[thefu]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5jqxf4Y1Rg&feature=related]DMU60MB 5 Axis UMC Demonstration - YouTube[/ame] so sexy

[thefu]

need 2nd op on each end cap obviously, once i do that they get welded on then they go back in the mill for a face op on each side with a .1" pocket and chamfer. back side gets a pocket with an island with 2 tapped holes. thats the $75/part job that needs the tapped holes.

[thefu]

and the 2nd op done. needs to be welded then faced .05 on all sides.

[pete from TN]

Looks like some kinda funky catch tank. Just woke up here, gonna eat some breakfast and load that damn heavy argon tank into my van and head out for Knoxville. Hoping for an easy morning with traffic. One thing I really DO NOT MISS is the traffic driving to work in the moring. I really do not miss putting gas in my truck that much either all the time. Nice to be able to work from home just need to get more WORK going on here hehehe...

Did you ever pick up that facemill? I am still wondering why you do not finish off the top of your parts clean they would appear much nicer in pictures if you did. Is one of those holes threaded? It is hard to tell in the pictures.

I am kinda pissed off right now, yesterday I was out in the shop wearing my steel toed boots and I decided it would be a good idea to kick a heavy piece of metal to move it out of the way while my hands were full. At first it did not hurt but then it kinda started to get sore. This morning I woke up, hopped in the shower, looked down at my feet and noticed my big toe is black and blue under the nail!! DAMN that sucks..... I usually wear open toed sandals around during the summer now I gotta feel self conscious about it. DUMBASS move.....

Gonna pick up some rod for this tubing, ya never did say what you recommended for tig welding the structural steel? Again I USUALLY use ER70s2 but I am out and was thinking of using the 309 I have here but I might just pick up some more rod while I am at the welding supply house. Any suggestions? I bow to your Tig welding prowess here man.... peace

Pete

[thefu]

yep its an oil catch can. 1 of the holes is threaded but not to my liking at all, i just ran a batch of 5 for now until the threadmill comes in as well as a facemill of some sort.

the facemill i got works awesome in steel but not so much on aluminum. im going to make a big tool purchase today which includes either a facemill or a smaller seco or sandvik coromill just havent decided which to buy yet. ill be getting high polished inserts for sure though.

Im leaning more towards a 2" type with rectangle inserts something like the coromant coromill 490



structural steel er70s is going to be most likely the best bet. but you can get away with 316 rod, i welded a good portion of my plasma table with tig to show off some welding skills, i used 316 rod.

if you have 309 it will work just fine. i perfer 316 over 309 because its a better quality ss and you can use it on all ss you would weld be it 303, 308, 316 and mild steel since it has the same properties as 309 only better.

what size gas lense do you use? see if you can pick up a #16, i know its big but get it and give it a try...you will start seeing all kinds of color in your welds once you use that.

ill snap some pics of when i weld these manifolds and video if i can. i use a trailing shield so i can weld faster.

Curved Ultimate Trail Shield, for 9/20/25/CS310 Torch Series [-userselected-] - $850.00 : Arc-Zone.com, The Welding Accessory Experts

i use 3/32 thoriated 2% and a 1.5-2.5 shield

[pete from TN]

That is pretty much what I figured, I will probably just pick up some more E70S2 and the steel and my gas today. Yeah I have all sorts of gas lenses here played with them a bit. I typically wind up using the 1.5% Lanthanated tungstens and my goto gas lens which I cannot remember what size it is right now. It is not that large tho. I have some really large gas lense setups with small orifices that I have seen an expert welder here in Knoxville using on some thin aluminum so I bought some to try. Just have not tried them yet and as I said with business so slow I was trying to stretch my gas supply out. Refilling my tank here is like $90.00....

I am gonna try to get some 4140 round rod for this shaft project and I hope to pick up a scrap piece long enough to make the bushings for the pivot arm on my bender with the drop. We shall see what they have tho. The metal supplier I use is pretty reasonable and I get typically better deals than I can find online anywhere even after taxes. Hopefully he will keep giving me good deals. I imagine if I was able to buy in larger quantities he could give me even better pricing but so far have not been able to do that.

Headin' out right now...be back later dude...peace

Pete

[thefu]

#16 opening is what i use, big ol cup...then if you have a water cooler you can weld via holding the cup which gives you an even more steady bead.

if you dont already...get some aluminum blocks and mill them to heights you commonly use for welding. the more steady your torch hand is the better your welds turn out. that and being extremely clean.....no brake cleaner!!! only use denatured alcohol. if welding stainless...if you can polish it with a scotchbrite wheel then clean with alcohol.

if welding aluminum, ZERO gaps at all in the pieces welding and clean the inside and outside...2 times... with alcohol. if your metal is clean you can turn up the a/c balance to get rid of the cleaning cycle and your welds will look like polished aluminum.

[thefu]

biggest piece ive made to date. need to mill the back side then fix it to the table, indicate it, then finish the rest of the ops like milling and boring the dowel pin locations and 4 tapped holes

[pete from TN]

Just got back from the damn welding supply house. Somehow they screwed up my account and told me I was behind in my lease on my bottle. I just filled it up a couple months ago but they had me behind TWO YEARS!! Dunno what that was all about but after talking to the manager about it I wound up moving to a five year lease on the bottle and getting it filled up. The good news is that the fills on the five year lease are a little cheaper than the one year lease so I saved some cash, the bad news is after they got it all sorted I was out like $300.00 but that is with the bottle rental paid in full for the next five years. It will certainly be nice to not have to worry about that fee each year for awhile now. I also got some new tig cups and other consumables as well as some of that Er70s6 rod they recommended for this job. I also picked up a three foot stick of 1.5" 4140 steel shaft for the machined shaft I am making for another customer. It was an expensive morning but at least I am good now for awhile with the Tig setup.

You have been busy making stuff on your machine man.... I am glad to see you are getting the hang of it and having some success. I met a fellow at the welding supply house who was interested in some machine work when he heard me talking about my shop to the guy at the counter. He gave me his card and took mine and told me about some kinda project he was working on that needed some mill work. Who knows may never hear from him but it is always nice to shake hands and get your name out there a bit.

I am gonna eat some lunch now and get back to work on this bender and start putting my lathe back together so I can turn that shaft for the guy. Hopefully all goes well and I will be done with this soon.

It is my youngest Daughter's birthday this week and tomorrow we are going to TRY to take her out on our Nacra Racing Catamaran for some sailing fun. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and in the evening she has asked to go to the skating rink. I actually really enjoy skating and am looking forward to rippin' around there with my family. They have some good bass in their system and your typical laser lights and whatnot. It is a fun place and my kids love it. Reminds me of when I was a kid going to the skating rink down in Florida.....

Anyways, hopefully the door bell will ring today and there will be a brown guy standing there with my power supply in hand and maybe even my mcmaster carr order too..hehehe Hey one can dream right....peace

Pete

[thefu]

holy ****! dude im so glad i dont live in TN... for me... the largest tank you can own, costs $250 to buy a tank and costs me $31 to fill and they just exchange it out.

[thefu]

btw that last picture is made of mic6 aluminum. it machines different than 6061-t6 for sure.

[pete from TN]

I always felt that they were screwing me on the gas around here. You used to be able to just buy a tank and I believe it was like $250.00 but I used to pay like $89.00 for a fill of pure argon. Now with the five year contract it is only $73.00 but if you are getting it filled for $30.00 I am PISSED!!

Yeah Mic6 and fortal aluminum plate machines real nice. Had some of it here several times. a lot harder overall than 6061 and machines nicer I think. The stuff I am going to start using for fixtures now I can get decent pricing for is cast aluminum fixture plate stuff. It is apparently cheaper and about as flat.

Now that I have paid for the contract for the bottle for five years I guess I am stuck using their system but I may try to haggle down their price for the refills next time around. Peace

Pete

[thefu]

oh dude..and they deliver! i have a welder at my house...they will deliver to my house on the week days and its clear across town from them...for free!


i bought a 12 foot piece of 10" wide by .75" thick plate of mic 6 for fixture plates and got 1 piece that was 1.25" thick as the base that you saw. the base measures 10x6.25" so ill be getting quite a few fixture plates to use

[pete from TN]

IS it a local or national company. We have air gas around here too and they priced me about the same for the tank and gas when I wanted to switch awhile back. Their shop is actually a tad bit closer too... Peace

Pete

[thefu]

i use allied gases

Allied Gases

do what i do..i play the companies against each other. when you have the funds call around and tell them you do business with x company and they arent treating you right. instantly they want to play the sympathy card to get your business. you tell them you will buy 2 tanks and a welding helmet or something that equals over $500-600 (save it for a time you are buying big at the welding store) and use that to negotiate on your terms. when they give you some dumbass price...

just tell them, ya sorry no disrespect but that price is way out of line and ill just continue my business at x company since thats what i pay for being a customer for so many years. they will either try to negotiate to get that business or send you on your way...if you are on your way well you never needed to do business with them in the first place.

this is how i do it, this is how i pay $1.76 per lb on 6061-t6 extruded bar, this is how i pay under $40 a bottle of any type argon. hell 20lbs of aluminum filler rod costs me $35

[pete from TN]

That all sounds nice and dandy but the reality is that around here it is pretty small town life. Most of the business are very familiar with their competition and if I tried that they would probably just laugh at me and show me their competitors website with thier current pricing hehehe... Honestly I was pretty pleased with the lower price on the gas at $73.00, that is almost twenty bucks less than I was paying. SO I guess I am still getting screwed here but this time they are using some extra vaseline??!! I will check around again and see what gives. I bought two pounds of that rod and it was like $2.83 a pound or something like that so I suppose that is at least reasonable. The Torch I am using is a flex head Weld Craft and I needed to pick up another handle as mine was broken when I got it so I was checking into that but I forgot the model number so they could not help me. I will check into it again and see if I can order it online. Todays little evolution forced me to take the money I had set aside for coolant for the mill and put it into my account to compensate for the big enpense of the tanks and rentals today. I gotta be real here don't even know if the machine will work with the power supply and MOST of my business lately has been for the fabrication side of things so I gotta put my pennies where I need them. Once this machine is up and running reliably I will probably take some profit from say this turning I am doing and use it to buy a jug of coolant. I almost bought it awhile ago but I did not and I am glad I did as I would have been a bit tighter for this fiasco today. I suppose this all looks pretty ridiculous to you being a REAL business with lots of work coming in. When I had work and the CNC running I was buying tooling and necessities quite often but with the slow times I have been having lately even a gas fill up is a lot of money to me. It is what it is, hopefully it will get better soon....

Just did a couple welds on that frame and I am getting that ***** real nice and hot, I want to make sure that damn thing does not explode apart when I start putting the hydraulics to it with a 2.0" .120 wall piece of tube hehehe... That would not be fun. I once had a piece come flying out of my hydraulic press and it flew across the shop and stuck in the garage door!! There is nothing funny about that and there is nothing funny about high pressure/forces, they are not to be toyed with so I will be putting the stink on these welds to make sure they are as strong as I know how to make them. I back filletted the thick wall tubing quite a bit so I can get some deep penetration. I think It is looking good. There was a very tiny bit of undercutting on that last one tho, it is a deep weld on that tube since the radius on the sidewalls is quite large, I may try some root passes and then weave atop them to make it look a little prettier. Using some 3/32 rod and 3/32 1.5% lanthanated, pure argon, and some serious heat!! Hehehe Can't wait to be playing with some cool tube welding and try to one up ya on pretty welds in here. The majority of the stuff I will be doing will probably be like 1.75X6 or 7" CLR and 1.625x 5 or 6"CLR tube .120 wall or .090 wall with the occasional 2.0" tube. I will probably order a 1.75"x6 or 7"CLR die set initially as that is mostly what I will use altho I definitely want like a 1.25x 4.5" CLR set for the rollcage stuff. Come to think of it that might actually be the first set I order. You need to buy that sick five axis so you can whittle me some tube dies....hehehe...


Well guess what.... Just had a knock at the door and the brown Santa dropped off my power supply!! Now I can see if this was worth the money??! Hoping for a good result here but I might wait til' this evening or tomorrow to try it out.... Right now I am a Tig'n.....

Pete

[thefu]

you need a wp9 torch, its the smallest "normal" size air cooled torch thats the same size as the wp20 which is the most popular water cooled torch.

the price on that 5th axis setup is in the 40k range heh so gonna be a while before i get that going.

get that ps installed!!

[pete from TN]

I've got a WP-17F torch right now. They had a sweet small head torch at the supply store today but it was like $220.00 or something with cables and everything. My cables are actually decent and LONG so I might be able to just buy a smaller torch head for it. Dunno really....


Yeah I may not be able to wait to try the Power supply hehehehe Peace

Pete

[thefu]

ya you can just buy the torch, get a wp9 and thank me later

[pete from TN]

I LOVE the flex head.... I know I can just buy smaller tungsten covers for this torch too if I just want a smaller unit overall. This is actually a really good torch from what I gather. Got a pic of an WP9? Peace

Pete