More welding practice and pivot assembly

More welding practice - still not consistent enough.

I made a holder for my TIG torch.

I decided to do some engineering while my welding skills are developing, so I made the pivot.

The pivot cosists of 2 12mm rod end (Heim) joint bearings.  These are relatively cheap, so that when they wear out (as they will, because they will get wet and dirty), they can be easily replaced.  They are also arranged so that the pivot angle can be adjusted ∓ 5 degrees.

The steel comes from a local industrial supplier that will cut and sell small quantities and offcuts to visitors - very handy.  It is 5mm mild steel.  The channel section is cut from a square section.

I have a week of leave in 2 weeks time - I hope to weld the front frame then.

Welding practice today

I work full time, but today I have annual leave (holiday), so I have been practising my TIG welding.

When welding the dropouts and parts of the pivot, I will need to join thick steel plate (4mm or 5mm) to thin wall tubing.  Melting the plate whilst not destroying the tubing is challenging.  My first efforts were, as expected, poor.

Things improved however.

I'm at the stage now where most of my welds are OK, but I still have an occasional disaster.  I'm trying to become consistent, as its possible to ruin hours of work with one bad weld, or by putting too much heat in and distorting the assembly.  Practice, practice...

Resources

Information on the web about python construction and riding are concentrated into a few places.  I have found the most useful of these to be:

http://en.openbike.org/wiki/Main_Page

This Wiki has links to all the other resources that I found to be useful.  Thank you to all the python builders who have devoted their time to document what they have done in order to make the task of those who follow so much easier.

The best resources for learning to TIG weld are to be found on Youtube.  There are a large number of useful videos, which I have found to be invaluable.

The workshop

The workshop is very small.  It has a plastic roof, little ventilation and no heating.  It is very hot in summer and very cold in winter.

My steel surface for welding is small - working on assembled sections of the bike will be a challenge.

My welding machine is a cheap DC TIG machine.  The pros of TIG are that there is more control on thin steel sections and it is relatively clean (no fumes) in comparison to MIG and stick.  

The con is that it is difficult to learn.