Sheet metal welding clamps

FOMOGO said:
I would just do a lap joint with with silicone and rivet in place. A lot less work, and no chance for distortion. Mike
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After 20 minutes with the welder, I found I have several helmet problems, which made things difficult for me. One, my decent hood, is defunct - due to battery leakage. Cleaning the battery compartment and putting in new batteries did not fix it. It doesn't auto-darken at all under arc. I was suspicious about that, but this it the first time I confirmed it under an arc. The cartridge seems to be obsolete, or I haven't been able to find a replacement. Kind of mad about that, spent real money on it.

My crap HF helmet (solar powered) does seem to work better than the formerly good hood, but I have to overcome some of it's deficiencies. One, it tends to fog internally, which is awful, and two, the top of the hood doesn't block overhead light, because it is cut back to save 10 cents of plastic. The overhead light comes in AND illuminates the inside stupid white sticker and screws up your vision. I could make a black hood cover to prevent that, but it doesn't make the actual helmet any better. The vision quality isn't suitable for my eyes, or this kind of close work.

Surprisingly, even though I couldn't see well, I made a row of tacks. I didn't fill it all in, but I could see it would be mostly ok. I welded the coupons together with sheet metal butt welding clamps. There's like a 1mm gap between the coupons, which seems to be common for these clamps. But this was only 3" and I have to do maybe 60+". I don't want to spend that level of effort on this - it's not a custom rod, it's a simple lathe backsplash. If I were to entertain doing anything like this, I'd have to drastically upgrade my hood, and do something about hood light leakage even on an upgraded one. To do that much welding requires a lot of time, and the ability to see what you are doing!

So butt welding this is out. On to Plan B. The materials are large enough to be overlapped. I can rivet this together, holding it with cleco clamps, but I have to close the corners. I could tack the corners and then rivet something like an angle on the back side. It would be functional, so there is that... At this point, I will be satisfied with functional. That way I can use my lathe again...
 
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Progress so far... Took a while to round up everything. Slow progress, but getting there. Overkill on the 2" spacing, but that's me. I put the c clamp between the pairs of new holes that I will drill. Keeps the bottom piece from moving too far.
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Rivets work if you're an airframe guy. I would have done like @FOMOGO suggested and spot welded a lap joint. Save the butt joints for tanks and vessels. Lap fit-up is forgiving and self-reinforcing, and heat is a minimal issue with spot welds. It looks like you've met your objectives without needing to make much of a mess or put effort into corrosion protection afterwards, so all is well in the world.
 
GeneT45 said:
Darnit man! Now I need to make some nerfty holders for my Clecos... Maybe. I've got an awful lot of them, but that looks pretty slick.

GsT
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Bought those Cleco's quite a while ago, they came with the plastic holder. It's dumb as dirt, but it works great. You can directly use the tool to both remove and insert the clamps. Keeps them organized, which is a mighty +1 in my view.
 
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After seeing the organizer I searched "Cleco Organizer" and found many examples, both shop made and a few commercial. Now I gotta make some.
 
Cordo said:
After seeing the organizer I searched "Cleco Organizer" and found many examples, both shop made and a few commercial. Now I gotta make some.
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Mine holds 50. The holes are spaced 9/16" apart, which is close, but works very well. There's also a hole to hang it up, if you are the "hook type".
 
Well it's not pretty, but it's functional. Cleaned it up a bit to get it ready for paint. Won't be Grizzly Green like the original, because all I have is some grey primer and a can of safety blue. So safety blue it will be. Guess it will match my mill. Here it is, a mixture of rivets and spot welds and a Mig tack or two. Maybe one day I'll improve it, but it won't be soon. I need to get this back where it belongs, mounted on my lathe.

Tomorrow's going to be raining, so maybe Sunday morning I can shoot some paint. Would have done it today but the wind kicked up.
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I'll smooth over any rough edges and call it ready. If I ever get another house, I can think of a whole lot of things that would have this job much easier. Was a pain to accomplish with my setup - that's going to change.
 
Too rainy and windy for paint the past couple of days. So today was the day. Cleaned the paint up and used some alcohol to get some additional crud off. Rattle canned some primer on it, let it dry a bit and shot some safety blue paint on it. This paint sort of matches my mill. Since it was outdoors, you know what happened. I'm not going to fuss over it. I figure the bugs add character. Put the backsplash in the garage to dry overnight. I'll wait at least 24 hours for it to dry. Glad that it didn't rain on my parade. Since it was warm in the sun, I needed that brew.PXL_20230521_194817917.jpgPXL_20230521_211138857.jpg
 
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