Hack And Tack, Now I Got A Vertical Material Rack

Ulma Doctor

Ulma Doctor

Infinitely Curious
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The title says it all....

....it all started with the necessity to free up horizontal space on my costco-type steel garage racking unit.
i was using the top shelf to store up to 48" pieces of differing alloys of mostly aluminum,
but the is some odd pieces of steel, stainless steels and non-ferrous metals and plastics too.
the collection didn't seem to interfere, but i pulled a chunk from the bottom and started a mini rainfall of materials i wasn't expecting :eek:

luckily i was gifted with a strong flight response, i watched the sh@t show from a slight distance.
i then came to the conclusion that there was work left undone :grin:

i have no shortage of crap to make things out of, nor do i have a shortage of tools or knowledge , i was out of excuses!!!! :anon:

as a challenge, ONLY SMAW (stick welding) will be performed on this build :grin big:

so i picked up the 4.5" angle grinder and went to work cutting

the frame is made from 3/8"x 1/8" rusted Unkownium, stick welded together with 3/32" E6011,
without any surface preperation, (rust and all- i just welded over it ;))
the frame was 40" tall x 11-1/4"deep x 14"wide across the front.

i did some minor surface prep to the ends of the frame with a flap disc in the intended weld zone.
then, welded the unknownium frame to a reclaimed 18 ga 304 stainless steel pan using 1/8" E309L16 :black eye:
i had a HF 1,000# mini 4 wheel dolly that wasn't being used and decided to use it as a mobile base for the new abomination.

without further adieu, the pictures of the hack and tack vertical material rack

IMG_4105.JPG IMG_4107.jpg

here she is getting aluminum loaded

IMG_4108.jpg

the small footprint is easily rolled into a corner.
i estimate there may be 200#LBS of aluminum stock in the picture
that used to take up almost 24" of top shelf space
it cost me nothing other than the electricity to run my trusty ol PowCon,
some 6011,some 309L16, and a small pile of rusted steel, a small dolly and a reclaimed rectangular pan
i just had to take that one off the DO List immediately :cautious:


bonus question: have you ever welded 1/8" (or thinner) materials together with stick welding???( I'd love to hear tales)

as always thanks for reading!
 
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Use 5/32 E7018 and don't stay in one place very long. I still will blow a hole in 1/8 stock. It is so frustrating when i was watching the welders at Nelson Manufacturing lay down perfect beads with a tig on stainless steel. I guess that's why they are professional welders and I am a farmer. Just finished patching the fan housing on an air blast sprayer with stick on 12 gauge. Functional but not the perttiest. So don't feel a lone.IMG_20200606_152259.jpg
 
Hey Doc, I hope it's not an issue for you but, whenever I store stock vertical, it bows. Does anyone have a compact way to store their stock that doesn't cause it to bow? I would love to get some ideas to stop this. I like the idea of horizontal storage, but just don't have the wall space. Anyone have ideas/success with storage? I don't know if its because of the material, I don't keep much aluminum on hand, really just steel. Seems the thicker it is, the more problematic it is.
 
nut farmer beat me to it. 5/32 7018 was my trick for thin stuff too. And not running a bead just pulsing like a continuous tack. It was harder when all I had was a regular helmet instead of an auto helmet. All I had for decades was OA and buzz box and did a ton of fab with those two. It takes a lot of practice and I’ll be honest, when I got on a mig in the middle 90’s it felt like cheating it was so easy. In ‘76 I did all the fab for the refurb of a rice huller outside of Merced. I was lucky I got some tips from a real welder like 5/32 7018 and how to avoid warp. In ‘80 we did a whole packline with nothing but OA and a buzzbox. Both were a ton of 10ga. But I cant remember the last time i arc welded.
 
As often happens more and more with my Old Timers I remembered along about the time mig was coming down in price there was this thing called a weld stitcher that was a gun that hooked up to a A.C. buzzbox. It was supposedly for welding up down to 22ga with a arc welder. I never used one but I seem to remember a review like in Popular Mechanics or Hotrod mag and they said it worked good. I could only find the manual pdf for it online from ‘87 from Eastwood.
 
A little backstory about my buzz box. It was 11 years old when I bought it in 81 and I had loaned it to my brother to do a project in about 90 and left it with him for two years. When I picked it up the fan had quit working and had overheated the wires from the transformer to the swich. I replaced all the wires using #6 to replace the #8, replaced the fan. And also replaced the leads with larger wire and added quick connects so I could remove the leads if I wanted to move the welder. I also made up a set of 25' leads to give me a 50' reach without moving the welder. All this wire was given to me so all I had was cost of fan, four quick connects and some time.
I welded about 15 - 4 x 6 frames using unistrut to mount plywood on for an electrical competition about 20 years ago. They are still in use today. I also used 5/32 7018 and a bucket of scrap steel to wrap the stinger lead around as many times as I could with a 25 ' lead and still weld. It reduces the voltage just enough I was able to run a bead without blowing through. I have a mig now for these projects.
 
C-Bag said:
As often happens more and more with my Old Timers I remembered along about the time mig was coming down in price there was this thing called a weld stitcher that was a gun that hooked up to a A.C. buzzbox. It was supposedly for welding up down to 22ga with a arc welder. I never used one but I seem to remember a review like in Popular Mechanics or Hotrod mag and they said it worked good. I could only find the manual pdf for it online from ‘87 from Eastwood.
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you mean like this???? :grin:
i bought it about 3 years ago and forgot about it until you mentioned it

IMG_4113.jpg
 
Holy Cow!!! Well your welcome Doc! Hope it still works. I’ve never run across one even though Eastwood says they sold thousands.
 
Logan 400 said:
I also used 5/32 7018 and a bucket of scrap steel to wrap the stinger lead around as many times as I could with a 25 ' lead and still weld. It reduces the voltage just enough I was able to run a bead without blowing through.
Click to expand...
I’m curious; how does wrapping the lead around a bucket of steel reduce the voltage?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Through inductance? I’ve never heard of this trick before, just a guess.
 
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