Technical On the Gas: A Welding Story

Gets your attention, doesn't it?

 

Welding stories. . . . I have many. Some good, some bad, and alot of ugly. My first welder was a second hand flux-core MIG. I tried welding the new to me quarter panels on the 57, I ran a bead and another and another until I noticed the whole section of quarter had sucked it really bad. I learned a LOT that day.

 

Never stop learning new things. It's good for your brain. In my twenties I got a vehicle design degree. In my thirties I took welding, calculus, and architecture classes in college. Now, in my forties I've taken physics, computer programming, and surfacing software classes. Everything you learn relates to something else.

 

How about submerged metal arc welding? Not submerged as in "under water", submerged as in buried under a pile of flux. It's used for welding large steel structures, like the frames of bulldozers for instance; can be easily automated. About the easiest form of welding, and the welds turn out beautiful. You can weld without eye coverage, you just drag the gun over the seam to be welded, on the gun is a large hopper of flux, basically small granules. You don't even see your weld until you're done and you brush away the flux and see your beautiful welds.

 

I still hate when the mix is off a touch or you hit an impurity. POW! Go too hot to avoid it and you'll have no yield strength, gets brittle. But when it's on it's on. Automatic shields are too dark even on the lightest setting that I have. Break out the goggles...

 

Learned gas welding at 14. A friend with a gas station taught me after my father had passed away. Went to a welding school while working as a millwright. Funny side story: gas welding a body for thedrt cars, I could hear this noise. Set the torch down on the dummy block in the car and raised my goggles with my right hand. Looked around, nothing. Goggles down, went back to welding. Still hearing the noise. Stop and do the same thing, still nothing.

Go back to welding, but the noise is still there. This time I raised the goggles with my left hand. Now I figured out what that noise was! My Grizzly Adams beardwas on fire on the left side and the noise was the sound of hair burning goingby my left ear. And the smell finally hit me...

Never could get the beard to look as good again. That was 1975.

 

You're right, they are pretty welds. Used to run submerged arc on round seams on large oil storage tanks. Works great except in winter. We had a guy running it in the middle of the winter. Temp was somewhere around 20 Fahrenheit. He put tarps up around the rolling cage he was in outside the tank to keep the wind out. He was pre-heating with two LP torches and there was a gas leak that filled the enclosure. Somehow, he got a spark off the weld and it blew him out of his clothes. Burned him pretty badly.

 

I was first taught to gas and stick weld by a former welder who was going to the automotive trade school that I was going to on a vocational rehab thing. He took me off to the welding bench in the school shop a few times and did his best to teach me how to do both.
Move ahead a few years and I had a job in a Midas muffler shop where I was hired to do front end and brake work but ended up doing exhaust work and that is where I actually learned to gas weld. If you actually want to gas weld on sheet metal or exhaust pipe an "Aircraft" torch is seriously nice to have as you can control the gas and oxygen with your finger tips without moving your hands around much. Plus they are lighter than a regular torch handle.
I can still stick weld with my old Forney welder better than I can weld with a mig most of the time. Plus there isn't anything that old monster can't handle as far as doing heavy work.

 

I learned how to gas weld, stick weld and mig weld like I learned about sex. On the streets and by my self.

 

When I learned and when I taught welding, fusing 2 pieces of sheet metal together, propped up in tent formation, was the first step. It is a great exercise that immediately teaches you the essence of welding.

Don't flinch when the torch pops and blows your puddle across the table!

 

I had a neighbor who built all his tractor implements with a torch in the 50’s. I tell you it looked like it was shop welded stuff from a manufacturer.

 

Same here. I thought I was a pretty good welder until I went to work with Chicago Bridge and Iron building water towers, smoke stack liners, oil tank farm storage tanks, coal fired powerhouse boilers and containment vessels for nuclear power houses. When I hired in with the Bridge, I was told I had two weeks before I had to take a welding test. The rule was, " If you can't get it, you can't stay ". I spent every minute of my own time practicing and I was nervous as a whore in church because I had a wife and six kids depending on me for the money the job would bring. There were five other welders on the job and they would walk by, take a look at what I was doing, make suggestions and then tell me, " Ah, you already knew that, didn't you? ". The day came for the test and I aced it. After work that day, we all went to the bar and I bought all the rounds. To this day, I believe I wouldn't have made it without those guys showing me how to do it right.

 

44 years ago in shop class I first learned to gas weld, when the instructor felt you were good enough you were handed two 1/8"X 2" wide "U"s to make a cube ,weld solid, if it passed then you could make it into a dice, drill indentions without drilling through and paint it, it was fun watching the guys trying to hurry up so they would quench there project in water so they can handle it, guess what happen when they got close to sealing it? not going to happen steam streamig out! Needles to say this launched my welding and fabrication career

 

If I hadn’t taken a gas welding semester class at El Camino JC in 1964 none of my cars would ever have had exhaust systems. After my dad died I kept is Victor J20 unit and bottles. I still have it and prefer it on thinner tubing. I’d slightly flair one end and almost weld with no fill. No coat hanger was ever safe in my house either.

 

PloooF …. great story!

 

Seems every time I weld something I have to light myself on fire about 20 times each day. My dog Maxine, half coyote and half pit bull and 100% smarter then me would watch me and tell me when I was on fire before the flames got big. But if she was pissed at me she would just watch me burn and run out of the shop before she said anything. God, I miss that dog.

 

I like to weld sheet metal with a torch, as long as I can get to both sides to hammer &!dolly it afterwards. So much less clean up than mug, and workable to.

 

Looks like you’ve found a “hot topic”, Joey. Your weld sample looks really good! You’ve got potential. When I started welding, my plan plan was to get Tig welding as SOON as possible. But my old timer mentor told me, “stick with the gas welding as long as the school will let you and the rest will come easy”. It was great advice. You really learn where the metal wants to flow w Oxy/Acet. Plus the goggles look cool.

 

Great write up Joey. Thanks for not dissing the old methods as many do. When I find intact brazed sheet metal repairs, I don’t think what a poor repair. If the rust in the car hadn’t been cut out and a patch brazed in it would have simply continued to rust away.
Just make sure you take all the fire precautions when using a torch. It is easy to light stuff on fire and make for an exciting day.

 

I self taught myself to gas weld with purpose bought filler rod, mostly making deep sump oil pans. Ford and Mopar pans were no problem but the damn Chevy pans would pop and fart constantly and the welds looked shitty but didn't leak [good thing] and I never could figure out why, maybe just shit oil pan metal.

 

The traditional type of coat hangers here in Sweden are made of wood, with a metal hook. Never seen anyone try to use those for welding, but I suppose the hook could work. Never seen any all metal wire hangers here, so the concept of using coat hangers for welding seems rather alien at first.

 

Learned to weld in college. We started with soldering, brazing, and gas welding. We didn't spend too much time with the soldering and brazing. I got pretty good at gas welding. I used to buy header kits from Speedway and cut them down to use on my sprint car. I gas welded them. I'd set at my bench and weld until the torch got too hot to hold, then take a break. I used to be able to make some nice beads.

 

I've mentioned using Low-Oak welding rod for welding scaffold boards together on storage tanks. I guess you Swedes can't get that stuff over there, huh?

 

We skip ahead and go straight for the ash!

 

I started with A/O then worked my way up to Mig ten to Tig been doing it for over 65 years. Recently had Cataract surgery and really can see what I’m welding now. On the farms they used bailing wire it a soft mandible steel and welds nice.

 

Hello,

When I learned by watching my brother, first, cut a thick steel plate, then weld two parts together, I was totally amazed and impressed. He had those funny dark individual glasses on like an old pilot in a fighter plane. But, these were very dark. When I tried on those glasses, I hit my knee on the bench that was being used for a sawhorse. I could not see anything. Duh!

But, after several tries with the cutting torch on the thick metal sheets, I was getting good at straight lines and shapes. I could see through those dark glasses. The torch and metal blobs made it easy to see. When my brother then taught me to actually weld two pieces of metal together in a “t” shape, it was difficult to see. The direction of the welding rod and flame weren't visible for a clean vision, to get a clean weld without a bunch of random blobs.

It took me several weeks of practicing on those thick metal plates to start showing some nice rolling beads and the metal pieces were actually welded together. I could step on them and the welds held the "T" shape without breaking or coming apart. But, my rolling beads were not as smooth as my brother’s weld beads. He had a couple of years of high school auto shop and metal shop practicing, so he was getting very good with straight lines and nice looking, strong beads.

Jnaki


This is Mr. Paul Schrianka, the welding/metal shop teacher at our high school. He was an ex-Navy military guy and let us know with his discipline in class.

He was very patient with all of us high school teenagers in every aspect of metal working and his favorite, welding. He kept telling us that it is an unlimited opportunity in and around the high school as the LB/LA Harbor + Shipyard was right down the street from the high school campus. So, the money opportunities were abundant.

He liked teaching, otherwise, he would be working in the shipyards making money as a pro welder. Pro? He could lay down a bead that looked like smooth butter and perfect rounded circles. We were impressed. He taught us to do the latest at the time, ARC Welding. But, for me, those flip down helmets were so dark that even though I could see the flash, I just could not get the rows straight or as nice as my gas welding rows.

In more recent times, the local school district got rid of all of their metal shop welding classes, but the automotive portion still exists. For welding, the local Long Beach School District has an off campus program located at the City College Extension Campus for certificated welding programs.

The program is similar across the So Cal campus of community colleges, but not high schools.

 

Nobody really purchases wire coat hangers, but they come back with your clothes when you have them laundered. Car guys would get them by the tons with uniforms or coveralls.

 

I taught myself gas welding on a 56 Ford pickup years ago. The only electric
welder I had was a very old Montgomery Ward stick AC only machine. After
making quite a bit of hideous slag from sheet metal, I got the hang of it.
I still use this method occasionally. I do however maintain a ox/act.
set up at my shop. The same small Victor torch from all those years ago.
Just yesterday I needed to secure a thin washer to a nut that secures the
trunk hinges on my 40 Ford coupe. Space is very limited and it is difficult
to line up the washer and nut to enable a bolt to engage the thread. I simply
brazed the washers to the nuts with a small amount of brass. This allows a
wrench to still fit the nut while holding the washer in place. I often use a
small ooo tip make small brazes. I find it very helpful. Also the smaller tip
sizes work well for concentrating heat on difficult to remove bolts without
excessive heating of surrounding areas or items.