Why we don't fix stuff

[ATpro]

I agree with you on propane/oxygen being slower at heating and cutting and you will notice the slowness for sure on larger steel. If I worked steel for a living I would have acetylene, but for my use on the farm propane serves the purpose.

I used propane in a production weld setting, per-heat time and how thick the material is can be adjusted by what size tip you use. What does the cutting is the heat of the nerf followed by the oxygen stream that blows the metal from the nerf. Once the metal reaches cutting temp there is not much different

 

[Mad Professor]

I'm actually a fair stick welder because I have done a lot of it. But, typically it is on farm implements where you are looking at 1/4 inch thick stuff up. Get your heat right and go.
Mig is new to me. I put patch panels on my Ford truck. Basically spot, cool, spot, cool, and grind it down.
Looks better than it did rusted out is about all I can say.

I really don't see why he can't Mig his muffler the same way.


My father taught carpentry in high school for 30 years or so. They did carpentry, brick laying, drafting, agriculture. At one point electrical wiring, but the apprentice program overtook that.

Never any welding

We also had woodworking. Took that made furniture learned working finish wood products. Planers, table saws, routers, radial arm saws, chop saws, jointers, sanders, different types of wood,.........

The woodwork IA teacher was a POS. He took all the best wood for himself and made students work on his own projects, which he sold. If you did your own project you got a cull piece of wood that took hours just to get square/smooth........one semester was enough to learn the tools/equipment, no more for me.

 

[ZeroJunk]

We also had woodworking. Took that made furniture learned working finish wood products. Planers, table saws, routers, radial arm saws, chop saws, jointers, sanders, different types of wood,.........

The woodwork IA teacher was a POS. He took all the best wood for himself and made students work on his own projects, which he sold. If you did your own project you got a cull piece of wood that took hours just to get square/smooth........one semester was enough to learn the tools/equipment, no more for me.

In the period I am talking about they built houses. Some went on and became successful contractors, bought land, built spec houses and did well.
I actually took wood working. It was a joke.

 

[ATpro]

On one of my MIG's has a body shop board where the off an on could be adjusted for time delay, all you had was hold the trigger and move as it welded, you could really weld thin stuff without blowing through. The board had a lace feature where you could fill up holes then weld over.

 

[TN Cattleman]

I used propane in a production weld setting, per-heat time and how thick the material is can be adjusted by what size tip you use. What does the cutting is the heat of the nerf followed by the oxygen stream that blows the metal from the nerf. Once the metal reaches cutting temp there is not much different

Cutting with propane is not as slow as heating larger steel for bending and forming. No real complaints with propane from me, less hassle and cheaper.

 

[Mad Professor]

In the period I am talking about they built houses. Some went on and became successful contractors, bought land, built spec houses and did well.
I actually took wood working. It was a joke.

Later on, I learned from a master timberframer, responsible for for the revival of timberframes, Richard (****) Babcock. Stick framing is a basturdization of carpentry.

Met him at an an American Legion Bar , he was a a Korea Vet ...... He taught me traditional timber framing.

Layout without a square, no tape/ruler, more accurate than what they use now. Needed a plumb bob, divider/compass, snap line, no Pythagoras calculations, basic trigonometry.that is all...

Use 1, 1 root 2 for braces, 3,4,5 are harder to layout. 3, 4 ,5 for making things square

Can use irregular unsquare timbers, and or limbs....








How to lay out "star of david " is important but simple with a divider. Makes everything square

 

[OM617YOTA]

Kris Harbour on YouTube is building a barn using exactly those principles. Well worth watching the entire series, if timber framing is your thing.

Latest video:


First in the series:

 

[JRM]

Convert over to propane, much better tip life, cheaper to operate, safer, and you can buy fuel gas almost anywhere. Most scrap yards use propane for fuel gas for cutting and heating.

'Cept ya still gotta go back to the weld supply house for the oxygen refill.
Acetylene releases 4x heat in the inner flame cone which translates to less oxygen being used compared to propane.
Between that and the assumption that one would have to buy new tips, hose, and a regulator to get started, "cheaper" is a very subjective statement.

I'd even argue on the potential safety.
An acetylene leak will always go up being it's specific gravity is lighter than air. Propane specific gravity is almost double acetylene, heavier than air and any leaks will hang low to the ground.

 

[Sidecarflip]

Me and wood working don't get along at all, other than cutting it with a chainsaw...lol

 

[Captain Bruce]

I bought a pound of silicon bronze tig rod within the last year if came in a plastic tube thing that comes apart in the middle and cost $18 or so plus tax. Nothing seems to be price marked in a welding supply place I think they had the coated rod similarly packaged. Praxair I believe is the name of the company now. I don't even recall where I got my coated rod for torch use from, but it really has way too much flux for most anything I do. There is a can of flux with a little opening in the middle and a cap, bare rod heat it up stick it in the flux will make a lot less brightness so what you are doing is easier to see. Or knock the flux off and only make a bit stick back.

So buy a new muffler? Brazing Rod, and the cost of gas bottle contracts, and refilling certainly are expensive, and a muffler cover? falls well behind the short-list of deserving repair.

 

[Sidecarflip]

Why scrap yards use propane versus acetylene. It's cheap.

 

[Chevboy0167]

Total bada**ery!!!!!!

 

[pdqdl]

But in a pinch you can use oxy/fuel to weld aluminum as well, works really good on thin stuff. Easier then TIG cause it doesn't necessarily need to be clean clean, and a little flux goes a long ways.

Actually, you are not welding aluminum when you use a torch on aluminum. The rods made for that type of "weld" are not aluminum, they are an alloy that has a lower melting point (& strength) than aluminum. So you aren't really welding, you are brazing the aluminum.

Welding is the union of similar metals by melting them with heat.
Brazing is the union of dissimilar metals by melting the one with the lowest temperature.
Soldering is just brazing with a lead or zinc filler material called solder.

 

[pdqdl]

On one of my MIG's has a body shop board where the off an on could be adjusted for time delay, all you had was hold the trigger and move as it welded, you could really weld thin stuff without blowing through. The board had a lace feature where you could fill up holes then weld over.

Yep. My MIG welder has that feature. It's a life saver on thin metal. I can adjust wire "on" duration and wire feed "off" time with different knobs. I have a separate toggle switch that lets me choose "spot" weld duration, or stitching for long runs on thin metal. It is equally practical when you want to burn in a weld real hot on rusty metal, too, but such a setting would not produce a good weld unless you traveled faster with the gun than you can control.
The biggest advantage is that the shielding gas keeps running while the metal cools, thereby protecting it from burnout.

Rusty mufflers... Not so much. I can gas-weld a muffler with a coat hanger that I cannot strike a spark to with my MIG. Obviously, this is on exhaust parts that should be thrown out. Sometimes you just gotta make do.

 

[pdqdl]

An acetylene leak will always go up being it's specific gravity is lighter than air. Propane specific gravity is almost double acetylene, heavier than air and any leaks will hang low to the ground.

While that is true in theory, it doesn't prove out in the real world. Similar arguments are made about CO2 and atmosphere by folks that are placing carbon monoxide detectors, but it isn't true at all. Unlike liquids, small differences in the atomic weight of various gasses doesn't translate to settling in the air. Just the minute air movements within an enclosed area and the molecular tendency of concentrated molecules to diffuse into a solution prevents this.

Consider, if you will, why doesn't dissolved sugar in a water solution settle to the bottom? It's much heavier than water, but it remains in solution.

Same is true for propane and acetylene. We are lucky this is true, otherwise our atmosphere would settle into layers like oil and water. We would choke to death in the CO2 layer, organic materials would spontaneously ignite in the oxygen stratum, and all the airplane engines would die once they ascended into the nitrogen layer. Of course, we wouldn't have any light on the planet, since there would be a thick cloud of water vapors above the nitrogen layer, and we wouldn't get enough sunlight to grow anything.

In the real world once again, if you put them into a balloon, you will be able to see them float up or down, according to the molecular weight of the gas entrapped in the balloon.

Caveat: evaporating liquids, particularly flammable solvents behave differently than gas leaks! They will definitely settle on the floor in a layer of explosive gas near the floor. Of course, this is mostly because they start out on the floor from a solvent spill, and their molecular weight does cause them to be a bit slow while diffusing into the rest of air in an enclosed area.



Sulfur hexafluoride is a very heavy gas.

 

[Mad Professor]

Yep. My MIG has that. It's a life saver on thin metal. I can adjust spark duration and spark "off" time with different knobs. The biggest advantage is that the sheilding gas keeps running while the metal cools, thereby protecting it from burnout.

Rusty mufflers... Not so much. I can gas-weld a muffler with a coathanger that I cannot strike a spark to with my MIG. Obviously, this is on exhaust parts that should be thrown out. Sometimes you just gotta make do.

While that is true in theory, it doesn't prove out in the real world. Similar arguments are made about CO2 and atmosphere by folks that are placing carbon monoxide detectors, but it isn't true at all. Unlike liquids, small differences in the atomic weight of various gasses doesn't translate to settling in the air. Just the minute air movements within an enclosed area and the molecular tendency of concentrated molecules to diffuse into a solution prevents this.

Consider, if you will, why doesn't dissolved sugar in a water solution settle to the bottom? It's much heavier than water, but it remains in solution.

Same is true for propane and acetylene. We are lucky this is true, otherwise our atmosphere would settle into layers like oil and water. We would choke to death in the CO2 layer, organic materials would spontaneously ignite in the oxygen stratum, and all the airplane engines would die once they ascended into the nitrogen layer. Of course, we wouldn't have any light on the planet, since there would be a thick cloud of water vapors above the nitrogen layer, and we wouldn't get enough sunlight to grow anything.

In the real world once again, if you put them into a balloon, you will be able to see them float up or down, according to the molecular weight of the gas entrapped in the balloon.

Caveat: evaporating liquids, particularly flammable solvents behave differently than gas leaks! They will definitely settle on the floor in a layer of explosive gas near the floor. Of course, this is mostly because they start out on the floor from a solvent spill, and their molecular weight does cause them to be a bit slow while diffusing into the rest of air in an enclosed area.



Sulfur hexafluoride is a very heavy gas.

Try working with phosgene, Cl(C=O)Cl. I did for many years. Not dead.

 

[pdqdl]

Got a hood? Will do chemistry!

I've never understood why all the meth labs keep blowing up their houses. It's not like an exhaust fan is hard to use.



Question to the Prof: why didn't you write COCl2?

 

[Bill G]

.............................I'd even argue on the potential safety..............................

I completely disagree and I am betting most others will. Go lay a acetylene tank down and then shock it. Go put a acetylene tank in a manifold system running 10 torches and then shock it....

Propane is a safer but yes a cooler gas. Yes it does utilize more O2 but the cost savings in cutting/heating far outweighs it. Please call your local store and get a refill/exchange price of their largest acetylene tank and let us know. Also check the same on a 02. You see what it is and lets discuss it

 

[Bill G]

Got a hood? Will do chemistry!

I've never understood why all the meth labs keep blowing up their houses. It's not like an exhaust fan is hard to use.



Question to the Prof: why didn't you write COCl2?

Wow

 

[pdqdl]

I guess you've never cooked up any meth, Bill.

They routinely use volatile solvents, but the meth houses don't usually use proper ventilation. Then the solvent gases reach an explosive level inside the house, somebody flips a light switch, and KABOOM! ...no more meth-house, and probably not too many meth-cooks, either.

Here's a funny story: the lab manual for my Organic Chemistry course included the synthesis of methamphetamine. As I recall, it was pretty simple, but required picric acid as a starting ingredient, long since regulated by the government.