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Case welding

B

bob

2[H]4U
Joined
Feb 13, 2002
Messages
2,971
I bought myself a welder ($70.00 carquest special). Ive been welding for a few years before today, usually with much larger 350A welders.

So, of course, I pull out my dell optiplex chassis that I have spent a lot of time on modding, bust out the welder, set it for 55 amps, and make about 10 tack-welds.

I let the thing cool down, ate lunch, then came back to it. Guess what? the thing was warped out to hell. I spent the next hour with a propane torch annealing the metal and pounding the hell out of it to get somewhat flat.

So I move onto the case, and make one tack to hold the metal in place. This was on the back of the case, where its just 14x14 inches of sheet-metal. Guess what? I flip the case over and I see a big budge near the weld.

Exactly what the hell is going on? Ive welded up things out of 1/8th inch, and never had this kind of problem.
 
well did u get a tig or mig welder? Either way sounds like you're putting too much heat on it and 55 ams is a lot. Try this (we use it at work to fix teeth that are .030 thick) grab a chunk of copper and put it behind the weld area so it decipates heat and spreads it out faster then just letting it aircool, no warps or mishaps that way. Usualy a peice of about 1/4 inch thick with a good surface area of at least 6 x 6 inches should do. As a bouns it won;t stick to the steel if you're tig welding with a steel rod so you can literaly make shapes within the copper and it just slides out. hope this helps.
 
Its a stick welder. I wish there was such a thing as a $70.00 tig welder :D

I just tried it on 1/8th inch steel, it was too much current for it. I did try laying a wet crappy towel behind the metal.

Ill try lowering the current with some kind of ballast.
 
oh jeez it's a stick, don;t dude jsut don;t tehre's no way of doing it to that thin of metal, the amount of current and heat produced to "stick" weld is too much for that thin of metal, you;re better off getting a mig welder and turning the feed and heat all the way down. Stick is too much for a case.
 
Yeah, but there is my problem. If I had the money to buy a MIG welder (even a cheap one) I would most likley have the cash flow to be living in my own apartment or possibly a single wide in a trailor trash park, rather than at my parents house.

At the trailer-park here, rent for a peice of dirt (it had water, sewer, and electricity) to stick the house-on-wheels was $120.00 per month.

I just welded down the center of 1/8th inch steel plate, and it warped THE SHIT right out of that thing. Dammit. Stupid $70.00 welder.

There is a way of doing it, its just tricky. Ive got a battery charger here I rigged up to work on 5-10 amps (yes, it does weld, but its half-assed and doesnt work). I bought a 5Lb box of 6013 electrode, the smallest stuff they made. The steel rod inside is like a toothpick.

The trick is, getting the arc started with 50-100 amps, and turning it down very fast, without having the electrode stick.

I welded up an entire computer case. I wanted to make a half assed SFF, so I drew some lines down the case like racing stripes, plasmacut the center out, brought the two halfs together (about 5" shorter now) and arc-welded the whole thing together.

This was a fancier 480v 350A arc-welder that could seperate the cores, rather than have a flippy switch to select current.

I really cant remember how I did it, but I remember once I managed to start an arc, it was barley enough current to penetrate through the case steel. Maybe I was just lucky.

Hmm. Dammit. Why didnt I think of this before I bought it. What are cases? 2mm steel?

Oh well. If I need to make a bomb-proof case out of 1/4 inch steel, I know what to use :p .
 
Yep, I'd say that stick welder is overkill for what it's being used for.

Most standard ATX cases I've seen are 1mm or 20 gauge steel.
Heavy duty server cases are another matter.
 
I might be able to rig up my own MIG onto the end of the welder. Just something to barley get by, tack-weld the case togeter enough so I can move it, and see if someone else can finish MIG'ing it up for me.

I used to run across dead MIG welders, that someone must have fried the insides of. The part that fed the wire out, usually seemed to survive.

One way or another, im going to fix something up to hook cases together. JB-weld + duct tape seems like a better option for me.
 
Pop-rivets perhaps? They can do a pretty fair job when used properly I think.
 
bob said:
Its a stick welder.
Click to expand...


Thats why stick welders are monsters. They are made to put down strong HIGH HEAT welds. So yeah thats going to happen on most sheet metal you work on.


Point,
Stick ant going to work on sheet metal.
 
Are there any places in your area where you could rent a Mig/Tig welder for a day or 2?
 
What I do is I go to a metal working shop and pay them 20$ to use there welder if I need to. You NEVER use stick weld for sheet metal. You use it for VERY strong welds. You can go get some jewely oxidising and the other stuff(forgot what it is) and put it on the case and a peace of wire and attach the wire to where the stick would go on the arech welder. It might work or might not and make the metal all shitty.
 
pArTy said:
What I do is I go to a metal working shop and pay them 20$ to use there welder if I need to. You NEVER use stick weld for sheet metal. You use it for VERY strong welds. You can go get some jewely oxidising and the other stuff(forgot what it is) and put it on the case and a peace of wire and attach the wire to where the stick would go on the arech welder. It might work or might not and make the metal all shitty.
Click to expand...

Interesting. The welding shops I know of around here would never let someone
come from outside use their equipment because of insurance concerns. Depends
on the company I guess. And how willing they are to deal with a major hastle if you did
happen to get badly hurt.
 
PIX PLEASE!!!
any other notes i should be writing down when I get into welding..
thx

P.S. PIX PLEASE!!!
PIX PLEASE!!!
PIX PLEASE!!!
 
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