welding

117 Articles

Keep The Sparks Away With A Plasma Cutting Table

December 5, 2021 by 8 Comments

For one-off projects or prototypes it’s not uncommon for us to make do with whatever workspace we have on hand. Using a deck railing as an impromptu sawhorse, for example, is one that might be familiar to anyone who owns a circular saw, but [Daniel] has a slightly different situation. He had been setting up metal workpieces on random chunks of brick in order to use his plasma cutter, but just like the home handyman who gets tired of nicking their deck with a saw, he decided to come up with a more permanent solution and built a custom plasma cutting table.

Plasma cutting has a tendency to throw up a lot of sparks, so most commercial offerings for plasma cutting tables include a water bath to catch all of the debris from the cutting process. [Daniel] builds his table over a metal tub to hold some water for this purpose. The table itself is built out of aluminum and designed to be built without welding even though most people with plasma cutters probably have welders as well. The frame is designed to be exceptionally strong and includes curved slats which add to the strength of the table. The table is also designed to be portable, so the curved slats stay in place when the table is moved.

While this might seem like an average metal table at first glance, the table is actually being designed with a homemade CNC machine in mind which [Daniel] is working on. The CNC plasma cutter needs a sturdy, flat surface and can’t be set up on bricks in the driveway, so this table suits both [Daniel]’s immediate needs to not shower himself in sparks every time he cuts something and also his future CNC machine’s need for a sturdy, flat workspace. We look forward to seeing that build being completed but in the meantime take a look at this motorized plasma cutter which has the beginnings of a CNC machine if in one direction only.

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Big homemade lathe

Heavy Metal Lathe Build Doesn’t Spare The Steel

October 27, 2021 by 22 Comments

It’s common wisdom that the lathe is the essential machine tool, and the only one that can make copies of itself. While we won’t argue the primacy of the lathe in the machine shop, this scratch-built, heavy-duty lathe gives the lie to the latter argument — almost.

We’re used to seeing homebrew lathes, of course, and we’ve featured more than a few of them before. But two things make [Jornt]’s build stand out: how few specialized tools were needed to build it, and the sheer size and bulk of the finished product. Where most homebrew lathes tend to be the bench top variety and feature cast aluminum parts, [Jornt] went with steel for his build, and a lot of it. The base and bed of the machine are welded from scrap steel I-beams, and the ways are made from angle iron that has been ground flat with a clever jig to hold an angle grinder. The angle grinder plays a prominent role in the build, as do simple tools like a hand drill, files, and a welder — and yes, the unfinished lathe itself, which was used to bore out the bearing blocks for the headstock.

The completed lathe, powered by a treadmill motor in a way that [Jeremy Fielding] would no doubt endorse, comes in at a beefy 450 kg. It honestly looks like something you could buy from a catalog, and has most of the features of commercial machines. One thing we’d love to see on this lathe is the electronic lead screw that [James Clough] developed for his off-the-shelf lathe.

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A weld bead laid down with homemade CO2

Cooking Up A Batch Of Homebrew Welding Gas

September 21, 2021 by 31 Comments

You know the feeling — you’re making good progress on a weekend project, you’re really in the groove, things are going right. Right up until you run out of That One Thing™ that you can’t do without, the only store that sells it is closed, and you get a sudden case of whiplash as your progress hits a virtual brick wall.

Of course, every challenge holds the opportunity to hack your way around it, which is how [Lucas] ended up building this carbon dioxide generator. The “IG” in MIG welding stands for the “inert gas” that floods the weld pool and keeps the melted metal — the “M” in MIG — from rapidly oxidizing and ruining the weld. Welders often use either straight CO2 or a mix of CO2 and argon as a MIG shielding gas, which they normally get from a commercial gas supplier, generally on non-weekend days.

[Lucas] turned to grade-school chemistry for his CO2 generator, using the vigorous reaction of baking soda and vinegar to produce the gas. Version one was sketchy as all get-out; the second iteration still had some sketch factor thanks to the use of ABS pipe, but the inclusion of a relief valve should prevent the worst from happening. After some fiddling with how to get the reagents together in a controlled fashion, [Lucas] was able to generate enough CO2 to put down a decent bead — a short one, to be sure, but the video below shows that it worked.

Could this be scaled up to something for practical use? Probably not. But it’s cool to see what’s possible, and something to file away for a rainy day. And maybe [Lucas] can use this method to produce CO2 for his homemade laser tube. But again, probably not.

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a man sits on top of a motorcycle simulation rig

Motorcycle Simulation Rig Is Off To The Races

September 4, 2021 by 22 Comments

Many arcade machines can be emulated and handily controlled with the standard joystick and button combos. However, a few don’t feel quite right without some extra equipment, motorcycle racing games being one of them. So, no longer content to go to an arcade to get his fix, [The Q] welded his own motorcycle simulation rig for playing racing games at home.

After an initial design was sketched out, rectangular tube steel was cut to size and welded together with a MIG welder. A central shaft linked to some secured bearings made the central pivot point. A few pistons offered the resistance needed for leaning into the curves. To the central shaft, a seat and an old bicycle fork were attached. A clever linkage from the handlebars to the base causes the bike to tilt when turning the handlebars and vice versa.

The bike was ready for prime time after some grinding, orange paint, a license plate, and some lights and grips. [The Q] just needed to get the angle of the bike into the simulation of their choice. While we expected a teensy or other microcontroller emulating a controller, [The Q] went for a somewhat simpler approach, and 3D printed a cradle to hold a PlayStation controller. Little levers pull strings to articulate the joystick, and a cable from the throttle grip pulls back the trigger on the controller. All in all, the experience looks pretty decent, particularly when you’re comparing it to a motocross arcade machine. What it really needs are some fans blowing for the effect of the air stream coming at you.

If you’re thinking about busting out the MIG to make a rig of your own, maybe consider making a homemade car racing rig to complement the bike.

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Walk The First 3D-Printed Bridge And Be Counted

July 24, 2021 by 22 Comments

Way back in 2018, we brought you news of a 3D-printed stainless steel pedestrian bridge being planned to span a Dutch canal in Amsterdam. Now it’s finally in place and open to the public — the Queen made it official and everything. MX3D printed it on their M1 Metal additive manufacturing machine that is essentially a group of robots welding layers of metal together using traditional welding wire and gas.

The partnership of companies involved originally planned to build this beautiful bridge in situ, but safety concerns and other issues prevented that and it was built in a factory instead. The bridge has been printed and ready since 2018, but a string of delays got in the way, including the fact that the canal’s walls had to be refurbished to accommodate it. Since it couldn’t be made on site, the bridge was taken there by boat and placed with a crane. After all this, the bridge is only permitted to be there for two years. Hopefully, they have the option to renew.

This feat of engineering spans 40 feet (12.2 meters) long and sits 20 feet (6.3 meters) wide. It’s equipped with sensors that measure structural stuff like strain, displacement, load, and rotation, and also has environmental sensors for air quality and temperature. All of this data is sent to the bridge’s digital twin, which is an exact replica in the form of a computer model. One of the goals is to teach the bridge how to count people. Be sure to check out our previous coverage for a couple of short videos about the bridge.

Chainsaw Cuts More Than Timber

May 29, 2021 by 13 Comments

We often take electricity for granted, to the point of walking into a room during a power outage and still habitually flipping the light switch. On the other hand, there are plenty of places where electricity isn’t a given, either due to poor infrastructure or an otherwise remote location. To get common electric power tools to work in areas like these requires some ingenuity like that seen in this build which converts a chainsaw to a gas-driven grinder that can be used for cutting steel or concrete. (Video, embedded below.)

All of the parts needed for the conversion were built in the machine shop of [Workshop from scratch]. A non-cutting chain was fitted to it first to drive the cutting wheel rather than cut directly, so a new bar had to be fabricated. After that, the build shows the methods for attaching bearings and securing the entire assembly back to the gas-powered motor. Of course there is also a custom shield for the grinding wheel and also a protective housing for the chain to somewhat limit the danger of operating a device like this.

Even though some consideration was paid to safety in this build, we would like to reiterate that all the required safety gear should be worn. That being said, it’s not the first time we’ve seen a chainsaw modified to be more useful than its default timber-cutting configuration, like this build which turns a chainsaw into a metal cutting chop saw.

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Zinc Fever: A Look At The Risks Of Working With Hot Metal

April 12, 2021 by 69 Comments

For as raucous as things can get in the comments section of Hackaday articles, we really love the give and take that happens there. Our readers have an astonishing breadth of backgrounds and experiences, and the fact that everyone so readily shares those experiences and the strongly held opinions that they engender is what makes this community so strong and so useful.

But with so many opinions and experiences being shared, it’s sometimes hard to cut through to the essential truth of an issue. This is particularly true where health and safety are at issue, a topic where it’s easy to get bogged down by an accumulation of anecdotes that mask the underlying biology. Case in point: I recently covered a shop-built tool cabinet build and made an off-hand remark about the inadvisability of welding zinc-plated drawer slides, having heard about the dangers of inhaling zinc fumes once upon a time. That led to a discussion in the comments section on both sides of the issue that left the risks of zinc-fume inhalation somewhat unclear.

To correct this, I decided to take a close look at the risks involved with welding and working zinc. As a welding wannabe, I’m keenly interested in anything that helps me not die in the shop, and as a biology geek, I’m also fascinated by the molecular mechanisms of diseases. I’ll explore both of these topics as we look at the dreaded  “zinc fever” and how to avoid it.

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