Header Bender

[Guest JAMIE T]

TIG welding is ideal for welding thickness's under 1/8". MIG is the best bet after that. When my shop bought a TIG welder(the size of a refrigerater)we had big plans for it. We welded one piece of furniture with it. It got the metal way to hot. We usually build the furniture from 3/8" aluminum, which is gravy for our MillerMatic 250's with the XR spool gun. It took twice as long to complete a bench with the TIG(top of the line Miller). I've used the TIG for sheet metal and it works great, also, I would use it to weld a chromolly cage of .090" wall tubing. I used a Miller 250 to weld some thin sheet metal(.035 wire) and had to nearly turn it all the way down to weld it and it still burned through easily. It would have worked better with so .023 wire but we don't keep that stuff at the shop. I am not a pro welder and I am learning new stuff all the time, but when you weld 8 hours a day and 5 days a week, you tend to learn prety fast.

 

Jamie

[Guest Anonymous]

Okay, I cut the flange from the header, sectioned about 1/2" and welded it back. Had to buy a torch ($57) to bend the tubes and get everything positioned nice and tight. Burned some holes but cleaned up the inside of the tubes (I hate die grinding welds ).

 

Bottom line is I have about 3/8" clearance from the steering shaft (stock position) and about an 1" from the T/C mount. Had to make a pretty deep groove in the motor mount for shaft clearance(Alsil's version) but added reinforcement that makes that not a problem.

 

Saved about $50 doing it this way (including $57 bucks for the torch, about 8 hrs labor, but heck, I work cheap! $0 heh). But hey, it was fun.

 

I should send this header to sanderson and have them make one up.

 

Anyway, many thanks to all you guys for the advice. I would've tryed the sand method but didn't have to bend the headers that much.

 

I swear I'll take some pics of this stuff and get them posted somehow.

 

Thanks again.

 

Jon

[Guest Anonymous]

Hot bending tube shouldnt weeken it anymore than cold, if anything it should allow it to sustain a higher strength because the grain is able to flow and not stretch as is the tendancy with cold bending, if you look at some aluminium cages you can see the 'stretch marks' from cold bending.

 

Also Tig welding should be as strong if not stronger than mig, The problem is that it isnt set and forget like mig. Im currently finishing my second certificate in Tig and have found that the settings on the machine are only half the problem, the distance from tip to weld pool and the preparation of the tip (which detereates throughout the welding process) is the major contributor to the quality of the weld. And as the tip changes ie, melts and picks up spatter etc you have to change your tip position and distance to weld pool, but once youve got it you can 'feel' when you've got good penetration.

 

Jamie T you should see the transformer type welders, there smaller than a domestic mig welder but very powerful, weve got a hitachi at school it cost 10 grand and im the only one who uses it because all the knobs and switches scare everyone I weld up to 1/4" with it without using water cooling, (using multiple runs of course).