Welding Advice

[Doug_Tipple]

My wife has worn out her hands through years of repetitive motion on her job. While we still have health insurance, we have two surgeries planned to help repair the damage. You would think that she would plan to take it easy with her hands in the future, but, no, she has other plans. She has an idea about doing wire sculpture, and I'm trying to talk her out of it, as I can't see her trying to bend steel wire with her hands. Anyway, I am wondering the best way to join 10-12 gauge steel wire. She has been watching artisans using oxyacetylene torches, and she thinks that looks cool. Small mig arc welders seem to be popular sellers and readily available. Anybody have thoughts about which of these two methods might be better for doing wire sculpture?

[mutepointe]

I don't know about welders. I wanted to comment about leverage. The weakest person with the right amount of leverage can make things happen. There may be simple ways to design tools that would do all the hard work. I bet if a person checked into how they bend heavier steel, a lighter weight system could be developed.

A friend of mine says that she doesn't know how to do anything but she can make a really great lunch for those folks who do. I'm in the same camp as her.

[dwest]

I would suggest starting with brazing which she could do using a single gas type and lower initial out-lay. Oxy is great for ferrous metal welding and cutting but brazing might be all she needs for her wire work. A good vise and small anvil along with various jigs can really make a difference in bending sheet stock and wire. Sometimes the hands are just holding the stock and your body weight is doing the actual bending. I do a fair amount of brass and bronze work, I'd say the greatest stress on my hands comes from hammering stock. I burn my hands too, but I can figure out how to do that just stirring a glass of chocolate milk.

[I.D.10-t]

Acetylene is worth avoiding if oxy/butane, propane and butane/propane mixes or other cannot. Acetylene has many great properties, but it needs caution and education above other torches.

[chas]

I'd go with gas, as the MIG welder can just do one job, while a torch can soften and anneal metal, too. As ID10T said, oxy-propane or -butane can do most jobs; she can always get acetylene later if necessary.

If she hasn't any background, a course at the local community college might be a good idea. I'm not generally hyper about safety, but there are lots of things that can go wrong with gas welding/brazing and all the associated paraphernalia.

[brianormond]

Ex-Oxy/Acetylene, arc & TIG welder here:

-For reasons of safety- Get instruction first if opting for any kind of welding or brazing equipment. Oxy-acetylene rigs can be used for a wide range of applications from small to huge but require training for safe use. Acetylene is highly explosive. The best welder I ever saw mastered the difficult technique for welding aluminum with it, a task usually reserved for TIG or MIG welders. The dude was spooky good with a deft touch, able to exploit the thin envelope between heating and oxidation TIG welders take for granted.

-Simple hand tools like pliers or Vise-Grips are invaluable for handling & manipulating hot
objects-along with good leather gauntlet gloves. Always have the gloves & other protective gear on! An oxy-acetylene flame properly adjusted will have a temperature of 5300-6000 degrees F. at the tip of its little blue cone. Running said flame across any part of one's unprotected person will create an instant third-degree burn.

- My welding mentor some thirty four years ago demonstrated acetylene's innate quality by inverting a styro coffee cup, then punching a hole in its top to flow acetylene into it from an unlit, cold torch. Throwing a lit match to it from as far away as possible created a tremendous boom and a shower of styrofoam shrapnel. Point made.

-I have little experience with the craft applications of brazing, but the simpler/cheaper the better if it does what you need.

Best of luck with it-
Brian

[chas]

. . .Simple hand tools like pliers or Vise-Grips are invaluable for handling & manipulating hot
objects-along with good leather gauntlet gloves. Always have the gloves & other protective gear on! An oxy-acetylene flame properly adjusted will have a temperature of 5300-6000 degrees F. at the tip of its little blue cone. Running said flame across any part of one's unprotected person will create an instant third-degree burn. . . .

I have twice gotten in trouble pointing with dangerous tools. This time, I was silver-soldering filter baskets with an oxy-acetylene. Someone came up and asked me where something was, and I pointed with my torch-hand. The flame went right across my other wrist. Fortunately, it was a couple of inches from the torch tip, but it was still a nasty burn. Not at all painful (but stinky) at the time, but a couple hours later it was really burning.

I'm generally a pretty cautious and thoughtful person, but occasionally I do something monumentally stupid.

[Jerry Freeman]

I've done a fair amount of brazing with an air/acetylene setup and found it straightforward and easy to use.

You might look at what equipment is available for jewelers who do a lot of silver soldering, which is quite similar to brass brazing.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[Doug_Tipple]

Thanks for all of the good advice, folks. My wife is experimenting with bending smaller gauge wire. I expect that she will start with silver soldering or brazing rather than the oxy-acetylene or arc welding that she was talking about before. We just came back from a vacation where we visited several shops that had wire sculptures. My wife has a lot of new ideas about what she wants to do.

As an aside, my father's auto body shop used to generate their own acetylene gas for their oxy-acetylene welder. The 14ND carbide in granular form came in a steel barrel. The granular carbide when placed in water gave off acetylene gas. The acetylene generator was a potential bomb that luckily never went off in our shop, but that was a real possibility, as you could feel the heat on the side of the generator as the granular carbide was dropped into the water. I remember taking the carbide to school and putting it in the toilets making a bad smell. It's a good thing that no one had a match or a lit cigarette. That wouldn't have looked good on my permanent record.

[I.D.10-t]

First day of welding class the teacher had us all take a wiff of what acetylene smelled like and told us that if we ever smelled it to leave the room and have the building evacuated. He cautioned that even flipping a light switch could ignite the gas.

Old mining lamps use to use the same setup as your dad's shop. With how common carbide lamps were I'm surprised at the lack of major accidents.

[Doug_Tipple]

First day of welding class the teacher had us all take a wiff of what acetylene smelled like and told us that if we ever smelled it to leave the room and have the building evacuated. He cautioned that even flipping a light switch could ignite the gas.

Old mining lamps use to use the same setup as your dad's shop. With how common carbide lamps were I'm surprised at the lack of major accidents.

The area in southern Indiana where I went to college was an area of karst topography, which means that there was an abundance of sinkholes and underground caves. In my undergraduate years I was an avid spelunker, and the carbide lamp was our light source while underground. They were considered more reliable than flashlights. Of course, you were supposed to have several other light sources as an emergency backup. To light the lamp, you open the valve to release the acetylene gas, and you hold your hand over the reflector to accumulate the gas. Then, with a sidewards motion you roll the sparker and ignite the gas with a small boom. It is kind of neat to do this underground in total darkness and silence.

Several years later I went down to the 3,000 foot level in the Kelly Mine in Butte, Montana. Instead of a carbide lamp, we were given an electric headlamp with a rechargeable battery pack. Looking at all of the battery recharging equipment in the dressing area, you could see that the old carbide lamps were a thing of the past with regard to underground mines.