The weave, for some reason, is tough for me. When welding across a gap I have to force myself to not be in a hurry. Cross, pause, cross, pause, cross, pause. I get the mechanics, but doing it in a fluid rhythm is a huge challenge for me!
Arizona Rock Crawling Daily Driver
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The weave, for some reason, is tough for me. When welding across a gap I have to force myself to not be in a hurry. Cross, pause, cross, pause, cross, pause. I get the mechanics, but doing it in a fluid rhythm is a huge challenge for me!
1st we need to separate the word weave and the term unnecessary movements.
the motions Blaine describes are unnecessary movements. it's a crutch used to waste time until material has been deposited.
weaving is done for a reason other than personal motion preference, maybe the project requires a very large weld, or it's gapped, or you're spreading the root.
the sprockets i run require a large weld deposit, they are responsible for up to a 10k load capacity. i'm not permitted to run multiple passes, though that's how it should be done to be correct in this instance. (pic below of the robotic weave with flux wire). that weld is about 1/2" on a 7k hub and 1 would have to run very hot and extremely fast and super accurate to even come close to as uniform as this comes out. i can't do it by hand this neatly. you can see a pattern but it doesn't have pronounced highs and lows the flux runs pretty flat. if run in a straight line the flux wire is capable of a very smooth finish if welded flat or semi vertical (less then 75*).
spreading the root is what we do in vertical down corners, and i would consider it a weave, it's dictated by the need to root well into both pieces. a secondary benefit from this action is it can help us shed wire and avoid an over flowing deposit from heaving or dumping out on us.
gaps are their own issue and can take different techniques to fill different gaps, but the ability to run a slow steady straight line is still key, needing the crutch or unnecessary motion will work directly against you in this instance.
this type of welding often requires bursts and not full on run n gun. i start at my open ends, a few tacks on each piece and meet in the middle. then i start from 1 side, establish a root and proceed across using the bridge i made to help hang my deposit and into the other piece and root. let that go totally dark, then repeat. (** dark **, your weld should only glow for 3-4s, if you can count 5-6 mississippi and still glowing, you're "to hot" and probably havin a hard time right now).
so the description in the quote above is fairly accurate, you need a pause for cooling so you can use that previous deposit as a bridge. if you're struggling with burnout and cannot get across, turn the power down just a tad and try that. if you cannot turn the power down move faster.
this ain't a great pic i even left a bead or 2 of spatter i should have taken off, shame on me. but i hope you can see the uniform machine weave.
I'm a self taught (you tube) welder. I've never had a weld fail, but I always want to be better. at everything.
Do the little e's weaken the weld?
I usually zig zag from one piece, to the other, pause and back again, but always forward. striving my hardest to keep the distance traveled consistent and to run in a generally straight line. I rarely double back. I've even been trying just a straight run, but I feel it doesn't get into the two pieces of metal enough sometimes.
Here is a sample of my welds. They are cleaned up a little for paint prep, but you get the idea. Typically it glows for 3-4 seconds, so I guess i'm spot on for heat.
Sorry starkey, just trying to learn
Do the little e's weaken the weld?
I usually zig zag from one piece, to the other, pause and back again, but always forward. striving my hardest to keep the distance traveled consistent and to run in a generally straight line. I rarely double back. I've even been trying just a straight run, but I feel it doesn't get into the two pieces of metal enough sometimes.
Here is a sample of my welds. They are cleaned up a little for paint prep, but you get the idea. Typically it glows for 3-4 seconds, so I guess i'm spot on for heat.
Sorry starkey, just trying to learn
This is very useful information. I'm a Grasshopper, with much to learn in the welding space!
man........ IDK if i'd complain about that 1 a whole lot, while there seems there is evidence of motion its not unusually pronounced. it had plenty of heat, the edges are fairly uniform and straight, it's overlapped as it appears to have been welded in quarters, which is very common.
for me 2 runs to reach around a 2" tube is difficult, 3 is much easier and 4 is just the easy way. other than maybe cleaning the surfaces a little better.......i don't think it'd fail. knock that dam spatter off, hit that with a wire wheel and i could live with it.
would mine look like that, no, i'd run 3 overlapped stiches straight around like we have been discussing.
That is my fuck with folks sample who tell me you are a shit welder if you trigger weld something. I send that to them and tell them to piss off.
i wish i could spend just 10m with people so they see how easy it can be...and see is the key here.. many would be like "WTF that's it". i could type 10 pages and not teach as much as 10m next to ya. ( < next to someone, you know what you need to)
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Well, before anyone gets the wrong idea, I am not a welder. I am an okay at it amateur that barely gets by. I don't do it enough to be good at it, I know how good I am not and every single weld I do is a struggle to try and just get acceptable. I've figured out how to cheat welds to make them work and I won't ever be better than that. I know what I'm doing wrong, I am just not able to practice enough to stop it on every weld. That's the difference between a welder like you and an okay amateur.
but i'm not that guy...........i'm same as y'all, just an ok amateur. i have no formal training, ive told the story b4, they were not allowed to fire me so they put me somewhere they expected me to fail miserably.
the benefit i do have is hundreds of hrs on that gun and toss in the need to learn to program my robots movements and weld parameters and you'd all be on the same fast track to seeing how small changes effect the finished product.
..........what 1 man can do, another man can do.
sufficient power and your contact point dictate this. each weld is made slightly different due to it's orientation, flat, vertical or overhead and even by corner or butt weld. that tip needs to hit mid point right down the seam of the 2 parts.
set yourself up a horizontal corner weld,
set your 3/8" stick out... lay that gun at an angle so you can see that wire tip just over the nozzle end... set yourself so you can make the motion you need cleanly and comfortably. then pull the gun while watching that wire end run right down the center of that seam. do this motion dry b4 you hit the trigger, always be sure you can get where you need to go without having to articulate your hands and wrists into wonky positions. most troubles come from not getting the proper position to follow it to the end comfortably.
super crude drawing........when that tip contacts the power melts that steel like nobodys business its moves outward from the tip. the power level dictates how fast and or deep this melt will occur....this is your penetration or root. when you contact both parts right at the seam the energy liquefies both edges mixes them with the wire you're injecting and as you move away it cools and hardens and you have your finished weld.
that red circle is what that tip will melt as you pass.. that tip actually melts a furrow that furrow is your root. also visualize what might happen if the tip was just off center favoring 1 side.............can you picture how that circle would move over? if you're dead middle your melt is center and equal on both pieces. off center it'll melt 1 more than the other. the circle will move, the pie will get split differently.
that's not always a bad thing you can use that to play parts of different thickness to not overheat the thinner materials.
You bring up a good point when welding thin to thick. What is obvious may not always be. Moving the weld puddle slightly off onto the thicker stuff and then just a fast light wash over to pick up the edge of the thin stuff while moving a bit fast may not be something everyone knows to do.
OP
That circle visualization helped a lot thanks for that. So when you’re out there drawing the alphabet in your welds, you are probably moving that circle all over the place and sometimes not getting penetration into one piece or the other. Keeping that tip right in the root ensures that you are getting equal penetration into both.
keeping the tip centered in the joint ensures you are placing equal root or penetration into both pieces.
all the unnecessary motion or alphabet soup stacks material. you only get 1 shot at hitting that joint with the end of that wire so you want an angle and motion that allows the tip of that wire to carve the root. a pass like this is slow and deliberate, your a sniper.
alphabet soup is the guy with a 12ga blastin away knowing sooner or later "im'a get me somethin"
now go back.......... and lets not mix the need to create a weave to make this weld vs johnny buckshot.. when you create a weave pattern you need to ensure the tip follows clean material contact and it's not pushin puddle out front for your power to float in, that could result in a shallower root.
kinda why my robot weld and Blaines tube weld don't have belly's, we don't want to be pushin to much material ahead of us resulting in a shallower penetration. the backside of the motion is needed for fill and it lays nicely using up the whole deposit as we come back around to clean metal.
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So the last couple of days, my project has been extending the front upper shock towers to fit my new to me tuned 11.5” travel fox shocks I got from Blaine. Even with my poly outboard lower mounts on the axle, they were still a little long.
I set them up for 6” of uptravel and 5.5” of downtravel. My reasoning was that my springs unseat at 5.5” of downtravel so much more than that is fairly pointless, as well as I still have short arms up front. I think on the RJ 4” lift, 5.5” of downtravel is about the most I am comfortable with because the arm angle gets fairly steep there.
I ran an idea by Blaine to extend my towers, and Blaine countered my idea with a better idea (go figure)
. We used a cutoff set of stock shock towers to extend mine. The idea was to make it look unmodified.
First step was making a setup stick. Since these shocks just have bushings and not heims, I didn’t get fancy with it like I will the rear. I just cut a stick to the length I wanted my shock to be at ride height. The amount sticking up is how tall my tower needed to be.
Cutoff the top of the tower
Make an extension piece out of the tower blaine sent me.
I made it this way because the rounded bit in front sets the height, and then the extension has a skirt that goes around my existing tower. This gave me two sides to weld on and room for plug welds on the sides.
Turns out sticks are pretty precise.
With both sides tacked in I cycled suspension.
Droop
Stuffed with a tire. 6” of uptravel stuffed with a 35 into highlines is pretty uneventful looking lol.
Clearance at the shock tower
I definitely have some rubbing on the forward must spring perch corner but we will live with it.
Full bump.
Had to clock back the PSC cylinder because the fitting would hit the frame with 1/4” of shock shaft showing. Now we have a little space there.
Welded up and ground smooth
Painted.
Had to cut the inner fenders to make room for the shock tower as well as the stem on top. It needed room to move around during articulation. I also took the time to trim the front grill support of the fender so the AR would stop hitting it. I painted it black because the factory chose not to paint that part of the grill. I like the new look.
Just buttoned her up and drove home from my dads and it feels amazing.
Big thank you to @mrblaine for all of your help with the project. Now that the front is done I’ll move on to prepping for the rear projects!
I set them up for 6” of uptravel and 5.5” of downtravel. My reasoning was that my springs unseat at 5.5” of downtravel so much more than that is fairly pointless, as well as I still have short arms up front. I think on the RJ 4” lift, 5.5” of downtravel is about the most I am comfortable with because the arm angle gets fairly steep there.
I ran an idea by Blaine to extend my towers, and Blaine countered my idea with a better idea (go figure)
. We used a cutoff set of stock shock towers to extend mine. The idea was to make it look unmodified.First step was making a setup stick. Since these shocks just have bushings and not heims, I didn’t get fancy with it like I will the rear. I just cut a stick to the length I wanted my shock to be at ride height. The amount sticking up is how tall my tower needed to be.
Cutoff the top of the tower
Make an extension piece out of the tower blaine sent me.
I made it this way because the rounded bit in front sets the height, and then the extension has a skirt that goes around my existing tower. This gave me two sides to weld on and room for plug welds on the sides.
Turns out sticks are pretty precise.
With both sides tacked in I cycled suspension.
Droop
Stuffed with a tire. 6” of uptravel stuffed with a 35 into highlines is pretty uneventful looking lol.
Clearance at the shock tower
I definitely have some rubbing on the forward must spring perch corner but we will live with it.
Full bump.
Had to clock back the PSC cylinder because the fitting would hit the frame with 1/4” of shock shaft showing. Now we have a little space there.
Welded up and ground smooth
Painted.
Had to cut the inner fenders to make room for the shock tower as well as the stem on top. It needed room to move around during articulation. I also took the time to trim the front grill support of the fender so the AR would stop hitting it. I painted it black because the factory chose not to paint that part of the grill. I like the new look.
Just buttoned her up and drove home from my dads and it feels amazing.
Big thank you to @mrblaine for all of your help with the project. Now that the front is done I’ll move on to prepping for the rear projects!
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So the last couple of days, my project has been extending the front upper shock towers to fit my new to me tuned 11.5” travel fox shocks I got from Blaine. Even with my poly outboard lower mounts on the axle, they were still a little long.
I set them up for 6” of uptravel and 5.5” of downtravel. My reasoning was that my springs unseat at 5.5” of downtravel so much more than that is fairly pointless, as well as I still have short arms up front. I think on the RJ 4” lift, 5.5” of downtravel is about the most I am comfortable with because the arm angle gets fairly steep there.
I ran an idea by Blaine to extend my towers, and Blaine countered my idea with a better idea (go figure)
View attachment 346313
First step was making a setup stick. Since these shocks just have bushings and not heims, I didn’t get fancy with it like I will the rear. I just cut a stick to the length I wanted my shock to be at ride height. The amount sticking up is how tall my tower needed to be.
View attachment 346315
Cutoff the top of the tower
View attachment 346317
Make an extension piece out of the tower blaine sent me.
View attachment 346318
I made it this way because the rounded bit in front sets the height, and then the extension has a skirt that goes around my existing tower. This gave me two sides to weld on and room for plug welds on the sides.
View attachment 346322
View attachment 346323
View attachment 346325
Turns out sticks are pretty precise.
View attachment 346326
With both sides tacked in I cycled suspension.
Droop
View attachment 346329
Stuffed with a tire. 6” of uptravel stuffed with a 35 into highlines is pretty uneventful looking lol.
View attachment 346331
Clearance at the shock tower
View attachment 346332
I definitely have some rubbing on the forward must spring perch corner but we will live with it.
Full bump.
View attachment 346333
Had to clock back the PSC cylinder because the fitting would hit the frame with 1/4” of shock shaft showing. Now we have a little space there.
View attachment 346334
Welded up and ground smooth
View attachment 346335
Painted.
View attachment 346337
Had to cut the inner fenders to make room for the shock tower as well as the stem on top. It needed room to move around during articulation. I also took the time to trim the front grill support of the fender so the AR would stop hitting it. I painted it black because the factory chose not to paint that part of the grill. I like the new look.
View attachment 346338
Just buttoned her up and drove home from my dads and it feels amazing.
View attachment 346339
Big thank you to @mrblaine for all of your help with the project. Now that the front is done I’ll move on to prepping for the rear projects!
Well done best shock extension I have seen!