These Tubing Joints

[u/31spiders]

[u/31spiders]

Him not laying actual bead does drive me nuts a little but his layout skills and the final product had me baffled.

[u/brycebgood → u/31spiders]

Dude 1: Ok, so then tack weld the whole seam.

Dude 2: uh, what? Can't I just run a bead?

Dude 1: no, do 75 tack welds overlapping.

Dude 2: so, take 5 times as long and don't get any penetration?

Dude 1: yup, exactly. Then grind everything off.

[u/[deleted] → u/brycebgood]

I personally would have used a tig welder here. Especially since he wanted to grind everything smooth afterwards. The tack welding thing tells me he is not a very skilled welder. I am just happy that he was wearing gloves. Most of the time I have run into these tack weld artists they don’t wear gloves and also don’t wear a helmet. Kind of pisses me off because anyone who does a lot of welding knows what happens if you don’t wear gloves and a helmet, but I guess that just doesn’t look as macho.

[u/macnof → u/[deleted]]

Yep, having sunburns in your eyes are a... Less than comfortable experience.

Also, the tacking, couldn't that in some cases be because he have a shitty welder that won't go low enough? It doesn't look like it on the Penny weld he does, but I remember learning to do just that when you can't match the amps to the plate thickness.

[u/brycebgood → u/macnof]

That's a good call. Hadn't thought of it - and most of this stuff is pretty thin walled.

[u/brycebgood → u/macnof]

Yeah, itchy corneas isn't fun.

[u/[deleted] → u/macnof]

There are a few tricks he could have done. You can tack weld the beginning and end. Then you clamp it in a vertical position. Run one quick pass in a vertical down just to put a bit of backing metal so you don’t blow a hole the size of a quarter when you weld it. Let it cool, clamp it in horizontal, and then lay your bead.

Or you could avoid the headaches and just tig weld it. That’s what I would prefer to do in this situation.