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I decided not to trust my skills with the TIG straight away and started work on the 4 inside gussets of the frame. That way I could get some more practice in but still be useful as they would be covered by the end cupboards if anything went wrong.

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The only issues I had were the length of the back cap of the torch when doing the top left circular weld (last pictures). Even with the cap that is literally as short as it can be I only just had enough space. The other issue was a mixture of wobbling about and/or finding I was caught when moving which meant the edges of the holes didn't all stay crisp as I either added a bit too much heat or moved and melted it. annoying, but not the end of the world :). I was still pleased with how things were turning out.

Whilst doing these welds it would not have been a good time to run out of gas as grinding out the affected area would have been difficult. I think I got my money's worth from this cylinder though....
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One of the stars of the show has to be my little 90Degree die grinder coupled with a selection of 3m Roloc pads. if you've got a decent air supply, I'd take these instead of a normal grinder a lot of the time. I used the medium grit discs for all of the prep work on the 20mm box section as well as most of the cleaning up on the ends of the big stuff too.

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1 minute ago, lo-fi said:

I have the same, the Roloc stuff is lovely, isn't it! I like the bristle pads too, they're fantastic for cleaning knarly stuff up. 

Not come across those ones! I've got the flat disc ones and some scotchbrite ones too. Theres a seller on ebay that does a massive selection bag for about ~£30 if I remember correctly.

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In very typical Rossness, this is very, very overkill, but there is some beauty in that, I think ;)

For the caps, I would normally leave them a little proud which allows you to get more of a weld in the notch that is created, but more importantly it can often mean less grinding back. Unless you wanted the very square looking ends, which of course is a reason to go your way :)

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Bowie69 said:

In very typical Rossness, this is very, very overkill, but there is some beauty in that, I think ;)

For the caps, I would normally leave them a little proud which allows you to get more of a weld in the notch that is created, but more importantly it can often mean less grinding back. Unless you wanted the very square looking ends, which of course is a reason to go your way :)

 

 

Oh that's me alright! :lol:.

Yeah, I wanted the flush looks-like-a-solid-bar look :) 

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Biggest issue once I was getting on with the TIGing of these gussets was the fighting the heat. Not so much with the actual job and any distortion, but the heat in the torch and the duty cycle of the welder. All of these I'm welding 5mm gusset to the 5mm wall of the box, so it's quite a bit of heat input, around 135-140A. I would stop 'on the way' home and weld until the torch was too hot to hold and then go home. To give you an idea, I did end up taking a series of pictures of the welding of one of the 7-hole outside face gussets.

12:00
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12:30 - Tacked at the extremities and one in the middle, then the two ends welded.
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12:40
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15:20 - The finished gusset.
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I could probably have welded quicker by using more heat, but then I would have run into issues melting more edges.

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3 minutes ago, lo-fi said:

Very nice! I guess that's where a water cooled torch would be handy

For sure!

Although doing that lot, It's amazing how hot the rest of the surrounding area gets too which can also limit it, even with decent gloves on. Or you wear even thicker gloves and then struggle to feel and therefore feed the filler. Especially with my Cumberland-esk sausage fingers.

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8 minutes ago, landroversforever said:

I could probably have welded quicker by using more heat, but then I would have run into issues melting more edges.

Depends how much power you have at your disposal.

Generally more power requires less weld time, therefore less heat. However your own welding skills can also limit how fast you can weld, thus affecting the whole power and speed equation ;)

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1 minute ago, mickeyw said:

Depends how much power you have at your disposal.

Generally more power requires less weld time, therefore less heat. However your own welding skills can also limit how fast you can weld, thus affecting the whole power and speed equation ;)

Yeah, exactly. I did try it hotter, but I couldn't get the material into the weld quick enough with the rods I've got (I think 1.6?) next rods up I've got are massive, more like Bar stock! - Sausage fingers can be quite limiting :lol:.

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1.6 is what I normally use. Sounds like some 2.4 is needed for the big stuff.

 

That last weld looks very tidy. It's not easy to get every one looking like that though, even if you weld all the time.

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There were a lot of these holes and TIGing them meaning lots of clean up to do. 44 holes to weld round equates to 94mm of weld per hole, so around 4.1m of welding, excluding the end radii of each one, and the ~0.5m of welding on the 4 vertical welds of the smaller gussets. It soon adds up :o

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Those that have done TIG welding will probably understand this one.... you're very close to the end of the weld which is going beautifully. You're right in the groove and its just as you want it. But you feel the end of the filler rod going over your finger - the end is nigh. Sometimes you've just have to keep going:
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That was FAAAAAWKIN' hot! but sometimes pretty weld > skin on fingers :P 

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Time to jump back to the 20mm box stuff, more specifically one of the subframes the tool boxes sit on. The later of the two toolboxes has a couple of folded edges that hang down under the box. These needed some clearance so the box section was notched and cleaned up.

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I made the notches deliberately wide as the rest of the alignment around the exterior edge of the box is reasonably snug, I didn't want to bash the boxes putting them on and trying to line these up.

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Time for the castors...

I had the plates for the castors laser cut. The beauty of which being with the accuracy available I could get the holes cut straight to the tapping drill size.
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I drilled and tapped these early on hence the poor picture quality! It was then time to check the belly clearance of the trolley:
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Bang on the 25mm that I'd anticipated.
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So the first plate was aligned and tacked on
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Test fit of the castor. The brake lever literally just kisses the gusset on the way past. Not the end of the world. If I find its an issue I can shim the brake lever down easily.
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Because of the depth of the groove where plate meets radii on the side, I decided to do a root and a cap on each side.
First couple of roots.
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Then a couple of caps. The width of these meaning a slight ~3-4mm weave as I was moving along.
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Not that the plates really needed any more welding... but I went belt and braces with these along the back edge of each one.
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A little exercise I did with the coarse Roloc (in the centre) Single new disc cleaned up the whole of the top surface of the trolley and still had life left in it. The darker areas are just where the light catches the different directions I moved in.
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It was then time to put the subframes on...
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...and tacked in place ready to test fit the tool boxes.
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