New Trailer

[Peter T]

What a nightmare !
The things people will do is just unbelievable
Peter

[Andrew]

That's crazy stuff, a Yaris and a 25 fter! they would have to get pulled over and booked eventually! or have an an almighty accident..

[Ozzie]

Amazing stories guys. I’m really not a fan of excessive government rules and regulations but people often need saving from themselves, not to mention the damage they may cause to other road users. You have to also remind yourself that most people don’t come from engineering backgrounds and in all probability have no idea that what they are doing is very dangerous.

The thing that really grinds my gears though, and this is not political because it’s not down to any particular party in government, is that the system allows sales of things that are dangerous, collects a motza of sales tax from them and then (sometimes) fines people for using them.

A example of what I’m talking about in the GVM of tow vehicles, a favourite subject of mine. The govt allows companies to advertise the “ New fully imported Gronkmobile duel cab Fartraveller with 6.7 tonnes towing capacity” without forcing the companies distributing these behemoths to advise buyers that means that if they tow full payload with 10% ball weight (ie 670 kgs on the ball) only Peter Dinklage would be able to drive it. And that’s with lightweight clothing on . Criminal.

There are lots of other stuff I could bang on about from my career, high speed police chases, dangerous overpainted ambiguous line marking. The road is a dangerous enough place without many things that governments act like the guy with the Yaris about.

On the water not much better. Insider in the Maritime industry told me RMS in NSW were blitzing moorings and mooring contractors this year, we sprung a Boating Services Officer taking pictures of our boat before haulout as it had a fair bit of growth on it . Hold that thought. Now read the letters columns of almost any issue of “Afloat “ magazine, and you’ll find hundreds of complaints about very dangerous wake infringements by large boats and high speed power boats on many of the states waterways. Rarely if ever is action taken by BSOs with some letter writers saying they’d been told they don’t book them as they have usually have enough money to fight it in court. Wonderful. I’ve suffered injury and vessel damage from illegal wake from large vessels. I’ve never suffered damage from weed on a moored boat. And yet RMS think a bloke on high wages driving a very expensive boat with two 90 hp outboards burning up fuel to come around and take pictures of my dirty boat hull is better use of tax payers money.......I don’t think so Tim....

My friends wonder why I’m a cynic.

[Ozzie]

Ta for the good oil on the welding Peter, I shall persevere. I’ve got some scraps of bed frame angle iron, the thinner stuff, lying around. I’ll set some bits up in nice bright sunlight, horizontal and muck about with various settings and see if I can get anything remotely resembling the dudes on YouTube

I’ve been using the slowest speed wire feed to take things easy but maybe that’s not giving me enough metal. I’m using the anti spatter spray too. Hate think that my welds would actually look even worse if I didn’t use it

[Peter T]

Good on you Ozzie. It’s a balancing act. You need it hot enough to create the molten puddle but not hot enough to blow it to pieces. If you have wire feed too slow, then you have to go slower and therefore more likely to burn a hole. If the wire feed is too fast, it will just build up on top and make a hell of a mess. If you think back to Oxy welding, you held the torch at 60 deg and fed the wire in with the other hand at 30 deg angle but you had to have a flame suitably hot to melt both pieces being welded and with a semi circular or circular motion you progressed the puddle forward while feeding the right amount of wire directly into the puddle. It’s absolutely no different with the mig except it’s all done on the settings you put on the welder. There was always a small gap between the pieces being welded ( we used to have a gap about the thickness of the wire, but that depends on the thickness of what you are welding) and the idea is to melt the sides of both pieces into a puddle and use the wire to make up the gap so to speak. If you think of it in these terms, you should be able to see from your results if anything needs adjusting. With the MIG, you will always get spatter, but that can be removed using one of those flapper disc sanders in your grinder. When at school and learning to weld, we were given two pieces of 1” x 1/8 or 3/16 about 4 inches long. We were made to weld them together, cool them down, check the back of the weld for penetration. Then we placed one of the sides in a vice and bashed the other with a hammer to test for strength. You can then cut them back into two pieces again with a thin cutting disc in the grinder and start all over again. That’s the best way to practice mate. Same principle for stick, MIG and TIG, just done by different methods. The other tip I can give you is to always clean up the surfaces to be welded with the flapper disc before you weld. Never try to weld with paint or mill scale or rust on the metal. This contaminates the weld causing all sorts of problems. It must be spotlessly clean shiny metal. Another thing to watch is to not have the tip of the wire too close or too far away from the tip of the torch. Too close and the wire will burn back into the tip. At a guess, it’s about 10 - 12 mm of wire showing. Any more and it won’t burn properly. You will hear it arcing properly when it’s right and there will be less spatter.
Cheers
Peter

[Andrew]

The Trailer is looking good Peter, and very strong. Your posts have pushed the technical stuff out to new levels, appreciate your tutelage

The advice on welding great too, thanks. Still got my MIG welder in the shed, unused for over 2 decades. Using my stick welder now as it was easier to remember how to do it. Reading glasses a good tip, time to get some new ones. and try to arc up the mig..all i remember Ozzie , is if the MIG arc sounds like sizzling bacon in a hot pan thats good.

[Peter T]

Thanks for the kind remarks, spot on about the frying pan Andrew. What you don’t want to hear is stammering and stuttering, just a fast clean fry and eat that bacon well done, ha ha
Peter T

[Ozzie]

good tip also Andrew. I should keep my breakfast nearby, if I don’t improve at lest I can cook my bacon and eggs on the work till it cools down so not a total waste of electrickery

I have wire wheel brushes for the angle grinder Peter, and find they are good prep. I like flap wheels but find I chew through then fairly rapidly.

I guess Ive been put off because my general fabrication skills are adequate for my needs, timber and most stuff I need for marine or home use. I was a lousy bricklayer for years but found if I take my time I can get by. Trouble with welding for the untrained mug like myself is you feel like you get one go at it and then it’s a long road back to prep and start again.

More of an issue for anything critical is you think it’s adequate because it looks ok and then it falls apart under stress. Persevero.

[Peter T]

Yes you do get through a few discs, but not too bad if you use 40 grit. I like them to smooth up the weld and removal of spatter, they give a very smooth surface. I have just come back from buying another half dozen of them. $7 each at Bunnings. More pic’s soon
Cheers
Peter

[Andrew]

I learnt welding at TAFE night class back in 1990?? Vaguely remember it was one 3 hr session per week for 6 weeks..? I did it because of my "wylo2" steel boatbuilding project (35 fter) and didn't want to stuff that up. 3 tonnes of steel to shape and weld together ( design displacement is 7 tons) but it's been a long while until picking the welder up again and did my own boat trailer with it (it's like riding a bike,, can get a bit rusty but it quickly comes back)

highly recommend doing a welding course like that,(for home handy-person (not commercial), they cover allot of the welding techniques that Peter has been describing in posts. But it's mostly a hands on practical course - grinding preparation, arcing up and finishing touches with grinder. The preparation is as important as the ideal weld puddle. The angle grinder is an essential tool and also one that safety must come first. So all the PPE too, like a full polycarbonate face shield, (also use boiler makers leather apron and gloves), decent bench vice and clamps. never take the grinder guard piece off, keep it between your body parts and the grinding/cutting wheel. lucky at the time as a local boiler-maker mate assisted with advice and techniques on the wylo. (including pipe bending and controlling distortion) The main thing on trailer weld joints is to tack-weld it into the desired position first, then do short welds on opposite sides of the beam, so they don't pull it out of alignment)

Recently bought a Ryobi 230 mm cut-off drop wheel to cut steel up in straight lines. It's a huge time saver and produces perfectly square cuts safely, (in retrospect should've bought it ages ago). Nearly all trailer making cuts could be done with this (and a cut wheel on 4-5" grinder).

Still got the oxy acetylene gear but it's in hibernation until a difficult curved cut is needed sometime in future (on the wylo) ( avoiding relatively expensive gas bottle rental and gas)

On my MIG used Nitrogen inert gas shielding (to do long 3 mm steel seams on wylo, has almost no distortion compared to stick),, but MIG can also run on gas-less fluxed wire, probably the best option for occasional use.