fbekholden.com

Hey John,
Some great work there. Appreciate your time to upload pics and description so we can all learn something along the way. Look forward to your next instalment.
Regards
Stephen

Thanks guys.

Blacky and Neil, if you’re serious about wanting this part made, I’d probably want to tweak the moulds a bit first, as well as get some 1.6mm sheet before doing more pressings, which I’m happy to do.
There’s a fair bit of work still involved in getting the piece usable after pressing the three parts out and I’d love to give you a finished product, but I reckon you blokes are clever enough to sort that part out. We can have a chat next time we catch up

Can’t make the run tomorrow unfortunately. Looks like the weather’s smiling Should be a great day. Have fun.

Cheers,

John


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Hi John sounds like a plan am happy to talk about it when we catch up as I am going to need one for something I have planned, I have almost a full sheet of 1mm cold rolled that I use for repairs I thought that would be more than ample thickness and easier to press.
Anyway let's talk soon.
Neil

John,
I am very much enjoying watching you work mate.

Problem after problem solved.
Can’t wait to see the end result.

Ric.

Ta Ric.

I lashed out on a TIG welder at the last Hairy Forbes 3 day sale early in the year and hadn’t arced it up until now. I’ve never done tig before so another learning curve commences. I’ve done plenty of You Tubing and reading various forums on the topic and finally had a crack.
My aim was to fusion weld some 1.2mm cold rolled steel, so I started off playing with different settings & tungsten sizes and ended up with this and a few other bits after a couple of hours practice.



I then got the courage to weld a couple of pieces I intend using on the car. It didn’t matter if I annihilated them as they were pretty simple to make again if needed.
First, to fusion weld ie. no filler rod used, it’s best to be squeaky clean and have no gaps between the joins



Then some tack welds about an inch apart (the weld lines top left are just some more practice runs)



Then I did a continuous run without stopping from about the midpoint to the end. It’s not super straight but appears effective



and repeated for the other half. What was cool about this was the minimal warping. If you look at the heat haze, it’s fairly even.



To achieve this, you need to travel at the same speed all the way and, if you go too slow you risk burn through. Too fast and you risk not getting full penetration

Here’s the backside showing the penetration



I did get a couple of burn throughs



I’m not confident enough yet to fill these with tig so I cheated and spotted the holes with the miggety mig mig later.

After the weld was complete, there was a slight “V”, but some planishing with a hammer on a flat surface fixed that





Another two advantages I found were, other than less warpage,
1) that it appeared quicker than mig, where you normally play “join the dots”. Each 4” weld took me less than 30 seconds and
2) there’s minimal grinding needed. After planishing, the metal is fairly flush and because it’s softer than a mig weld you can easily file or sand to flush. It’s also pretty hard to planish the harder mig weld to get rid of warping, and you risk cracking the join if you try.

Cheers,

John




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Nice one John, you will be doing all our panelwork before you know it !!!!!

Wow, tig....


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Nice work - Trigging is an art but brilliant for panels - like any welding you try and keep heat to short bursts - and it pays to relax the spots before joining the dots - ie use a hammer and dolly to give them a few whacks before doing the longer runs.

I used to spend hours watching the old man do this on his rust repairs - was never any good at it myself though.

tacks no more than an inch apart - never join two sections close together but stay about 6 inches away from the last bit you joined - using hammer and dolly as you go while the tacks and longer welds are still pretty warm to relax them.

Why no fill material though? Interested as the old man always used a wire to add some material - right or wrong not sure.

Hi Wal’. Yep it’s an art alright and I’ve never been an artist so it’s going to take me lots of practice to get the hang of it, if I ever do!
The explanation below is compiled from my VERY extensive 3 hours of experience on 1.2mm sheet metal
With respect to filler wire, I found it’s very similar to oxy/acetylene welding. If you have a perfect fit (no gaps), then you can fuse the two pieces together without filler wire. I found that the side I weld on ends up a bit sunken, and the backside raised. When I then planish with hammer and dolly, it comes out pretty flat both sides.
If you do have gaps in fit up, then you need filler wire.
There’s no problem using filler though, just a bit more material to remove later and, some argue, it’s a stronger weld.
When/if I get the coordination of holding a tig torch in one hand and dabbing with filler wire in the other, I’ll give that method a go
There’s a thread on a metalshaping forum where a guy uses very high current and travels really fast without filler wire - what a smart arsed prick, but I wish I could do that.

Cheers,
John


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I removed the motor and gearbox yesterday, with the help of my son during the final extraction. I’ll do a blow by blow with pictures soon.
During the removal of the support bracket that the handbrake bits attach to, we had to use a hammer and punch to remove the bolts





and ended up with 19 fasteners instead of 16, hmmmmm



To make my day, when the bracket came off, here’s what I got





I needed a cuddle, so went up to the house for some sympathy from my lovely wife, but for some reason she was too busy. As I was heading back to the shed, she asked if I’d seen her blue and white nightie. I said no and trundled on



The bracket was in pretty good nick with minimal pitting on the inside. After a clean and paint, it looked ok



The prop shaft got the same treatment





In the spirit of using as many original bits as possible, I had a go at restoring the four bracket bolts, including welding the three separated ones together



They came up pretty nice. Whaddya’ reckon?



Cheers,

John


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Ha ha John.

That cross member is worse than mine was by the looks. The crush inserts were 90% intact. It makes you wonder how much rust is lurking, so better to find it now.


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Geez John your welding has really improved mate great resto
Neil

And I think you had better put your missus’s nightie back in her wardrobe. She will never know.

You idiot

Thanks John - a chuckle a minute - a great story as always.