Heavy equipment Welding repair

On flat work, you can really go to town, though. I like 7014, too. 7014 will glue rust particles together.

Burned a lot of 1/4" 7024 building large oilfield tanks. Also burned a lot of 1/4" 7018 working on vessels. 7024 is fairly easy to burn as it's basically a drag rod but there's a big difference going from 3/16" 7018 to 1/4" 7018. 1/4" runs around 350 amps and welds a lot nicer when the piece is hot but preheat is usually required when using it. Spent 2 full 10 hour night shifts working with a buddy welding a nozzle and repad on a 2-1/2" thick vessel. The repad was cut for a 24" nozzle but the nozzle was only 20". They figured is was less expensive to weld it up than have a new repad made. Everything was beveled for 100% penetration and the repad was cut in half because there wasn't enough room to weld the nozzle with it tied to the flange on the nozzle. So 2 more fully beveled welds to do. Had to use 2 tiger torches for initial preheat. Time went by pretty fast welding it and it was still pretty hot when we came in for the next shift. I don't how many hundreds of pounds of rod went into that weld. Flux-Core wasn't approved for vessels at the time. All the weld on the repad had to be ground flat with only a 3/8" fillet weld showing around the nozzle. We made sure not to be build up the weld too much or we'd be grinding for hours.

Laid on my back on a creeper under a inner hull on a barge laying 7/32 drag rod
Believe it was 7024 but been 35+ years ago sewing replacement hull plates together
Hard to weld in less than 24” headroom.

I'm an electrician. I've no choice but to be multilingual.
A customer calls it a plug, a plug in, a socket, a switch, an outlet. Code calls it a receptacle. My supplier only recognizes a number, typically T5320-I. NEMA calls it CR15T-I in any case it is a 15 amp duplex receptacle, with tamper resistant feature.

I try to be tolerant of translation issues within a given language. The thing that really brings out the ire in me is the term 110 or 220. With the exception of translation problems from Chinese products, I have not seen a device designed for 110 or 220 in my 64 year lifespan!

DMiller said:

Laid on my back on a creeper under a inner hull on a barge laying 7/32 drag rod
Believe it was 7024 but been 35+ years ago sewing replacement hull plates together
Hard to weld in less than 24” headroom.

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Harder still to squirm when a big one goes inside your clothes

I don't know why but I call 110-220 when I know there is no such thing. I don't know why it's in my head but it's stuck there. No idea why those numbers are used.

petepilot said:

big rod 7/32 7024 anyone used any of that?

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1/4" 7024 or jet rod . we used to burn that on A C machines

I try to keep my ability to weld and fabricate under the radar, im no pro but can do ok, i will stick with the truck repair of given a choice. Became real fond of Lincoln dual shield in 1/16 forget which product exactly, only thing i didnt like was how hot it was.

DMiller said:

Laid on my back on a creeper under a inner hull on a barge laying 7/32 drag rod
Believe it was 7024 but been 35+ years ago sewing replacement hull plates together
Hard to weld in less than 24” headroom.

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Not fun in tight area's. I had to crawl 15' inside an 18" pipe to back weld the 45 deg. corner of a fire tube. You can barely move let alone weld. You can get pretty cramped up if you're in there for awhile and then you have back out.

I am tired of welding and grinding really. I dont mind little bits when I got to but big dirty projects are work for sure. I know a lot of guys looking fwd to retirement and rebuilding rusty cars,,,, not for me. But if I gotta mechanic would just as soon do a hard ass fix it job vs the endless trouble shooting of modern problems. The bad news is,,,,, its broke. The good is,,, we will have it running again working like it should a couple 3 hrs from noe with the scrap pile and 15$ worth of welding materials and even smear some right color paint over it on occasion.
But then again we tend to fix a lot of stuff others replace. I pulled a turn sig lever assembly out the other day. Was easy to jump that new was 28 and on the shelf, 10 minutes each way or wait on delivery and I hate to run them ragged. But, loose screw and rebenda tab and a shot of spray and stuck it back in 10 minutes later. Old ass car/truck and its gonna outlast it easy, worse thing can happen is it fail and we already have it out, we fix it again but given the amount we do this its well worth the risk.
Throwing another 30 at it for a new China part wasnt gonna mkake it work any better. Generic cheap parts are cool though, a voltage regulator but we fix anything given its practical.
Its hard to get customers to calm down on occasion. Was gonna charge off and buy a 400$ junk generator an hour away, one of those spray painted deals but often hard tosell the hour or 2 for 100$ toget the old one working, should always tell them I do it for 2,,,, ha but shate. If I have to buy all brand new everythime a brake stuck I would never go anywhere.

oarwhat said:

I don't know why but I call 110-220 when I know there is no such thing. I don't know why it's in my head but it's stuck there. No idea why those numbers are used.

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Because at one time they were. My Grandpa used to tell me to "Pour on the coal" when we were driving around and he thought I was going too slow, lol. We still use HP when KW makes much more sense...

The welder has a huge advantage in equipment repair even if it aint 40 hrs of the week. I know guys build a lot of their biz around it in some sense, lawn care, ag,,, the equipment looks different in mine than some others where we weld and paint.

Building some barn doors for a small dump truck

A few more

Waiting for parts for my LN7 wirefeed,but needed to get some production with stick.
3 3/16" 7016 tacked together with the mig . Arc air for a stinger + 350 amps on the old Lincoln.

350 Amps is really hot for 3/16in. rods. Sometimes you gotta make use with what got.

Works great when you burn them 3 at a time though

Woa! I have not seen that trick thank you tugger. Of course I have nothing available to me that would even heat up a single 3/16 much. My old tombstone would have a really short duty cycle.

You learn something new every day. Have never heard of burning 3 rods at a time. I burned some 3/32 Innershield wire (NS3M) that could easily go through a 50lb. spool in under 2 1/2 hours. It comes in 1/8 too. A 600 amp Innershield gun needs the big heat shield on it.

What is that you are constructing, with a weight over 5200lbs?