Zuk's Toyota Gear Installs: A Great Website for Gearheads!

Zuk's Toyota Gear Installs website is fantastic. It stands out because it's got lots of very detailed, but very clear, information about setting up Toyota 4x4 differentials.  Zuk's website is also rich with large, sharp pictures of the procedures he carries out when he sets up a differential. In fact, some of his pictures are downright artistic (note the picture at left).

It seems like he documents every one of his rebuilds and re-gears, so his site is just overflowing with tips and techniques. I imagine that if someone took the time to read through the whole site and to gather the special tools needed to do the work he would come away from the experience with at least a bachelor's degree in gear-ology.  I wish Zuk would take up transmission work and engine rebuilds so I could follow him on that too.  -- Mitrik

Tool of the Day, #1

This tool review is about the common hydraulic shop press. Pictured at left is a floor-standing model rated at 40 tons. 

What would you need one of these for you might ask.

Many automotive operations can only be carried out with a press. Axles, differentials and transmissions almost always have gear assemblies, bearings, races and bushings that are pressed on and off of a shaft or other component. Suspensions also have bushings that are pressed into control arms and spring eyes.  Presses are handy for bending and straightening operations as well.

The market has seen a flood of inexpensive hydraulic presses from China offered at stores like Harbor Freight and on eBay. Press capacity ratings start at about 4 tons with compact models that can be placed on a workbench. Models rated at over 100 tons can also be had. Common units for automotive type work are rated at 12 and 20 tons (24,000 - 40,000 lbs). The rating refers to the amount of force the ram can place on a workpiece. Twelve to twenty tons is usually enough muscle to git 'er done. Harbor Freight stores, that great outlet for Chinese manufacture, sell presses in this capacity range for less than $250.00. You will also find them on eBay, but if you are not local to the seller freight costs can be a killer.

Anybody who's serious about shop work that involves engines, drivetrains and suspensions is going to find one of these useful.

Electric Car Kits in Our Future?

You can buy a kit to build a replica of cars like the AC Cobra or Porsche 356 Speedster. And you can buy a kit to build a 350 mph airplane. So where are the electric kit cars!!?

I recently read an article about the Aptera Motors 2e plug-in electric (pictured above). It's going to be built, as a production vehicle, in California and sold to the public in 2010. One of my first thoughts was, "This looks like a cross between a kit-car and a kit-plane! I want to build something like this!"

Can a 90 mph home-built electric car be built for less than the $35,000 price of the Aptera? For now I'm going to be watching sites like Wired's Autopia to see what happens.  I've got my fingers crossed that some brave and creative soul is working out the details. -- Mit Spanner

Land of the Free, Home of the Diesel Deprived

In Europe and across the globe a revolution in fuel efficient diesel cars and trucks is underway, yet Americans are prohibited from participating. Take for instance the 2010 Mercedes E220 Blue. Here you have a nice, sporty mid-sized sedan that gets nearly 40 mpg highway. It has a 2.2 liter, 4 cylinder turbo diesel that puts out 180 hp and 290 lbs/ft of torque, and it can be teamed up with a manual six-speed transmission. Now this is no AMG hot rod, but it has some zip. And did I mention that it gets nearly 40 miles per gallon of diesel. Unfortunately it's not cleared by U.S. transportation authorities for use on American roads, so forget about getting your hands on one unless you plan a trip to Europe, where you may be able to rent one. If a Mercedes sedan is not your cup of tea, perhaps you'd like a compact 4x4 pickup like the Toyota Tacoma with the latest of the clean burning, smooth running, high power diesels. Or a Subaru Outback. Or an Audi, or a host of BWMs. Again, don't look for these in the U.S., because they are forbidden. It all has something to do with this being the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave I'm sure.  Maybe it's time to move to sunny southern Italy or Spain.

Electricity & Electronics for the Shop

I've seen the future and it's powered by electricity!  I love diesel engines in pickup trucks, cars and just about anything else. I love fast cars and 4x4's with powerful gasoline engines and turbochargers. This is what being a gearhead has always been about. And there's lots the homebrewed engineer can do with vegetable oil fuels and biodiesel, but if you read Wired magazine's, Autopia website you will see that "plug-in" electric cars are coming on strong. 

A new breed of gearhead is also rising to meet the challenge of working with the new battery and motor technology. Much of which is available now for hackers (gearheads) to purchase. Electric cars with 90 mph top speeds and 200 mile range are a reality. The problem is that they are being priced around $35,000. A resourceful hacker is going to be able to put something with that kind of performance together for much less.


Wouldn't it also be fun to start thinking about how to install an array of solar panels on the roof of the house to charge the new electric hot rod. And maybe produce enough power to put a serious dent in the household utility bill as well.

Now I'm a bit behind on electronics, but I found a book, Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics, Fourth Edition, that looks like an electronics technician's associate degree program under one cover. I'm happy to say that it's well laid out and easy to read! I love it because self-learning and reaping the fruits of the knowledge gained alway make me feel like I'm like beating the System!

One Step closer to Being a Metalworking Guru!

I took my first machining class the other day. I mentioned in an earlier post that I am not an official student in this class. Regardless, the instructor has welcomed me to sit in on as many sessions as I want. The machine shop is right next door to the welding lab where I am a regular student. I happened to meet the instructor a few weeks ago when he was in the welding area. We talked and the next thing I know I'm an adopted student in the manufacturing/machining class!


So far so good. In my first session I listened to a lecture about tool and feeding speeds.  In the lab we worked at setting up workpieces in the lathe and the horizontal milling machine. The machines are commercial grade Bridgeport products with digital readout (DRO) for the axis of tool positioning and feeding.


Next time I promise I'll have pictures.


I think I got a good head start on this class from watching the American Gunsmithing Institute's (AGI) lathe videos, which I rented from SmartFlix.com How-To DVDs  The whole AGI video machine shop course covers lathes, milling machines and other machine shop tools. It is very comprehensive with 26 hours of instruction. I costs over $1000 to purchase the set, but can be rented for as little as $14.95 per DVD.  Rent the Professional Machine Shop Course: Lathe


There are also have many other Lathe and Milling videos.


 They also have Welding videos and metal shaping for Sheetmetal.

A Couple of Good Little Welding Machines

The Lincoln Invertec V155-S is one of the small new inverter type welders that is slightly larger than a lunch box and capable of very good stick and DC TIG welding. It will run off of a household electrical outlet at 115 volts and 15 amps. If you can plug it into an outlet with a 20 amp breaker it has a better range. It also can be plugged into single phase 230 volt outlet for even more performance. With the right extension cord it can be used up to 200' from an outlet. It is also able to be run off of generators that can sustain loads of 15 or 20 amps at 115 volts.  The price is around $690 with accessories for stick only. It can be purchased for roughly $950 with the stick accessories and a TIG package that includes a torch and gas regulator and hoses. The only drawbacks I can think of is that that it doesn't have any remote current control capability and it's DC only so forget about welding aluminum in TIG.



The WeldingWeb.com forum has a thread with a good hands-on  review.

Now if you are willing to spend an additional $700 you might want to look at the Miller Maxstar 150 STH from Miller Electric. It has remote control, pulsed current modes, high frequency starting, works on house current (115 volts) and is still has similarly tiny size.

There are cheaper TIG welders in the new and used markets, some of which will also do AC TIG on aluminum, but these are going to be tethered to a 230 volt outlet which greatly reduces their portability. The idea after all is to have a welding machine that can go almost anywhere and plug into any outlet and these machines can do that. -- Mitrik Spanner

Automated Manufacturing and the Homebrewed Engineer

I think I mentioned earlier, that while I was at welding class, at my local Technical College, I met the  instructor from the Automated Manufacturing (AM) program. I found out that they have Bridgeport mills and lathes available for training in the intro to AM class. Next Monday evening I get to sit-in on the class when they work with those machines.


Earlier this week I joined the AM class on a field trip. We went to the Generac Power Systems plant in Eagle, Wisconsin, mainly to see their robotic welding set-up, but Holy Cow!  It was a great experience for a (wannabe) Homebrewed Engineer like me. We saw  stainless steel exhaust tubing being bent on a mandrel bender, a CNC laser cutting table with a whopping 4' x 25' cutting table (my gestimate). We saw the engine line, where we saw everything from 4 cylinder Ford natural gas fueled engines to huge Mitsubishi industrial diesels. We also saw a CNC water cutting table where they cut insulation panels with a 10,000 psi jet of water.


The robotic welding cell was what we really came to see. This is where they weld up big diesel fuel tanks. The tanks we saw looked like they had a fuel capacity couple of a couple of hundred gallons.  Because the tanks are made of sheet metal the bodies are not perfectly symetrical, so you could never program the robot to run a plotted course for the welds. Instead the robot "feels" the tank first to gauge the positions of some key landmarks on the areas to be welded.  Then when the welding is underway the robot can sense how close the welding head is to the metal by measuring changes in the electrical circuit that vary with the distance of the electrode in the welding "torch" head from the work. It was fascinating.


As usual, I was the geek who asked questions about everything, and I was only a guest of the AM class!


One of the things I came away from the experience with is that there really is a bottom line in these operations.  The company really seemed to be trying to make the most out of every penny it invested. I learned that the engineers have a wish list of equipment that goes unfulfilled because of cost constraints.  I found out that they even shop the used machinery markets for deals. The industrial engineer that guided our tour, and the experience of seeing things firsthand, put a human face on what was only a big corporate name to me before the tour. Of course I'm always pulling for the entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial spirit and always have been throughout my adult life.


All of this makes me want to build a CNC router and/or a CNC plasma cutter from some of the plans and parts that are circulating on the internet.  More on that  later ;-)  -- Mitrik Spanner

The Benefits of Student Status

The other day I was looking at a bulletin board in the main lobby of the tech college where I take welding classes. I noticed a flyer for the University of Wisconsin's software web store. I looked closer and noticed that Wisconsin technical college students are also authorized to get student deals from the UW store. They carry Adobe products. I'm a big fan of Adobe so I was excited to see that I can get a great deal on the CS4 Design Premium bundle. It has InDesign (page layout for print), Photoshop Extended (image editing & 3D images), Illustrator (drawing), Dreamweaver (web design), Flash Pro (web animation), Fireworks (web graphics) and Acrobat Pro (PDF document creator). This bundle would cost me about $1300 if purchased at retail. The school deal would give me a 2 year personal use license for $299! I also puts me on the upgrade path, so that when my student license runs out I can purchase the full retail license for the upgrade price.


Then I started thinking about Computer Aided Design (CAD) software. I'm a fan of Vectorworks from Nemetschek so I checked out their website and lo and behold! They have a recently created student portal featuring free one year student licenses for Vectorworks Designer 2010!! This is a profesional CAD package with 3D rendering that normally costs $2400. It features modules for machine design, architecture, landscape design, and theatrical lighting. I applied online and got approval the next day. I downloaded the wares and was up and running right away. The Nemetschek student portal is rich with free training resources as well.


I'm welding, I'm blogging, I'm planning for the Wrenchtech/Shop Kulture website and now I have access to software to make it all more fun and easier. Yes I'm having fun.

Tool Review: Automotive Spotweld Cutter

I have recently been disassembling a 1989 Toyota 4runner for practice in preparation for restoration work I plan to carry out on another 4runner. One of the things I have to do is disassemble the body shell around the "B" pillar and the inner areas of the rear quarter panels.  The structure of most modern vehicles are assemblies of many stamped sheet metal sections held together with hundreds of dime-sized spot welds. Disassembling a body shell requires a good tool to take apart many spot welds quickly and cleanly. If the parts need to be saved for reuse this is the way to go. This is where a spotweld drill comes into play.  It's a tool that basically a small precision hole-saw that you use with a common electric or pneumatic drill. The better spotweld drills have replaceable pilot tips and cutters. A few companies offer a kit with a mandrel (the tool body), several replacement cutters and pilot tips or bits. One such company is Blair Equipment.  The kit pictured bllow costs roughly $40.00.  To download a video of the tool in action on a spotweld click here. Windows Media 1.9 MB or MPEG 7.6 MB

 

click image to view larger

 

click image to download video

Update:  You don't have to buy the $40 kit to get started. Amazon has the basic tool with a single double sided cutter for sale for about $12.23. You can order double sided replacement cutting heads separately. They come three to a package (six cutting surfaces) for around $11.65. Your purchase will help support this blog.

Days 7 and 8 of Welding Class

We're still working away at TIG welding. After all this is a TIG class! Last week I was welding aluminum. Now we have moved on to 316 stainless steel.  I missed two days of aluminum due to work conflicts. And missed a chance to try to weld a box out of aluminum. No problem though, there will be lots of chances to sit in on the classes that precede and that follow my mid-day class. It looks like there will be no shortage of chances to make up, or even get extra, hours of practice.


Anyway TIG on Stainless is sure different than aluminum. We were using pure tungsten with a round tip on aluminum. Now our tungsten electrodes are 2% cerium and are sharpened to a point. We also switched to DC electrode negative from AC. It also takes less amperage to weld the stainless.  Gotta run now but here are my best of the last two days. There not much, but this is my first ever training and I only have about 12 hours of practice so far.


The first picture (below) is a fusion weld on a flat position, lap joint of two pieces of  0.125" thick, 316 stainless steel, run without any filler.

 

 Below is my best bead for the session with filler (308L). Sorry for the bad picture. I struggled with lighting issues.

 

What Does A Homebrew Shop Engineer Need to Know

What does a Homebrewed Shop Engineer need to know? Ultimately it depends on each persons goals. We think some blend of brain work and hands-on skills is the goal.  Math, science and engineering skills, with practical skills like welding, machining, composites and maybe electrical/electronic tech is the model.  A quick look at  The University of Wisconsin's mechanical engineering curriculum guide might be helpful for the brain part. They list 14 three credit classes in just the main topic, mechanical engineering, alone. That's 43 credits out of the 121 credits needed to get a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering.  There are only two  math classes required, a calculus and a linear algebra and differential equations class. It looks like students need to come to the program with some good math skills already mastered. There are also courses in chemistry, physics, electronics, engineering graphics and computer sciences that degree seekers need to complete.

Now I'm not suggesting that the Homebrewed Shop Engineer needs to throw himself fully behind such a curriculum, but I am suggesting that it could stand as a model. The internet offers free resources to study all these things so why not try to do what each of us is able. A little bit at a time is better than not at all. In the process each of us can find his own level. Some will want to go on through all the classes and some will not, yet all will benefit.  In the next weeks I'll be presenting an outline with links to specific resources. -- Mitrik Spanner

A Great Online Math & Science Resource

Who needs to spend a king's ransom to go to college when stuff like this is available!

The Khan Academy

The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere. They have 900+ videos on YouTube covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, biology and finance which have been recorded by Salman Khan.

Be sure to check out the "What People Are Saying" column on the right margin of the Khan home page.

I'm using Khan Academy videos to make myself into a serious homebrewed shop engineer. In future posts I will be spending time focusing on alternative educational resources and plans to make it easier for anyone to do the same. So subscribe to this blog now so you won't miss any of the fun! -- Mitrik Spanner your host for the Shop Kulture blog

Math For the Shop Engineer

As an aspiring independent engineer I have to face the fact that I need to improve my math skills. I can work with fractions and decimals. Maybe I could pass a pre-algebra test. This probably places me right in the mainstream with most Americans, but it's not nearly good enough for someone who wants to be a competent shop engineer. How much math does a shop engineer need? That's what I am in the process of discovering.

I discovered this book, Engineering Mathematics, which seems to fit my needs perfectly. Part of the book's description particularly grabs my attention:

"Whether you're an engineer looking for a useful on-the-job reference or want to improve your mathematical skills, or you are a student who needs an in-depth self-study guide, Engineering Mathematics is sure to come in handy time and time again." (emphasis mine)

The customer reviews for this book are almost all five stars and filled with praise. I recently purchased the book and can say that it looks very well organized and full of good content for self-teaching.

An Opportunity to Learn Machining Pops Up!

There I was, in welding class, minding my own business, when in walks an instructor from one of the other industrial classes looking to get some welding done on a fixture he's making. Something to do with hydraulic principals for the Automated Manufacturing class he's teaching. While he's in the welding shop he mentions that he has a field trip coming up to visit a manufacturer with robotic welding facilities. I say I'm interested in the trip, so he invites me over to his classroom to sign up. While I'm there I mention to him that I'm interested in learning basic machining and that it's too bad that the school doesn't have an entry level machining class.  He says, "But we do!" I didn't see anything like that in the course catalog, but he assures me that the class "Automated Manufacturing Concepts/Intro" has what I'm looking for. The class description is as follows.

Automated Manufacturing Concepts/Intro

An introduction to manufacturing processes with emphasis on manual machining to prepare students for further study in the Automated Manufacturing fields. Covers shop safety practices in a machine shop, the use of manual milling machines, lathes and drill presses to manufacture parts to print, and the use of basic metrology instruments to determine if the parts are to print. Calculation and application of correct cutting parameters of selected materials and tools is practiced.

I saw the lathe and the milling machine that are used for the class. The milling machine is a Bridgeport like I have seen in many small old-school machine shops. The lathe though, is some kind of modern CNC machine, however the instructor tells me that it can be used in a manual mode. I know what I'll be doing (if the gods of metal-working are willing) come next January!

Day Six of TIG Welding

Below is a picture of my latest welding sample alongside last week's atrocity. In these exercises I'm welding with the metal in the vertical position and welding from bottom to top (vertical up). The weld on the left is horrible. The weld on the right, my latest, looks a lot better. It's amazing what changing to a thicker metal can do to help a novice welding student. It's still not nearly good enough, but it looks like I'm making progress. The first sample was done on thinner aluminum (0.0625"= 1/16" = 1.5875mm). The instructor recommended trying to weld on thicker stock. The new weld is on 0.125"(1/8" = 3.175mm) aluminum. I think it's easier, in this case, to TIG weld on the thicker aluminum because you have more time to get your heat (amperage) right before you melt a hole in your work. I'm also getting more used to doing several important things at once. Like using the foot control for the amperage, feeding the filler rod with my left hand and moving the torch with my right hand. I hope someday I'll have something really smart to say about welding, but that's it for now.

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

If you're a gearhead and tool enthusiast like I am you will be happy to know that there is now solid intellectual support for our passions. Matthew Crawford has a PHD in philosophy from the University of Chicago, but he's also been a Porsche mechanic and a motorcycle repairman. He quit a prestigious job at a Washington DC think tank to start an unassuming motorcycle repair shop on the seedy side of Richmond, Virginia.


By all means get your hands on a copy of this book.  I'm in the middle of reading the book right now and couldn't wait to blog about it. I'll do a more extensive review in the coming days. Buy the book using this link to help support the Shop Kulture blog.

"It's appropriate that [Shop Class as Soulcraft] arrives in May, the month when college seniors commence real life. Skip Dr. Seuss, or a tie from Vineyard Vines, and give them a copy for graduation.... It's not an insult to say that Shop Class is the best self-help book that I've ever read. Almost all works in the genre skip the "self" part and jump straight to the "help." Crawford rightly asks whether today's cubicle dweller even has a respectable self....It's kind of like Heidegger and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."
-Slate

TechShop: A Fully Tooled Out Shop Open to the Public!

TechShop: Coming to a community near you!

Well not yet. But, if you live near San Francisco, Portland or Durham, North Carolina, and you can afford to pay the monthly fee, you can have access to a shop fully stocked with welders, machine tools, sewing machines, printing equipment, fiberglass works and about 50 other shop tools. Worried that you don't have the skills to run a lathe, a mill or a welder? Don't be! Reasonably priced classes are available to get you up to speed on the tool of your choice. TechShop is also looking to find partners who want to expand the idea to other communities.

What a great idea! I know where I'd be spending a lot of my time if one of these was near me. -- Mitrik Spanner

TechShop, Inc.
120 Independence Dr
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Toll Free: 1(800) 640-1975
Local Phone: 1(650) 521-9027
info@techshop.ws

Welding School: How About On the Job Training With Pay?

Even in this rotten economy, where there are 5 people looking for work for every job opening, heavy construction firms that build bridges, power plants and refineries are looking for welding and pipefitter trainees. Many of these companies will hire people with little or no experience and put them through their own private training programs. Trade Unions, like the Pipefitters, are also eager to get new recruits. Many of these jobs offer pay while training and lots of overtime pay. Jobs like this are not for everyone. The have lots of discipline and the work can be repetitive. They can also expose workers to the rigors of working outdoors in heat and freezing cold. Of course Walmart is also hiring parking lot technicians, but if you want to get skills that you can use to earn a family supporting wage and build some serious stuff this may be something to look into.

As a guy who has lived through this kind of stuff I'd say the most important thing is to...

Do Something, and Do it Sooner Rather Than Later.

... If you get skills earlier in life you can pick a better job later, or even better, start your own business.

Check out the recruiting video for Cianbro Corp (link near the bottom of their page) . I don't have any connection to this company, but the list of positions they have to fill looks pretty impressive! It looks like they are doing public infrastructure work and utilities, where there is no slowdown in the economy yet.

A Short TIG Welding Video

To do any kind of manual welding you need to be able to clearly see the molten "puddle" of heated liquid metal that you create as the welding proceeds. I'm still looking for a TIG video that has a good clear view of the puddle. In the mean time check out the handsome welds in this video from the website WeldingTipsandTricks.com, It contains 45 seconds of aluminum TIG welding in action. Welding Supplies, Welding helmet, TIG Inverter

Report #1 From Welding Class

I originally wanted to post after every class, but it has been a little hard to keep up. Along with writing for this blog and going to welding school, I've been try to manage my photos better, be my own webmaster and hold down a job. In any case, I've had five welding class sessions so far!! We are welding aluminum with the TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas) process , also know as GTAW (Gas Tungsten Arc Welding). I have played around with welding for nearly 30 years and I must say that welding school is a humbling experience! And just when I thought I was catching on the instructor switched us from welding on a flat surface to welding on vertical.

Below is an example of my work in the flat position (welded while the material was lying flat on my welding table). Not great, but not too bad for a guy with only a couple of hours experience with the GTAW process. I should also mention that both of these examples are on pretty thin aluminum stock (0.062"/1.575mm).




But then I started working in the vertical up position (material held in a vertical orientation while welding from bottom to top). Ooops! Looks like a chicken pooped on my metal.







I think there are about ten more weeks, so twenty (20) more class sessions, left in this Fall 2009 semester. Im sure that I will need to take classes at least through the Spring 2010 semester to have made good progress on both the TIG/GTAW and stick/SMAW welding processes. There might be a summer semester available too, but beyond that I will have to move on to other areas of the metal working arts and sciences ;-)

Tool Review: JMR Tubing Notcher

At $595.00 this is not a purchase most home shop enthusiasts would make lightly. I'm talking about JMR's heavy duty tubing notcher.

Pirate4x4.com has a great in depth review with lots of detailed pictures.

Watch out, if you like heavy-duty wrenching and fabricating on hard core 4x4 rock buggies and stuff like that, you might find yourself addicted to the Pirate4x4 website. They have a busy forum that is a great source of technical do-it-yourself stuff on drivetrains, suspensions, chassis and metal working techniques. Enjoy!

JMR Manufacturing
P.O. Box 606
Creston, CA 93432
805-239-5972

My Prior "Shop" Experience

First I should say that I do have some welding and fabricating skills. My first attempt to weld involved a car battery, some jumper cables and coat hanger wire "electrodes". I was 19 and trying to fix something on one of my cars. I don't remember much at this late date, but I don't think it turned out too well. I didn't know what a real electrode should look like, or anything about electrode diameter or flux, but hey, a guy's got to start out somewhere.

When I was 22 I got a job as a laborer on a steel building "erection" crew. I was an enthusiastic worker who liked climbing around on girders and bar joists and so it wasn't long before someone said to me "hey kid you think you could weld this corrugated sheet metal flooring down to these joists?". They didn't have to ask twice. Just the thought of being allowed to wear a welding helmet and to handle the stinger of a Lincoln engine driven welder was exciting as hell to me. The welding I did really didn't require much skill. It was a lot like making spot welds to hold sheet metal decking to the building's floor framing. After a couple of weeks of that I was allowed to graduate to running beads to weld floor joists to girders. This wasn't structurally critical. It was really just another kind of tacking operation, but it let me get practice watching the puddle (of molten metal) at the end of my arcing "stick" electrode. If you do this stuff day after day you begin to learn something. I also got to do quite a bit of oxy-fuel torch cutting and I learned how to rig loads to be lifted by a crane. I only worked for that company for about four months. They were from out of town and only there for the length of the project. They moved on and I stayed put.

Soon after, I got a job with a small, boiler and pipe fitting company. I got a few chances to try my hand at MIG welding. I also got to practice a little bit of oxy-fuel welding. The company used oxy-fuel welding to weld small diameter schedule 40 natural gas pipe for residential gas service. I mainly watched that operation.

Another three years passed until I was working in a shop where I needed to make a custom hydraulic shear. I looked in the Trader Classified Paper and found a Lincoln "beehive" welding machine. It was and industrial motor-generator welder that featured a three-phase electric motor that turned generator that made the current for welding. I liked that machine. Again I was burning rod! I built a guillotine shear with a heavy duty "H" frame made from salvaged steel I-beams. I also modified a two axle trailer and made a frame hitch for thr truck that was to tow it. I had all the time I wanted to make mistakes and try again. It was a good learning experience. I later sold the welder to some aerospace mechanic in Silicon Valley that said he was working on a private space launch project!

Not much welding for a long time after that (10 years). In about 1999 or 2000 I was driving semi-trucks all over North America and I had developed the habit of buying cool tools on eBay and picking them up myself in the big truck. This was how I got my 255 Lincoln MIG welder. I saw the deal on some classified add on the web. I saw that my schedule would be taking me near the seller's location within two weeks so I asked if he'd hold it for me until I could get there. About 14 days later I was picking up my lightly used welder. It's great to have a semi-truck to pick up stuff and fuel paid for by the business! Since then I've worked on stuff like trailer hitches, trailers, scaffold frames and some residential stuff like metal fencing and support columns for floor framing. Best of all, I've done repairs and modifications to my classic 4x4 Toyota 4runners and pickup trucks.

Some good experience all in all, but I still have no clue about welding on vertical and overhead surfaces and my experience is all with mild steel, no aluminum and no stainless steel. Since one of my goals is to do some more serious automotive work I need to improve and I need experience on different metals.

Hence I have enrolled in welding school at the local community college.

Depending on how good the instruction is, and how good a student I am, I plan to put in at least two semesters (Fall 2009 & Spring 2010). If I feel I need it I can continue in the Summer 2010 semester. I'm hoping by Fall 2010 I'll be free to start machining classes (lathe and vertical mill). Although, I am also looking into the idea that I might buy a lathe to try teaching myself with the video courses from The American Gunsmithing Institute and others like Rudy Kouhoupt.

So long for now. I'll report soon on my welding class experience. -- Mit

What This Blog Is Really All About

Ok, so I never really had a corporate job (except for a short, but very interesting, stint as a trading floor runner at the Chicago Board of Trade). What I'm trying to say here is that, at middle age, I've decided to become a kind of independent shop engineer. The desired skill set includes metal working (welding, machining and metal shaping), mechanics (automotive, motorcycle, small engine, hydraulics, and small to medium sized equipment), composites (fiberglass, carbon fiber, kevlar and plastic resins) and assorted techniques related to wood working, auto body repair and painting, etc.. I've dabbled in this stuff since the tender age of 10 when I tried to modify my bicycle by adding a lawnmower engine. Since then I've been a I've wrenched on my personal vehicles, including my 25 year old Toyota 4x4, which has undergone an engine transplant, transmission upgrade, fuel injection conversion and a repaint without ever actually seeing the inside of a real repair shop in the 20 years that I've owned it. I've also built trailers, shop machines and a fiberglass camper for a pickup.

Now that I'm in my 40's I've finally decided to get serious about what has been an enjoyable hobby. Here's my plan.

1. The other day I abruptly decided that my welding skills had come as far as they were going to without some professional help. So, I enrolled in the welding program at the local community college. I'm presently studying TIG and "stick" welding.
2. My math skills are not very well developed. If I am serious about being an engineer I'm going to have to study algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus. I think this is an area where the internet has everything I need to teach myself without formal courses.
   
3. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) OpenCourseWare program has free access to mechanical engineering courses. Utah State University also has OpenCourseWare resources for engineering and math. Using these and other resources (online and not) I think I can put together a decent curriculum to achieve my goal.
   
4. There are good home study video courses on machining with the metal lathe and milling machine. The American Gunsmithing Institute has a series that covers the lathe, the milling machine and general machine shop support equipment. Some of those DVDs can also be rented from SmartFlix.com (lathe, milling) If I can find a deal on a lathe I would like to go the self-teaching route. If not, a slightly more distant technical college in my area has machining courses.

This is what I am going to blog about. I hope readers will join me in creating a community of self-learning men and women shop engineers.