be miles from anywhere with a broken-down machine to repair for a customer or employer. For example I have had to repair a couple of my employers cranes with a portable welding setup, it is not trivial to move a disabled 50-ton machine and often it is easier to fix it right where it is, regardless of the weather. And in some of their more remote locations there are no utilities whatsoever, and it's an hour's drive away, and the site manager wants it fixed now. Hence, load welder, oxy-fuel torches, and tools into back of truck, and drive out there.

And yes, much smoother welding by using pure DC from a generator, it's what made Lincoln welders so famous for pipeline welding. The vast majority of pipeline welding is done this way.

Owning my own portable or mobile welding setup greatly increases my earnings potential since mobile or portable welders can typically charge $100 or more per hour, and I still have my regular day job too.

[nickel-city-fab]

Not sure if it was an actual Jeep engine,it closely resembled a Waukesha FC4 ,but it wasn't a Continental. One of the ubiquitous 4-cyl L-heads of that era. It belonged to a buddy of mine that at one time had a pretty good collection of old school engine driven generators. He had a Lincoln SA400 with a Hercules JX six cylinder and a Hobart G213 with a 2-cyl Wisconsin air cooled.

I don't have much need for a portable, but I do like my static and motor generator sets.If I get time this weekend I may do a post of some of the machines I have rat holed away.

Huh, that's interesting. The only other names that come to mind are Waukesha (not likely), Hercules (often found in surplus military equipment), or Buda (very very antique)

[ewenz]

Pulled out the remaining hair from my head trying to program a VFD for my lathe. At least the manual is about 1" thick so that I have something to read in all of my spare time.....uffff

[Cenedd]

ewenz Oh, they're fun! Only had the pleasure once but you know you've picked a good one when there's configurable options for problems you'd not even realised could be problems!

[Mike Burch]

Pulled out the remaining hair from my head trying to program a VFD for my lathe. At least the manual is about 1" thick so that I have something to read in all of my spare time.....uffff

Be thankful it's in English, and not Chinese like mine was...

[eKretz]

Finally got my Hardinge collet chuck set up on the lathe. Made an adapter plate so it's capable of dialing in if ever necessary like a Set-Tru chuck. Just set it and tightened everything up with a 5/8" hardened dowel pin, got about . 0001" runout at the inboard end and ~.0002" at the outboard end 2" away.

[Bented]

My employer gave me a job first thing this morning, 16" X 1" thick plasma cut 304 SS disk.
Turn OD and face to length, bore from 8" to 10" at 45 Degrees.

With a smirk he mentions that he forgot to include a rough bore in the burn order, you will have to drill and bore from 0 to 10" on a manual lathe.

Have a nice Friday he said.

[Cenedd]

Bented I hope you told him that there's just no need for that sort of schadenfreude. Can you trepan it?
I can't as I fail at step 1: "Either grind your own tool or hand over your life savings for a Val-Cut".
"Manual lathe"?! There's another kind? You'll be telling me next they come with a readout comprised of digits!
Or that they can be had with handwheels where the graduations bear a resemblance to the actual travel!

[Bob Engelhardt]

[...]
With a smirk he mentions that he forgot to include a rough bore in the burn order, you will have to drill and bore from 0 to 10" on a manual lathe.

Have a nice Friday he said.

Well, I assume that he's paying you by the hour, or salaried, so it's on him.

[Bented]

Well, I assume that he's paying you by the hour, or salaried, so it's on him.

Not my problem, merely terribly monotonous. Tried to get it in an 1845 CNC lathe but we had no work holding.

[JustJim]

I made a tapping setup for my lathe. I usually would use a T-handle tap holder, and center in the tailstock, but it's difficult to get a good bit of leverage on the T-handle and I wanted to try something with a ratchet. I bought some Harbor Freight "double end" ratchets, a 1/4" drill blank and used my Lisle tap sockets and came up with this.....All said it really works well in the lathe and mill. I did have to take the ratchets apart and do a little machine work but nothing extensive to make it all work.

[Bented]

Finished this morning, cranking the compound back and forth is madness, there are no words to describe how much I dislike manual lathes these days.

On Monday I will see if I can Abom some M80-6 threads for a propeller lifting device for the local shipyard (-:
The thread looks like so:

[Cenedd]

Cut some flat bar to length, drilled a 10mm hole in each end and bolted them into a square with some castors. Got out my welder that I'm obviously going to have no problem with just joining a couple of pieces; having previously welded a foot or so of test bead (to make sure it worked) on some flat plate. Yeah, I'm gonna need a better grinder and a lot thicker paint! I did manage to get them joined though....albeit with ALL of things that can be wrong with a weld! It's not structural though (the bolts are), it just prevents the square from deforming...and was a good excuse to actually weld something!
I think my small rods were too small - disappeared too quickly - but the medium rods just didn't want to burn well. Not sure if they're too old or got too wet - even though they've been stored in a water-tight cylinder. Entirely probably that the problem lies on the other side of the rod holder!

Drilled some holes in a patio slab (natural stone) that is no longer needed and bolted it all together.
The flat bar prevents the cross from twisting so that there's enough rigidity to roll it around. Would have been nice if the stone was more the right shape....but not spending an arm and a leg on it was the idea here - they want £300 for some of these wheely bases!



And in full sail

[SVS]

[QUOTE=Bented
On Monday I will see if I can Abom some M80-6 threads for a propeller lifting device for ….
/QUOTE]

Oh snap! A proper noun becomes a verb!