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GAS or MIG welding on 4130 tube?
Just wondering what the general consensus is on the best method of
welding 4130 tube structures. Advantages / disadvantages of each considering I will be building in an attached garage, in a residential subdivision, and will be limited to a 110AC/ 20 amp service? Is an off-the-shelf MIG unit like a small Lincoln or Hobart worth the money? Anyone have any experience with these machines? I don't have to weld anything right now, but I'm considering taking a few classes. Thanks, Harry |
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GAS or MIG welding on 4130 tube?
Earlier, wright1902glider wrote:
Just wondering what the general consensus is on the best method of welding 4130 tube structures. Advantages / disadvantages of each considering I will be building in an attached garage, in a residential subdivision, and will be limited to a 110AC/ 20 amp service? Is an off-the-shelf MIG unit like a small Lincoln or Hobart worth the money? Anyone have any experience with these machines? ... I've got a little Hobart 125 MIG welder, and it's fabulous for zapping together tooling, jigs, and fixtures out of cheap mild steel tubing. Used with .030" flux core wire, it's the bees knees for making quick and slaggy but perfectly adequate welds. I don't know what I'd do without that machine. Used with .024" solid core wire and shielding gas, it can make fairly pretty looking welds on thin stock, including typical aircraft sizes of 4130 sheet and tubing. However, it takes a better touch than I have yet developed to get welds that I'd consider to be of aircraft quality. With the power and feed set low enough to get good control the penetration isn't there; and when you raise the power and feed to penetrate it's wicked hard to hold precise control. Some day I hope to get a TIG rig for doing the fine stuff stuff, but until then I do it with OA. What I do sometimes is tack stuff in the jig with the Hobart, and then do the final weld with the nice little Meco Midget I got from Tin Man Tech -- it's perfectly sized for thin steel. Thanks, and best regards to all Bob K. http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24 |
#3
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GAS or MIG welding on 4130 tube?
Do a Google of this news group. This has been hashed out pretty well.
My take on the sum of the debate is that while there was no clear winner, O2/Acytelene was considered to be the defacto standard with TIG considered by some to be either ecceptable or better. MIG on the other hand was considered to be acceptable only when used by someone with considerable experience using MIG on thin material. Then there is the debate on which rod is best. ==================== Leon McAtee Braze it when you can............. |
#4
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GAS or MIG welding on 4130 tube?
Hi Harry,
I would not recommend MIG for aircraft tubing. The problem with MIG is that it is easy to produce a great looking weld with poor penetration and poor strength. If you are good at OA welding you can get good results. I toured the Rotorway factory a few months back, and the Rotorway frames are all OA welded. Why do you feel that you are limited to 110V-20A service? Don't you have a 220V dryer? If you are not in a rental, a good electrician can run you a 220V-50A circuit to the garage for a couple hundred bucks. When you price heavy TIG welders, you will realize that $200 is chump change ;-) Don W. -- New to group, but been lurking for a while. I'll post an intro soon. wright1902glider wrote: Just wondering what the general consensus is on the best method of welding 4130 tube structures. Advantages / disadvantages of each considering I will be building in an attached garage, in a residential subdivision, and will be limited to a 110AC/ 20 amp service? Is an off-the-shelf MIG unit like a small Lincoln or Hobart worth the money? Anyone have any experience with these machines? I don't have to weld anything right now, but I'm considering taking a few classes. Thanks, Harry |
#5
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GAS or MIG welding on 4130 tube?
When you take your classes try MIG on some thin tube, I think that will
answer your question. There are some nice TIG welders out that run on 30a/220v like your clothes dryer does. But don't spend a lot of money on a welding rig until you have had those classes. You will know what you will need by then. "wright1902glider" wrote in message oups.com... Just wondering what the general consensus is on the best method of welding 4130 tube structures. Advantages / disadvantages of each considering I will be building in an attached garage, in a residential subdivision, and will be limited to a 110AC/ 20 amp service? Is an off-the-shelf MIG unit like a small Lincoln or Hobart worth the money? Anyone have any experience with these machines? I don't have to weld anything right now, but I'm considering taking a few classes. Thanks, Harry |
#6
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GAS or MIG welding on 4130 tube?
wright1902glider wrote:
Just wondering what the general consensus is on the best method of welding 4130 tube structures. Advantages / disadvantages of each considering I will be building in an attached garage, in a residential subdivision, and will be limited to a 110AC/ 20 amp service? Is an off-the-shelf MIG unit like a small Lincoln or Hobart worth the money? Anyone have any experience with these machines? I don't have to weld anything right now, but I'm considering taking a few classes. Thanks, Harry The Hobart 120 (older unit) I have had for years has welded for me many trailers up to and including 5th wheel equipment trailers at 16000 lbs gross wt. 1 flat bed truck body to carry my track hoe, and 1 well cleaning machine which has a 28 foot telescoping crane. I forgot to add my Sonerai II fuselage tubing. Runs on 120 volt 20 amp circuit. welds 1/4" in 1 pass and up to 1/2" with multiple passes. For the 4130 tubing I use .023 solid wire and c25 gas mix (25%Co2 and 75% Argon). These welders are great. YMMV Rocky |
#7
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GAS or MIG welding on 4130 tube?
, and 1 well cleaning machine which has a 28 foot telescoping crane.
Can you tell me more? I have a 28 foot deep well that collects silt and crap. It is 4 foot concrete pipe across at the top, and goes all the way down to 2 foot pipe at the bottom. Sections have been added by hand over the years, but I use a sludge pump on a flexdrive shaft to remove the sand and silt, and find that returning some of the waste water under pressure from a 1/2 inch pipe stirs up the silt and allows much faster cleanup. Thanks, Peter |
#8
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GAS or MIG welding on 4130 tube?
Bushy Pete wrote:
, and 1 well cleaning machine which has a 28 foot telescoping crane. Can you tell me more? I have a 28 foot deep well that collects silt and crap. It is 4 foot concrete pipe across at the top, and goes all the way down to 2 foot pipe at the bottom. Sections have been added by hand over the years, but I use a sludge pump on a flexdrive shaft to remove the sand and silt, and find that returning some of the waste water under pressure from a 1/2 inch pipe stirs up the silt and allows much faster cleanup. Thanks, Peter Peter, if you will contact me directly I will tell you how the cleaning machine works. Go back to my original post for the e-mail add Rocky |
#9
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GAS or MIG welding on 4130 tube?
"wright1902glider" wrote FYI, 220v isn't an option because I don't own a house, and I don't think my roommate would let me cut a hole in the wall of her brand-new garage. Well, maybe, but only if it was HER welder, and not mine. How far from the house to the garage? I have made up heavy duty 220 extension cords to plug into dryer outlets, for various reasons. g -- Jim in NC |
#10
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GAS or MIG welding on 4130 tube?
"Ron Webb" wrote in message
... The standard is OA. Tig is as good or better, but more expensive, and you still need OA for cutting, and to stress relieve the welds after they are done. Hi Ron. I wouldn't say the standard is OA. That would mean there IS a standard, and there isn't one. The entire center wing box of the B1 is welded Titanium, and not a gas weld to be seen. Light alloy steel tubular structures are almost universally welded with an electric process with the exception of low dollar lugged bicycle frames which are brazed. Nascar Roll Cage rules prohibit TIG welded joints due to some history of brittle failures in what should be a deformable structure. Their preferred process is MIG. Very few aluminum fabricators use torches anymore, their preferred process is TIG. Homebuilders use OA gear because it is cheap to use, requires a low degree of skill to get acceptable results, and is portable. You might wish to go to the welding specs and do a bit of review. The SAE and AWS do not require/recommend PWHT of 4130 welds on material less than 1/2 inch thick. PWHT of 4130 only adds to its ability to move to somewhere you don't want it . Post weld heat treatment can do more harm thru distortion than any small benefit you MIGHT get reheating things. |
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