Welding

[mkinga]

Several people have expressed an interest in learning to weld. I'm
happy to run some classes, ideally at a weekend and somehow we'd need
to minimise disruption to other users of the space, A welding curtain
would be good if anyone can get their hands on one?. I can provide
three additional welders to the one already at the space and I can
provide sets of gloves. a small voluntary donation towards the cost of
consumables (gas and wire) would be appreciated and any excess will be
donated to the Hackspace. Note I will only cover MIG welding not ARC.
Pre-requisites to bring would be :-

Some small offcuts of steel of various thickness's 1mm upto around
10mm.
A small project to work on.
Suitable clothing, natural fibres (ideally cotton overalls, but not
oil soaked ones from working on your car :-) ) or an old leather
jacket you don't mind trashing, Ideally no spark catchers such as
pockets or turn-ups or gaffer tape over them. This is to avoid
breaking rule zero There should be no exposed skin, it WILL get hit
by sparks and you may end up with bad sunburn !
Head protection, Cotton cap/bandana and ideally something to stop
sparks going down the back of your neck!
Footwear, Ideally boots, if you wear trainers/shoes you stand a good
chance of sparks going down inside them which hurts.

Topics I plan on covering :-
Safety
Joint types
Material preparation
Setting up the welder, changing consumables etc.
Then we might actually do some welding!
How to tell what it is you're doing wrong and how to correct it.

Feel free to comment and make suggestions.

[mkinga]

P.S. An alternative to a "proper" welding curtain would be a heavy
duty canvas tarp that could be strung up in a section of the workshop.

Martin.

[Toby Catlin]

Thanks you for offering Martin. I am very very up for this. 

I have been trying to do some welding at the space for ages and things like weddings and work keep getting in the way. I am now married and have some time over the weekends (and a continuously rusting mini)

toby

[Tim Hutt]

I would love to learn. Are the existing welding screen things not sufficient?

On Jul 18, 2011 1:25 PM, "mkinga" <mfx...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Jim MacArthur]

I'm very keen on attending this but I can't say for sure whether I'd turn up until a date was set. I've done a little stick welding before but the results aren't pretty. Many thanks for offering to teach us!

Jim

[mkinga]

Re. dates I'm happy to run it over several weekends to maximise the
chances of people being able to attend, also if there is enough
interest for an evening workshop I could probably arrange it.

Martin.

[Tim Storey]

I would like to learn as well...

t

[Sam Cook]

yes please!

S

PS on the subject of safety curtains didn't we hit the pledge for one?

[mkinga]

BTW I'll be down at the space tomorrow night if anyone wants to
discuss this in person.

[Toby Catlin]

there was a pledge that got fulfilled and a welding curtain was picked from machine mart but i think there was confusion about how it gets paid for.

t

[Stefans]

I am extremely up for this. Thanks for the excellent offer!

[Kieran Kunhya]

I would also like to do this.

[Sam Cook]

I've had a look at the pledge[1] and it has had £470 of the estimated £450 paid; I don't know what of the gear we have was bought and what was donated. By the looks of it we still need a screen (we do have some light shielding in the form of the easel + wood but we need more). 

Thoughts?

S 

[1]http://wiki.hackspace.org.uk/wiki/Pledges/Welding_Equipment

[mkinga]

Update:
I've had a work with a local fabricator and he's happy for me to
scavenge offcuts for practising with. Unfortunately the scrap bin was
emptied yesterday so it will take a week or so to build it back up
again.

Martin.

[Russ Garrett]

On 18 July 2011 14:26, Toby Catlin <to...@korfball.com> wrote:

> there was a pledge that got fulfilled and a welding curtain was picked from
> machine mart but i think there was confusion about how it gets paid for.

Pay for it, send me the receipt and your bank details and I will
reimburse you, usually within 24 hours.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Toby Catlin]

ok will do.

Just to remind the list this was the screen we had agreed to buy:

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/ws1-standard-welding-screen

We could just buy the curtain and rig it up ourselves but I do not have enough time to make that happen.

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/wc1-welding-curtain

Also I go to Cremer garage to get my car fixed and i am sure he has plenty of scrap we can play with and would be happy to give it to us.

t

[mkinga]

Just buy the curtain it's a LOT cheaper and the first project will be
to weld up a stand for it, job done :-)

Martin.

[Toby Catlin]

I can see we could end up in a paradox here but I shall do as you suggest.

Is one big enough? shall i get two while i am at it.

toby

[Nigel Worsley]

> Just buy the curtain it's a LOT cheaper and the first project will be
> to weld up a stand for it, job done :-)

The difference is �36 - the made up one uses TWO of the spare panels.

Nigle

[mkinga]

:-) We can rig it temporarily while the stand is built. Two would be
useful for teaching but probably a waste long term unless a LOT of
welding is likely to happen? An additional welding screen MAY be
useful for screening other dangerous projects such as playing with
lasers though?

Discuss.

Martin,

[mkinga]

Ah good point, sorry I only read it quickly. In that case the one with
the stand would be a better bet.

Cheers.
Martin.

[Nigel Worsley]

On 18/07/2011 16:27, mkinga wrote:
> Ah good point, sorry I only read it quickly. In that case the one with
> the stand would be a better bet.

Unless we buy one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sturdy-Clothes-Rail-/280710677218?pt=UK_Storage&hash=item415ba902e2

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/6ft-Heavy-Duty-Clothes-Rail-wheels-Easy-assembly-/270782243333?pt=UK_Storage&hash=item3f0be12205

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-6-FT-Garment-Clothes-Display-Hanging-Rail-Rack-/270783417046?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3f0bf30ad6

Nigle

[mkinga]

I shall try and buy the one in Croydon as I can pick it up easily, so
back to the original plan, just buy the screens and mount them on a
clothes rail.

Martin.

On Jul 18, 4:43 pm, Nigel Worsley <nig...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 18/07/2011 16:27, mkinga wrote:
>
> > Ah good point, sorry I only read it quickly. In that case the one with
> > the stand would be a better bet.
>

> Unless we buy one of these:http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sturdy-Clothes-Rail-/280710677218?pt=UK_Storage...
>
> http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/6ft-Heavy-Duty-Clothes-Rail-wheels-Easy-assembl...
>
> http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-6-FT-Garment-Clothes-Display-Hanging-Rail-R...
>
> Nigle

[mkinga]

Try to get clean steel, not painted and especially not galvanised. I
will bring along some painted and galvanised steel to show what
happens if you try to weld it without proper preparation but for
practice clean stuff will save a lot of messing around.

Martin.

[Billy]

There are a number of short pieces of angle-iron that i sliced up for
welding practise-pieces. They are in the box with the welding rods.

Please include me on the workshops/classes. I've never tried mig
welding, only arc, and i need more teaching/practise.

[Philippe Bradley]

I'd love to also take part

[SheraDreaming]

Yes, me also :) But it depends on the date that gets set. Will
everything be covered in one day, or will it be a full weekend? One
would be wonderful as I'd come down from Oxford. Are rubber rain
boots ok?

[mkinga]

A day should be more than enough, once you have the basics and know
how to setup the welder, prepare joints and solve problems etc. then
it's down to practice in your own time. The actual welding process
itself is an art and has to be learned through practice. As for rubber
boots, they will get hit by small blobs of molten metal which worst
case could stick and melt all the way through. You could stick some
aluminium foil tape on them (flue tape) as a cheap method of
protection (I can bring a roll with me).

Martin.

[mkinga]

Right looking at the number of people intersted so far (and I suspect
there will be more) I'm proposing running sessions over a whole
weekend and one evening during the same week (So I don't have to cart
the welders back and forth). I'm thinking of a "drop in" format rather
than a fixed start time lecture format as this increases flexibility
for people who can't get there at a specific time. This also means
that there (hopefully) aren't large numbers of people queing to use
the welders at the same time as I can be doing "classroom theory"
stuff with new arrivals while others are practicing. If it proves to
be sucsesfull then I'm happy to run some more sessions later in the
year for people who can't make whatever dates are decided.

Cheers.
Martin.

[Russ Garrett]

I know there are a load of people interested in welding, but I am
primarily interested in avoiding people getting eye damage. So I'd
like to know that we have a decent ability to protect everyone else in
the space.

So I'd just like to be run through the safety precautions before we
start running any kind of welding classes.

Cheers,

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[MArkBot]

id be happy too help you out with tuition if you end up with a few
people and multiple welding machines on the go.

[mkinga]

Assuming we will have a curtain by then, the main risk will be
reflected UV from the walls (although it does get attenuated a lot so
you would have to look at it for a long time to be a problem (I've
worked in workshops alongside people welding for days without any
issues). Some warning signs along the lines of "WELDING IN PROGRESS
PLEASE DO NOT LOOK AT THE PRETTY BLUE LIGHT" At the entrance plus word
of mouth warning to other people in the space can be arranged. I'll
chat to you tonight about it.

Martin.

> r...@garrett.co.uk

[ATNMY]

Sounds great, count me in!

Will be back from the states in a couple of weeks time and am up for
teaching Arc as promised a couple of months ago too. Apologies for the
delay, sheep, travel, and net neutrality conferences got in the way!
Am happy to do it in conjunction or separately, depending on what
people want and how heavily subscribed it gets. What are you're
thoughts Martin? Will that get in the way or will it help keep people
busy rather than standing around? May be best to see how the first Mig
workshop goes and then discuss introducing Arc from there... Should
have some large pieces of scrap from a boat deck I replaced recently
that I can bring along too.

Rich.

[mkinga]

Got out bid on the Croydon one :-( I suspect there are plenty around
to be had though so we'll sort something out. In fact I know of an
artist who uses those clothes rails a fair bit I'll try and find out
where he gets his from.

Martin.

[Tweaker]

Please add me to the list of interested in the welding workshop.

Thanks

Tom

[Andrew Cousins]

I'd also like to learn please.

Andy

[Elliot Duffy]

I am also interested in learning to weld please.

Thanks,

 

Elliot

[mkinga]

Cool, just to let people know I haven't forgotten about this, I'm
sorting out dates/logistics at the moment and will get back to you all
with dates as soon as I can.

Martin.

On Jul 21, 4:47 pm, Elliot Duffy <eduff...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am also interested in learning to weld please.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Elliot
>

> On 21 July 2011 16:38, Andrew Cousins <serpentinepig...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'd also like to learn please.
>
> > Andy
>

[Toby Catlin]

Sounds like we could do with a wiki page to track who wants to come and possible dates

t