Dang now that is a update!!!!
CK5
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'72 K5 - Greg's @MightAsWellK5 Build
- Thread starter Greg72
- Start date
This is the build description. I will improve this later. (GB)
Is there any advantage to TIG instead of MIG on those frame rails?
Martin
Martin
Yes. You will find TIG exclusively for high-end motorsports applications (prerunners, trophy trucks, Ultra4 cars, etc) where they are looking for ultimate strength and safety of every joint and connection. Being able to lay down a root pass with a high-degree of control at each moment let's you get perfect "fill" even in the fitment isn't 100% perfect to begin with. The cover pass builds strength on top of the root pass and widens the entire weld to create and even larger and stronger final result. There is no doubt that MIG would be about a million times faster but you just can't control the small details as well, and I suppose it might also be easier to make a weld that "looks" good that actually has poor penetration into the parent material. Ultimately, the framerail project was a great excuse to get more accomplished with TIG. There are probably 100 feet worth of weld-inches in those two framerails and it was too good of an excuse to practice TIG for me to ignore. It's been an awesome learning experience and the welds have come a long way over the last few months.
Glad you liked it. Took about 5 hours to put all of that together.... so it feels good knowing that you got some enjoyment out of it.
It’s an awesome update. I can’t wait to see this thing driving around hidden falls.
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Wow, as always incredible work!
Holy cow what an update!
Now that you have the plasma table, and were willing to throw half your frame in the trash which blows my mind, what else will be rebuilt?
Will the 205 and magnum box fit in that monstrous cross member?
Now that you have the plasma table, and were willing to throw half your frame in the trash which blows my mind, what else will be rebuilt?
Will the 205 and magnum box fit in that monstrous cross member?
"220......221.......whatever it takes" - Michael Keaton
Not looking for excuses to slow the build down, the framerails were just an obvious chance for a WIN and solved a lot of issues.
The ability to do rapid prototyping and testing of parts is a capability that is immensely valuable. That alone makes it worth the acquisition price.
The Magnum205 is dimensionally similar to the Atlas-4 so, fingers crossed, it shouldn't take a whole lot of radical modifications to the Monolith to get it installed. It does have a nice clocking ring so there are indexing options every 8 - 10 degrees IIRC.
bp71k5
3/4 ton status
Did you save any of your TIG tuition pile? Wondering how large it is so I can judge how much more practice I need before getting that good.Yes. You will find TIG exclusively for high-end motorsports applications (prerunners, trophy trucks, Ultra4 cars, etc) where they are looking for ultimate strength and safety of every joint and connection. Being able to lay down a root pass with a high-degree of control at each moment let's you get perfect "fill" even in the fitment isn't 100% perfect to begin with. The cover pass builds strength on top of the root pass and widens the entire weld to create and even larger and stronger final result. There is no doubt that MIG would be about a million times faster but you just can't control the small details as well, and I suppose it might also be easier to make a weld that "looks" good that actually has poor penetration into the parent material. Ultimately, the framerail project was a great excuse to get more accomplished with TIG. There are probably 100 feet worth of weld-inches in those two framerails and it was too good of an excuse to practice TIG for me to ignore. It's been an awesome learning experience and the welds have come a long way over the last few months.
Glad you liked it. Took about 5 hours to put all of that together.... so it feels good knowing that you got some enjoyment out of it.
Hi Brian,
There are a few scraps here and there but when this all started it seemed like a better idea to just keep track of the amount of filler rod that was consumed as a measure of how much practice has been logged.
TIG rod comes in 3' lengths... and the last couple of inches typically gets thrown away. Instead of throwing them out, they go into a small container and at some point they can all be counted (and multiplied by 3 feet each) to understand how many feet of welding has been done.
In terms of hours logged...... probably just over 100 of actual "hood time".... And maybe another 100 hours of watching MCD1 / Weldmonger / Pacific Arc TIG Welding on YouTube.
Morgan (MCD1) just did a 2-part series on TIG welding open-corner joints....almost 2 hours of instruction in total. Lost track of how many times it's been watched to pick up new details, comments and techniques. His comments about running the machine at super high current >230A is a bit controversial, and may not be good advice for a novice welder who can't move fast or smooth..... but as he likes to say "Take what you need....and leave the rest"
Be careful..... it's addictive once you start and really commit to mastering it.
-G
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And like you have done up to this point, you're a student of whatever craft is needed to accomplish the next goal. Well done, bud.
David
The guys I know don't throw away anythingHi Brian,
There are a few scraps here and there but when this all started it seemed like a better idea to just keep track of the amount of filler rod that was consumed as a measure of how much practice has been logged.
TIG rod comes in 3' lengths... and the last couple of inches typically gets thrown away. Instead of throwing them out, they go into a small container and at some point they can all be counted (and multiplied by 3 feet each) to understand how many feet of welding has been done.
In terms of hours logged...... probably just over 100 of actual "hood time".... And maybe another 100 hours of watching MCD1 / Weldmonger / Pacific Arc TIG Welding on YouTube.
Morgan (MCD1) just did a 2-part series on TIG welding open-corner joints....almost 2 hours of instruction in total. Lost track of how many times it's been watched to pick up new details, comments and techniques. His comments about running the machine at super high current >230A is a bit controversial, and may not be good advice for a novice welder who can't move fast or smooth..... but as he likes to say "Take what you need....and leave the rest"
Be careful..... it's addictive once you start and really commit to mastering it.
View attachment 451489
-G
They weld a new stick to the end of the stub and finish it off.
That's 8% waste in that box, I don't like waste.
But other than the WTF I said when Scott told me what you did 2 weeks ago, seeing these updates make it look like it was worth it.
I just hope I can start on mine so I can finish with you and meet at BB
There are all sorts of waste in a project like this.........materials, money and time.
Maintaining balance between them is difficult. Spend too long trying to save material, and you are wasting time. Waste time and you are wasting money.... it's a vicious cycle.
Ultimately materials and money can be replaced, only time is lost forever once it's spent.
Over the last year, instead of assuming that my time is always free ($0/hr when working on the MightAsWellK5 build).... the labor hours are treated like a paying job and a true market value is assigned for every hour spent in the garage. This shift in mindset has been a real eye opener.... Quick Example: If a bunch of parts are being metal-finished using the DA sander and piece of slightly-worn abrasive paper it might take 20 minutes to clean up the welds and blend and to smooth everything perfectly. With a fresh abrasive, that same job would be done in 5 minutes. By being stubborn and trying to get more life out of a cheap $2 abrasive disc, it will cost 15 minutes of my expensive labor and those minutes are lost forever.
These days time is not wasted like that. When the abrasive stops working well... it's replaced immediately so that progress is faster and more gets accomplished during the hours that are available. When you start looking around, the costs of inefficiency in a workshop are everywhere.... time wasted searching for tools, time lost driving to replenish materials that ran out during a work day... or even just starting the day without a clear plan of action and milestones to accomplish.
It took way too long to learn this valuable lesson, but it now guides the way that work gets done every day.
-G
I agree, and if you are doing work by the hour you really have to pay attention to that, I can't charge a customer for half an hour of work to save a $20 part, or I would waste their money.
Build is looking awesome Greg! The CNC plasma is a new level of accuracy and speed for you, nice.
Build is looking awesome Greg! The CNC plasma is a new level of accuracy and speed for you, nice.
I do not disagree with this logic.
The only time my hourly rate was worth $0 is when I had no work so my time was spent to reduce cost. I was doing everything myself because I had no income and I had the time and talent.
Now I don't have the time and I delegate work just like you because my time is worth more than the cost of farming out rebuilds or other mundane work.
I still do custom work when I can or simple repair on my daily.
The rod however is not the same as the abrasives, it takes a second to connect the new rod to the end of the old one and then you don't have to waste time and space to keep the left overs.
I am the same with abrasives I even started realizing the value in getting the best ones vs t h e cheap ones, turns out they end up more expensive in the long run.
Are you shooting for this year BB or ext year at this point?
When I'm working on a project and come up short on some material, I know I've just killed a whole bunch of time. You've either gotta stop working on the project altogether or spend time trying to find what you need. I try very hard to have everything I'm going to need on-hand.
Drill bits are one tool I've gotten very picky about wasting my time. Rather than trying to make old bits work, I will buy new bit(s) if I have a project that's going to require a lot of drilling.
Drill bits are one tool I've gotten very picky about wasting my time. Rather than trying to make old bits work, I will buy new bit(s) if I have a project that's going to require a lot of drilling.
Won't be slowing down on the effort and momentum that has been building over the last several months, but the numbers speak for themselves:
This reminds me of a couple more.... simple things, but it all adds up....
In the early days of TIG practice, the tungstens were ALWAYS getting dipped in the weld pool. The amount of time being wasted to pull torch apart, grind the tungsten and reinsert it for welding was ridiculous and the worst part was being taken "out of the zone" and not being able to get back quickly to the mindset of welding. After a few frustrating sessions like that , the solution was to just make up a bunch of tungstens (sharpened on both ends) so that they would always be "at the ready" and swaps could happen a lot faster and without even standing up from the welding table. The that little box gets low, it's just a matter of setting aside maybe 30 minutes to put on a respirator and safety glasses and grind all of the contaminated tungstens in a single session and refill the storage box. Back in the old days, this would happen at least once a week.... now it's been a couple of months. Probably not the huge time saver now that it once was... but in those early hours of TIG practice it was huge.
The drill bit thing makes sense to me too. Instead of having only a single 1/8" or 1/4" bit which get used all the time, they can be bought in 5-packs from McMaster-Carr or BoltDepot (or wherever). The small diameter bits are super cheap anyway so it's never worth the aggravation to search for a missing bit, or fight with a dull one. There has been a Drill Doctor in the shop for years, but only recently spent time learning how to properly use it. Now, there are two bins hanging on the wall..... the labelling is self-explanatory.
Same basic concept applies..... when there are a few spare minutes available (but not really enough to do a larger project) just sit down with the "DULL" bin and put a nice fresh cutting edge on a few dozen drill bits. It's a little thing, but grabbing a "known sharp" bit in the middle of a project day is a good feeling.
There are probably a million tips like this that add efficiency to a workshop. These are just a few that might help somebody else.... if you've got good ones, feel free to share them.
-G
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Another thing we like to have is several angle grinders. That way there's a grinder for the cutoff wheel, another for a flap disc, and sometimes a third for a griding disc. I like have a couple of drills for a similar reason.
For sure!
Same for air tools... 2" Roloc with 36G sanding disc... another with a 3" Roloc with a stiffer backing pad. Another with the 3M Crimson conditioning disc...
Here's another efficiency topic you guys reminded me about..... Mill Scale.
For the new CNC table, material is cut from full 4' x 10' at the local supplier into more workable 48" x 30" sheets. It's all hot-rolled sheet steel so it's got mill scale all over it. The plasma table doesn't care, but once you have cut parts to assemble all the edges need to be cleaned up prior to welding. If you want to clean the entire part of mill scale for a nicer appearance you will spend HOURS grinding and smoothing and waste tons of consumables and time.
An old fabricators trick is to use Distilled White Vinegar to break up the mill scale and it works amazing.... soak the parts for a couple of hours while doing other work, and you end up with nearly perfect clean steel.
It worked so well, that it was worth building a quick tray (and a small sheet of plastic) for the large steel sheets to soak in... once clean, they get lightly oiled and stored until needed for the project. Allows you to move more quickly to a finished-quality part.
-G
Anything that saves time and cuts down on abrasive dust is a double win, nice!
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