Custom Motorcycle Welding School

[Jeff B]

Try case hardening it with the torch. Heat it red hot. Turn off the flame and spray it with acetylene. You should be able to see the metal absorb the carbon. It'll look wet. You will probably have to do this a few times to absorb enough carbon. Then heat it and quench it. A word of caution, it's only to be done in a well ventilated area. Expect the hot metal to light the torch as well. Just turn the gas off and back on when it happens.

[Smoker]

Thanks for the advice, but I gave it a try last night at school.

Heated the blade to that bright salmon color, and quenched in oil. Not sure what type of oil was in the quench tank, but it was very light and clean, like canola oil.



File skates over the blade, and makes a nice high-pitched sound. I do believe it worked!

[Luther]

Acetylene carbon impregnation, Oh man that has potential. Hardening mild steel is like turning water into wine. I've had luck with high speed steel hard welding rod as in broken drill shanks.

[Jeff B]

I tried case hardening with the torch once. I started with 8620 steel. Based on the file test, I probably only got it to the mid to upper 40's rockwell C. Good enough for my application. Repeating the process a few more times would have probably produced better results and a thicker hardened surface.

[Smoker]

Thanks for the tips, guys!

Getting back to basics. Started doing some aluminum butt welds, focusing on penetration.

Have a long way to go, but improving slowly. Was able to go non-stop, start to finish, on about half the beads- that's new. Still have to stop and re-start sometimes to adjust my torch hand, or the filler rod.

Got some penetration on all my welds, but need to work on consistency. Also, my starts, stops, and spot welding need a lot of improvement.

Got a mix of convex, flat, and concave beads. I started noticing a small divot in the weld pool before it sinks down. That helps. Also getting better at filling up the depression fully with filler before moving on.

My travel speed is definitely too slow. Having decent results, but I'm sure the coupons would be very warped, if I wasn't using a welding/purge fixture.

Getting better at staying on-line, and not veering off in the wrong direction.

Front sides:


Back sides:

[Smoker]

I think the reason the instructors are big on penetration is because most students are focused on certification. I guess it takes a strong weld to pass the tests.

I've got a stack of aluminum coupons with various quality of beads from my practice. Thought I would test some, and see how they hold up. There's a big press they use. I think it's 20,000 lbs of pressure.

I throw away the worst beads, and save the better ones. For testing, I started with the worst ones that I kept.

First 3 pretty much just snapped in half.



Next 3 ripped apart on the weakest part of the welds.





Last 3 held together pretty well.





Still hanging on to my best ones for a while. Functionally, they're probably okay. Need to work on consistency, and better appearance.

[Smoker]

Just working on stuff, like foot pedal control and moving the puddle.

Basic stuff. On a 1.5" x 6" aluminum coupon, I can lay down about 3.5' of welding. Depends on the size of the beads, and sometimes I lay down a second layer.

Getting ready for school, now.

[Smoker]

Started messing around with the frequency control. Need more practice to figure it out.

Been mostly trying to lay beads with consistency. Slowly improving.

Still have to try fun stuff, once in a while. First try weaving a weld. Need to tighten up the dimes, they're hardly overlapping. The double and triple weaves were done in one pass. Not good, but it's a start.

[Smoker]

Still practicing hands & foot pedal control.



Slowly getting better.

[rz500guytexas]

Looks like you are making jewlery

[Smoker]

Still trying to have fun with welding.

First try weaving a butt weld.



First try weaving a butt braze.

[Smoker]

Lately, I've been using (5) 1.50" x 6.00" coupons to make these pieces. (4) fillet welds + (4) outside corner welds. Then, I run beads or weaves on the sides.

[FlyingBoat]

It’s maybe 7-8 years ago I put out about $2k for a multi process machine from Everlast Generator, very fancy all digital and very heavy, what’s especially interesting and one of the selling points for me was the “pulsed” mig feature. Sadly I’ve been occupied with work and many other obligations all the while and so as yet have not purchased any consumables or the gas bottle. Was looking at a cart just before covid struck, maybe I get around to it next year idk

[rz500guytexas]

One trade I wished I would have learned. Mine has been painting the TZ this past month. A few failures and mistakes as you have had but it is so nice to have a finished product that yo have done on your own.

[Luther]

Its hard to learn a trade like welding if your not starting at an early age and need a paycheck. Typically a guy who is mechanically inclined and didn't lead the way in high school academics. You weld 8+ hours a day and work is constantly criticized. If your good at a certain thing then you get those jobs. Those that don't never advance. I've had a friend of 40 years do most of my aluminum welding. He can look me in the eyes while we talk and a half second later hood down arc struck still talking. His specialty is winged alcohol sprint cars. Oil soaked sand cast high dollar heads with broken valves and Winters magnesium rear gearbox damage from crashing. He is so used to oil soaked metal that I can't get him to weld for instance a BMW car head thats pressure cast not full of oil and I need it to look cosmetically nice when done. He wants to grind everything near the weld zone because he wants it right. So I go to my other old friend who does vintage corvette racing. He's busy and expensive but I do his odd machining jobs so if I bring my parts clean and ready he welds em up. Then he tells me what he doesn't like how i'm doing it.

Smoker, it's really cool your showing us your work and progress. Lots of practice and some of those beads look really good! Yeah keep an eye on the back sides for penetration and do lots of bend back and forth to fail tests. Won't be long and you'll be looking for shop space