Some help with a couple tack welds?

Metal Shop
1

I don’t know a thing about welding, there aren’t any classes on the schedule, and I need to make a couple tack welds to fix the angle guide on my mom’s lawn edger. Otherwise she’ll be stuck paying $60 for what amounts to a piece of tube and two pieces of bent sheetmetal.

Is anyone willing/able to help me out sometime this week in the evening or next weekend? I’ll make sure the relevant areas are all cleaned up and ready to go (get rid of old tack weld filler, sand blast the weld and ground contact points, etc.).

2

Photos might help someone be sure what the project is all about.
Is this something that could be spot welded?
That’s super-easy!

3

I’d be glad to help. Let me see when I’ll next be out there, for sure one night this week.

Jast has a good suggestion: can you post a picture of the problem area?

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You an see here from the image that it’s held on with two simple spot welds. It’s bent out of shape at the moment, but that’s easy enough to fix with a vice and a pair of pliers.

20160606_064712.jpg3264×2448 2.41 MB

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Note that there is also a small spot welder at the space. It may be too small for that thickness of material (I can’t tell exactly what the scale is that we’re looking at here.

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More importantly for spot that’s on an edge, would like to know what it is up against. You could possibly braze it easily with a MAPP torch.

7

The spot welder for battery tabs won’t touch that.

The biggest challenge I see is if it is attached to thin sheet metal, it will be easy to blow holes in the sheet metal before attaining fusion on this part.

But, I’m sure the MIG welder can handle with enough skill. Doubt we have supplies on hand to braze it.

8

I believe Adam was talking about a larger (Harbor Freight) spot welder that Lee purchased a couple of months ago.

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It is in the cabinet by the welding table.

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10

Looking at the photo, those don’t appear to be spot welds. You wouldn’t have the build up of weld metal in a spot weld. It also looks like the pieces were butted up, not overlapped like spot welds require.

11

This calls for TIG! :slight_smile:

(Only because that’s what I really like doing and it is good on small, precision welds)

I’ll be at DMS on Wednesday night. Will that work for you?

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If it’s welding I like it, there’s something about having molten metal at your fingertips. I do want to learn TIG more than I currently know.

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You’re welcome to watch, assuming that I have more TIG skill than you do. There is no guarantee of that, however. :fearful:

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http://www.harborfreight.com/120-volt-spot-welder-61205.html

It’s similar to this one. I believe that it wasn’t purchased and that Andy Allman (sp) either donated or loaned it to the space.

15

No need to speculate.
It’s on the tools page.
as well as the welders page
and the owner’s manual is even on the wiki.

PS it’s the 240V version
No big difference, except thickness of materials capability and where you can plug it in.

16

Yeah I can come by Wednesday night. It’s welded to a piece of steel tubing of comparable thickness, so it shouldn’t be super hard given that they’re both about 1/8" thick. What time were you thinking?

17

Let’s shoot for 7pm. I have a couple of things to get done before then. I’ll be in the Metal Shop.

18

I will see you there. Look for the guy toting a piece of lawn equipment around.

19

Excellent. I’ll be there.