first project???

[bh5446]

after reading the "how did you get started in welding" thread, i had an idea for another topic. what was your first project? i know there's alot of us on here and a ton of expirence, but i think it'd be nice to look back and remember the first and maybe inspire someone to do there own!

mine was a boat trailer i built out of steel that my dad had gotten for free. it was mainly 1 1/4 x 1 1/4 x .25 that was obtained from a local military facility. when it was done, it held my little jon boat with no problem and weighed a couple hundred pounds. but i had made it from scratch and had no plans! i had ordered the axle from northern and everythign was put together with a forney stick welder. i took it through the local DMV and it passed inspection with flying colors. i still remeber the inspector saying "an 18 year old kid built this, i don't believe it". talk about a job done right and having a great deal of satisfaction!

a few months later i was backing down a boat ramp and the trailer turn into the dock, i saw a peice of wood floating and saw no damage to the trailer!!! that was one tough trailer.

[Craig in Denver]

When I was 10 or 11, I was soldering my brass tubing slot car chassis together.

[usmcruz]

I built someone a micro brewery for the home.

[nocheepgas]

Tig

First project I did with my TIG was a custom set of equal length headers for my Jeep.

[urch55]

First Welding Project (Seed Planted)

My first project that started it all was I fabricated and installed a hitch on my pickup truck.
Bob

[Jim-TX]

Got a pic?? Got ANY PICS of your work? You talk a lot. Let's see the welding pics.

[kbraby]

Nearly all my welding to date has been for holiday lighting displays. A lot of wire frames, brackets, and other parts.. Don't have the 2008 video done yet, but here is some 2007 video...

http://www.vimeo.com/661657

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrNqONoAp5s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8Mmsq7SuOg

[urch55]

Wow! Get the Fly Swatter

Got a pic?? Got ANY PICS of your work? You talk a lot. Let's see the welding pics.

Okay Jim Since there was others who also complained I will rephrase my answer. First of all the thread is first welding project. I am sorry but I did not even own a camera back in 1974. So anything else would be off topic. I would have to look around and find some and scan it just for you, but you will need to start a thread for photos, so we don't get off topic of some one elses thread that would be only fair, since you brought up the subject in the thread of 120foot Oxygen Vessels.. And then you will have to tell me what you think of my work. But this time no cussing or name calling.. I think that is fair. Let me know when you start one..

[TripleTrophy]

My first project, beyond a couple of carts, was a railing for a porch I had built. I wanted something light and airy, which ruled out wood and prefabbed aluminum. Ended up with 1/2" and 1" steel tubing, with a radial design. At some point, I will end up adding plexiglas panels to it in order to "make it safe".

Next after that was a switch to aluminum, with a Christmas tree as a warm up and then a trailer. Since then a boat lift and dock, with a marine railway dolly next on the agenda.

[Desertrider33]

My first major, on-site, paying, welding job was fixing a 50' steel flat bottom hull party barge (a big house boat for lake use) for my neighbor's father. This was sometime around 1993 after I bought the HTP mig welder, when I was in college.

I had done various rusty exhaust and broken shock mount repairs and built bumpers, various brackets and other projects and trailer hitches, for myself, friends, neighbors, and even a few paying customers (paying with actual money, not just beer and pizza). This was my first mobile job and first 'big' job for me.

The boat was on a trailer at a yard in Phoenix that had no 220 power and was basicly just a big dirt lot with a warehouse on it and a bunch of boats and other rv's stored there. The boat was outside. I had no generator at the time, so he rented a big diesel generator on a trailer for me. We had planned this out ahead of time and I acquired all the materials beforehand, took measurements and did most of the cutting and prepping at home so the on-site portion of the job would go as quick and smooth as possible.

The generator rental company provide a plug to match their outlet, which I wired up to the mig welder once I got to the job site. I also had to check the voltage and check the jumper position inside the welding machine to be sure I had them right. All the welding I did with the HTP MIG200 and .035 70S-6 with 75/25 shield gas, which was the only mig wire or gas I had ever used at that time. I didn't know anything about self shield fluxcore wire back then. Fortunately, there was no wind.

The boat was a flatbottom with a slight V at the front, so it had a small amount of keel at the bow even though the bow was square. The boat had been run up on some rocks at some point before he bought it and the keel was split for about 3 feet and dented in on both sides along the split. Bottom was made of about 1/8", or maybe a little thinner, galv steel plate/sheet with some kind of nasty black tar-ish undercoating all over the outside surface.

We had planned this out ahead of time and I acquired all the materials beforehand, took measurements and did most of the cutting and prepping at home so the on-site portion of the job would go as quick and smooth as possible. The generator was expensive to rent and he wanted the on-site work done all in one shot, if at all possible. Working alone, I knew that was going to be a loooong day...

The boat was sitting on a trailer that was too small/weak for the weight of the boat, so it was sagging in the middle along both sides between the axles and tongue. The frame rails were either i-beam or c-channel, don't remember which, about 2x6 and maybe 3/16 or 1/4 inch thick. That boat must have been quite heavy to bend the trailer like that.

First order was to jack up each side of the trailer frame untill it was bowed up slightly and then truss it underneath with thick wall tube or pipe as stanchions below the frame rails and add a second rail below the main rail along the full length of the trailer. I think I used 2x2 sq tube for the stanchions and black pipe for the lower truss rail. Once I lowered the jacks, the trailer settled down to right about level and straight. Lucky me.

After that was accomplished, I started fixing the boat. The owner had already removed whatever was in the interior above the damaged area (I think it was kitchen cabinets in that area) and I cut out the steel floor with the angle grinder and cut off disc. There was too much stuff to catch fire inside the boat to use the torch.

Once that was cut out, I beat the sheet steel bottom out from inside to flatten it out as much as possible and get the sides to meet in somewhat of a seam I could weld up. I welded up as much of the seam as I could from inside, laying on the floor and reaching down into the bilge with the mig gun. I left the machine on the truck backed up to the boat, which was a lifted 4x4, so the bed was quite tall and I had just enough torch length to reach inside the boat and weld.

Then I moved to the outside of the boat. I had already cut out 2 sections about 4'x4' of some 3/16 plate with the torch at home and I used those to cover the entire damaged area of the hull, welding them in from under the boat. I put a gradual curve in the plates with the torch at home, to help them fit the shape of the hull. The rest of the plate fitting I did on site.

First I had to mark out where the seams would be on the bottom of the boat and remove all the nasty tar stuff. That felt like it took forever. Scraping with a paint scraper and brushing with the wire wheel and sanding with the flap wheel. I hope I never have to mess with anything similar to that tar crap again, I don't think I'll ever forget that stuff.

Then I welded some cross members to the trailer frame under the area I was working on so I could stand some bottle jacks on the cross members to hold up the plates and bend them the rest of the way into the shape of the hull. Combination of bending with the jacks, beating with the sledge hammer and tacking them as I went worked good so I had a reasonably tight lap joint all the way around both plates and a reasonably close seam down the middle to weld the two plates togther. All welds had to be water tight!

The welding came out very good, despite using solid wire and gas outdoors, and considering there was still some residue from the tar stuff in some areas on the surface. I did have to grind out some spots and re-weld due to porosity. I didn't want any chance of this thing leaking! Once that was done, I went back inside and welded in the section of floor I had cut out earlier.

All the welds did in fact turn out watertight, as the boat was still floating at it's dock on Lake Pleasant for some years after I did the repair.

This was Phoenix in May right after my school semester was over, which is fairly hot by that time of year, so I arrived at the job site about 3 in the morning. I worked all day and all night without stopping, except taking a couple breaks to eat lunch and dinner, which the owner brought over for me from a local restaurant, and finished the job about 7 the next morning. So, I worked about 28 hours straight on-site with no sleep at all, plus the day before I spent going to measure the boat and trailer and then to the metal yard to get the metal and then cutting the pieces at home.

Now here's the dumb part... I did all this for the GRAND SUM of.... a WHOPPING $100!! Haha! Yeah, I was young and STUPID! But, I was WELDING and getting paid actual money, which I probly spent on beer and pizza anyways, but hey it was job and I was so proud of the work I did on that boat and that was the real joy of the whole experience!

Fortunately, I'm not that dumb anymore...

[Desertrider33]

Urch, your 7010 rods should run just like 6010, only difference is the tensile strength of the filler metal. Flux should be the same. I have used 7010 but only in 5/32 size, ran them with the same rod manipulation as 6010. Feels like a 1/8 6010 on steroids.

[safetydave]

My first project would have to be actually getting to weld when I have never welded in my life, back in 1986 working for a company in Bronson, Michigan makeing hitches, ballmounts for cars and trucks.

I got the job as a fill in for the guy who was doing it until he got burned real bad and was off work for about 3 months, they asked me if I could weld told them no but would try it and see if I could do it after about 3 days of practice ended up welding better then the guy doing it for about 5 yrs, so the rest is history and after 20 plus years of welding I'm stilllearning how to do things and help other welders coming in to the trade as well.

Some other things I have welded include trailers steel and alum,handicap ramps, portable entry systems for class rooms,docks, boatlifts jetski lifts,wrougth(sp) iron chairs,trash hoppers,convayers,farm gates, frontend loaders, dump trucks, snow plows and the list goes on.

Yes I'm still welding out of my garage as well trying to make a few extra bucks on the side, so thats about the jist of my welding projects (FOR NOW)