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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2018
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    AU
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    Default First time welding and wondering what I'm in for.

    Hey everyone! So i posted on here a few months ago in relation to making coffee table legs out of flat bar steel 50mm by 5mm. Got some great advice and ended up investing in a universal bender. It worked a treat!

    But the time has come where I'm looking to make something a bit sturdier. I'm wondering if this picture is an achievable first welding project and roughly what price per meter I'll be paying for hollow rectangular mild steel?

    Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

    The table I'm making is a desk and will be 1.8m x 450mm.

    It should be noted that i have done a 3 day welding course that covered the basics.

    Thanks in advance!

    from Sunshine coast QLD

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
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    Toowoomba Qld
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    401

    Default

    It's a doable first welding project

    Pretty basic frame, if you want cleaner joins you will want to be miter cutting the RHS, weld them up and then grind them smooth for a nicer finish. Flat bar I would be drilling a hole in the bit that goes over the RHS end so your not trying to weld up a fully enclosed frame as it will cause issues trying to complete the final weld.

    Judging by the picture I'm guessing that the RHS is probably 50x25 (or at least that is what I would be using), it comes in 1.6, 2.0, 2.5 & 3.0mm wall thickness.

    Unless it's going to be under a fair load then you don't need to go crazy on the wall thickness however depending on your skill level welding it might be easier to go thicker so you don't spend your time blowing holes in it.

  3. #3
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by bradyofdoom View Post
    Hey everyone! So i posted on here a few months ago in relation to making coffee table legs out of flat bar steel 50mm by 5mm. Got some great advice and ended up investing in a universal bender. It worked a treat!

    But the time has come where I'm looking to make something a bit sturdier. I'm wondering if this picture is an achievable first welding project and roughly what price per meter I'll be paying for hollow rectangular mild steel?

    Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
    Looks like a pretty good first up project.

    It will be challenging to make those rectangular shapes exactly the same size and squareness so that when attached to a flat top will result in the whole thing sitting flat on the ground/floor so it does not rock - and who says where it is going to be located is flat in the first place? Given it's a first project, in case the end result does not sit flat it may pay to investigate a design that incorporates low visibility adjustable leg height. It could be as simple as low profile feet that incorporate a thread.

    To reduce these problems make sure the pieces are all cut to the exact same size on both sets of legs. I assume you will use mitre cuts on the bottoms of the legs. These need to be cut accurately to help maintain squareness. Ideally you have a flat surface you can set up and firmly clamp to when tacking up each pair of legs. This will make a big difference in maintaining squareness.

    Don't skimp on preparation and check and double check things are stay square and flat often while you are tacking up.

    Price per meter for RHS is dependent on the size thickness of the steel. You may be able to pick up the relatively short length of steel required from a scrap merchant for very little.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
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    Melbourne
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    Default

    What welding process do you plan on using? ARC, MIG, TIG, Oxy?

    As for steel prices, they can vary a lot. Though I would try and avoid going to Bunnings for that sort of thing.

    If you want to save some $$$ you might consider going to a scrap yard or even checkibg out eBay, gumtree etc.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
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    Mackay North Qld
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    Perhaps it might help to list the metal working tools you have. It will give the rest of us an idea of what you might do with them or addttional tools that you may need.

    Some advice I would offer is to change your location listed at the top RH corner of your posts. The reason is that a member quite near to you may have experience with a business that supplies steel at good prices.If a major city or town give a suburb.
    However if just write Au as your location nobody can offer such help as the location you have provided precludes that.

    You might be surprised at the prices offered by such metal section dealers as compared to good old Bunnings. Some offer per meter(marginally) more expensive and others whole lengths.It is good to have a trailer or ute as some will dock steel to fit the lengths in your ute or trailer.

    If you are not going into production, stick welding is probably the cheapest and given you do not attempt very thin wall thickness rectangular and square hollow section tube ( say 1.6mm) 2.4 mm and thicker can be welded readily without dramas by a reasonably skilled operator.
    If you don't intend to weld much over 6mm 2.6 electrodes will serve most of your needs.

    If a scrap dealer is local, the advice about finding cost-effective materials there is excellent.

    Grahame

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2018
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    AU
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    Default

    Thanks for all comments and suggestions!

    I've tried to change my location but i can't figure it out for the life of me haha. I've put my location in my signature instead. I'm from Woombye, QLD.

    I've learnt to stay away from bunnings for steel haha. I do go to a local steel fabricator. They happily cut flat bar into whatever lengths i need. I'm not sure if they would be will to cut the rectangular hollow pieces to length though, especially mitres. Would a metal cut off saw do the trick? They're relatively inexpensive and i do plan on making more than just the one set of legs.

    As for what tools I'm planning on using, this is it haha. I have an array of metal clamps aswell.

    Cheers, Brady!

    from Sunshine coast QLD

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
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    Melbourne
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    If you are desperate use an abrasive cut off saw, but I find they are not the most accurate things around and at some point the blade will wear down limiting the size of material you can cut until you change the blade.

    Most steel fabrication type places should have high end colds saws and band saws so mitres shouldn't be an issue though there might be an extra cost, you would have to ask and find out.

    If you plan to do a lot of metal fabrication down the track you could look into investing in a 4x6 bandsaw.

    If it is just a one off, you would get away with using your angle grinder with a thin cut off disc 1.2mm, scribe your mitres and carefully cut away.

  8. #8
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    Oct 2004
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    Southern Highlands NSW
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    Your project wants a high level of finish.
    It will be inspected closely by all, which is probably what you want.
    It's not easy to get a very neat finish with arc welding unless you are well experienced.
    I think it might be more appropriate to braze this table.
    It's more forgiving, less anxiety-provoking, and doesn't melt the parent material.
    It also gives a nicer shaped fillet, not as lumpy as arc.
    Brazing kits are sold for plumbers/gasfitters, using small gas bottles, may be worth investigating?

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Aug 2018
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    AU
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    Quote Originally Posted by nadroj View Post
    Your project wants a high level of finish.
    It will be inspected closely by all, which is probably what you want.
    It's not easy to get a very neat finish with arc welding unless you are well experienced.
    I think it might be more appropriate to braze this table.
    It's more forgiving, less anxiety-provoking, and doesn't melt the parent material.
    It also gives a nicer shaped fillet, not as lumpy as arc.
    Brazing kits are sold for plumbers/gasfitters, using small gas bottles, may be worth investigating?
    Thanks for the advise. Excuse my lack of knowledge in this field but is brazing like soldering?

    from Sunshine coast QLD

  10. #10
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    Canberra
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    If you're just starting out welding, then I wouldn't go and add tooling up and learning brazing into the mix.

    Pretty much any weld can be fixed with a grinder.

    In some respects, your first project looks straightforward - use 3mm wall tube and it shouldn't be too hard to weld, but get plenty of offcuts of similar thickness to practice on first so you can dial in your settings.

    What will be a challenge is getting the legs to stay square, as the weld will cause them to pull inwards as it cools. There's a bunch of ways to counteract this, Youtube is a good resource.

  11. #11
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    AU
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    Quote Originally Posted by RustyArc View Post
    If you're just starting out welding, then I wouldn't go and add tooling up and learning brazing into the mix.

    Pretty much any weld can be fixed with a grinder.

    In some respects, your first project looks straightforward - use 3mm wall tube and it shouldn't be too hard to weld, but get plenty of offcuts of similar thickness to practice on first so you can dial in your settings.

    What will be a challenge is getting the legs to stay square, as the weld will cause them to pull inwards as it cools. There's a bunch of ways to counteract this, Youtube is a good resource.
    Thanks alot!

    from Sunshine coast QLD

  12. #12
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    melbourne
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    Yes, brazing is a bit like soldering, more like silver soldering aka hard soldering, which would also work.
    Braze metal is basically brass. Silver solder adds silver which lowers the melting point and increases the price.


    Brazing really requires oxygen with either acetylene or propane. Not a cheap process to get started with.

    Silver soldering you may get away with just a good propane torch, not done it that way myself.
    Neither process uses a 'soldering iron' which is used for soft solder, a tin/lead alloy.


    If I was you I would get some offcuts of what you plan to use from your friendly supplier, mitre and give it a go with your mig.

    Then you will know exactly what you are able to achieve with your project.

    (sake advice for brazing really, although it is harder to completey destroy the parent metal).

    Russell



    Russ

  13. #13
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    Melbourne
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    Seeing as you already have the mig I would just go with that, i'm guessing it will be frustrating being such a low cost unit but seeing as you have it may as well give it a try.

    Also I am guessing you will be painting it afterwards? So if there are some imperfections in the welds you could always use some body filler in there.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
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    Mackay North Qld
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    Hi Brady
    I am truly sorry to see you have been duped into buying the machine pictured. It and other machines like it are a really deceptive piece of marketing indulged in by the far too many unscrupled marketers of of such low quality, entry level machines.

    For starters, it is not a MIG and never will approach the standard of mig machine welding on its best day with knowledgeable operator. MIG stands for Metal Inert Gas.

    Being gasless there is no gas, inert or otherwise, so therefore a failure to provide even the flimiest of reasons for describing it as a mig.

    Strictly speaking the machine is a flux core wire welding machine,but a low end one at that.

    To operate well as a flux core welding machine it requires more voltage adjustments than it has if the pic indicates only 2 positions.

    Being so low in amperage translates into the fact that the machine must use a very small flux core wire. The smaller diameter wire is the achilles heel of the system and it follows thats there are lots of chewed up wire and feed problems.

    The small wire gets down to a balance of enough room for the flux core filling,tissue thin rolled tubular wire wall thickness and then not destroying that while at the same time,trying to provide enough feed pressure to make the *astard feed wire.

    The larger amperage /wire sizes work well but the small ones do not.

    Find a reason to take it back as a lot of frustrating times are headed your way.

    Grahame

  15. #15
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    I agree with Grahame, "Gasless MIG" is like saying "Waterless water"

    I suppose the flux core does generate some gas but only about the same as regular stick welding generates.

    If you can take it back ai would definitely do that.

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