In fall 2004, when I first decided to start making Mojolevers, I knew I’d be doing a lot of the fabrication work myself. One of the first things I bought was a Miller EconoTig welder, and of course I had to put together a welding station to use it.
A few years prior, a roommate and I had assembled a small workbench from 2x4’s and 4x4’s, and I had inherited sole ownership when he moved out. It was too small to fill the role of main workbench anymore, but it was just right for welding, along with a few tweaks:
The main work area is a 1/4-inch thick aluminum plate, 2x3 feet. I was concerned about transferring heat to the underlying table during welding, so the plate is raised up on an array of 1-inch tall coupling nuts, with a countersunk screw through each one to secure the aluminum to the wood tabletop:
Instead of clamping the ground line to the part to be welded, the clamp just locks onto an out-of-the-way edge of the aluminum plate, which in turn grounds whatever part is set on it:
No need to keep transferring the clamp from part to part, much more convenient in a mass-production setting.
A one-sided Vise-Grip style clamp allows parts to be clamped against the table surface:
the clamp can be removed if more space on the table is needed.
In TIG (or GTAW) welding, tungsten electrodes are used to produce the arc. The electrodes must be sharpened to work properly; although they don’t get consumed during the welding process, they can become contaminated and misshapen by inadvertently sinking the tip into the molten weld metal, and that’s when they need to be resharpened. For this, I have a bench-top grinder bolted to the table:
Because the tungsten electrodes contain a small quantity of radioactive thorium, the grinding dust is an inhalation hazard. In addition to wearing a P100-rated respirator (and safety glasses of course) when sharpening electrodes, I use a PVC piping system and suction fan to directly collect most of the grinding dust and expel it outside the garage:
The PVC piping system also draws air from an exhaust snorkel that can be positioned over the work area, but I finally discovered that even without using it, I get adequate ventilation by fully opening both garage doors.
I try to keep a couple dozen electrodes on hand so that I don’t have to stop welding and resharpen very often:
In July 2007, after I sun-burned my bare face by performing 180 tack-welds in a row without a helmet (yes, I closed my eyes!), I bought an auto-darkening welding helmet. It works great, saves me the trouble of flipping the helmet up and down between welds. But the “clear” state still has pretty dark tint to it, like wearing very dark sunglasses. In order for this helmet to be useful, my welding station needed more light. And so I went and got some low-price reflector utility lamps from Home Depot:
They clamp onto a couple of furring strips I fastened to the wall, and all are plugged into a wall-mounted power strip, providing single-switch lighting control. Each one has a 150-watt-equivalent CFL, providing a lot of light. Having three light sources with a good spread between them also reduces problems with harsh shadows. The whole setup works very well now.
Because of my day job, I’m well-trained in compressed-gas safety. Nonetheless, for a long time I didn’t bother using a bottle rack to secure my argon. In my previous house, I just kept the in-use bottle tucked back in a protected location. After moving into our new house, they bottles were kept out in the open, unsecured:
This is a bad thing. When full, the pressure is in excess of 2000 psi; if they fall over and the valve or regulator gets knocked off, you effectively have a high-velocity 50-pound rocket on the loose. Better to tie them to the wall so they can't fall over in the first place.
Bottle racks are readily available from welding shops and other places. But of course, rather than buy a rack, I figured I’d make one, since I had all the tools I needed to do it. In summer 2007 I welded one up:
I drilled the holes first in the baseplate (the lower set of holes in the above photo), and then after welding it together realized I wouldn't be able to get bolts in there because of all the structure I was welding in over those holes; that's why I added the "ears" with fully exposed boltholes (the upper holes in the above photo).
The rack sat on a corner of my welding table for almost a year before I finally found the time to powdercoat it and install it in summer 2008:
A wider shot, showing its location next to the welding table:
I don't have a sewing machine, so I installed the nylon webbing and buckles by heat-welding the webbing with a soldering iron. Not quite as pretty or strong as a sewing job, but strong enough to keep bottles in place. In the top photo you can see the lag bolts fastening the rack to the wall; now you can see why my original bolt holes on the base plate were kind of useless!
One final shot, with bottles secured:
The first stool I bought, in fall ’04, for only $40:
it was cheap, but exceedingly uncomfortable; they say it’s padded, but trust me, it ain’t. Not only that, but it’s too tall; on two occasions I cut a couple of inches off of the legs, but still found myself hunched over while welding. In July 2007, I bought a better stool:
A little more expensive, $99, but much more comfortable for long periods, the height is a little lower (and can be adjusted even lower), and it’s got wheels. Aaaaah, much better.
Questions? Comments? Email me!
©2006, Mitchell P. Patrie