TOPIC:

Glad to bounce ideas around with you Bruce. It helps others on the forum think about what/ how to go about doing this kind of work. I also like to play the devils advocate because sometimes just throwing the ideas out there will provoke people in to thinking about alternatives or in this case helping them reinforce their views on what they planned on doing. It's all good.

I carried 8 welding tickets (TSSA) for pipe welding all position one of which just happened to be heavy wall MIG, but when they gave me the ticket I had to sign an affidavit swearing to never using the ticket on a pressure pipe weld.

I retired 6 years ago at the age of 53 and I'm now "Living the Dream". Just got my garage set up and treated myself to a brand new Thermal Arc 186 AC/DC TIG Stick machine. So far I love it. It's a great stick welder and a pretty good TIG welder.

Anyway, Carry on, go forth and prosper. I'll be keeping an eye on your progress. The thought of "cruising" down the highway @ 4000 rpm disturbs me as well. I just might have to follow in your tracks.

John (Kawboy)

Sorry everybody else, but a couple of old mud-daubers here need to swap lies!

John, I never did welding commercially, but was mostly self taught from my old go-kart days in the late 50's. Then I wanted to build a Volksplane and the FAA inspector demanded that the little bit of welding be done by a certified aircraft weldor. So, I took some certification classes at my local experimental club, got certified and finished my plane. Then I started racing Sprint cars and couldn't afford to pay anybody else to work on it, so my welding skills transferred nicely to the frames of the cars, too. Got hooked up with Jimmie Oskie and everybody started wondering why he could almost destroy his car on Friday night but be ready to race on Saturday night. We would do all-nighters doing the repairs and soon I had a half dozen cars in my yard on Friday nights. I had to quit racing myself to get them all done, but I liked the work just as well. It all branched out to building custom trailers, dune buggies and some general fabrication work to customer's specs. This was all as a hobby while I also worked a full time job as an electrician for 27 years. I learned early that if you make your hobby your income, too, it most often kills the fun in it!

My first welder was the usual Lincoln 95 amp buzz box AC stick machine. My next one, which I still have, is a Lincoln Tig 300/300 AC/DC Tig/stick box. I don't use it anymore, but just can't bring myself to let it go! Now I use a Miller Syncrowave 200, A Lincoln PowerMig 255 and a small Lincoln Idealarc SP-100 Mig for sheet metal. The 255 Mig is the workhorse around here. It has the standard 12 foot gun, plus a spool gun with a 50ft cable/hose connection. It has the spool-gun kit, plus the stitch-weld, variable lead-in controls, and post-flow controls. That Miller Tig does most of the thinking for me! Not so sure I like that! I really like tweaking lots of dials and knobs to get just what I need! Most of my recent work has been building recumbent trikes (hence, the username!) for racing and for handicapped riders. I also build hitch racks to carry them.

Here's a bit of welder-eye-candy.

Hi Bruce,

I also have a Miller Synchrowave 200. It's a nice machine although I've never stick welded with it. I also have a Lincoln 185 MIG and a Miller spot welder. My favorite toy is a Lincoln Torch Mate CNC plasma torch.

I actually get some work done with it but have more fun with projects like this one.




Sorry for the off topic drift.

Bill

Off topic? Who cares! Now I know someone with a CNC torch! We might just become best friends, Bill! I would sure like to see some pics of that machine, and some of the art you have produced.

I'll eventually get back on topic when the jig is ready for welding. Don't worry! In the mean time, it's show-n-tell time, guys! Let's see yer stuff!

SWEET!!! I learned my trade on a 300 Syncrowave. At the Nuclear plant in Pickering Ontario we eventually started replacing the old Syncrowaves with Thermal Arcs 400's. Went from a 600 lb. unit on a cart to a 45 lb. unit with a shoulder strap that had an output of 100 amps more than the Syncrowave. 90% of the welds were butt welds and had to be x-ray inspected. Any welder who fell below 95 % proficiency had to go back to school and requalify his tickets. You got good and stayed good. There was big money in overtime to those who could get it done. One of more difficult tickets I held was for tube welding 1" monel tubes with a .091" wall thickness in a boiler heat exchanger carbon steel tube sheet which was 4" thick.

Right now I'm reworking a tail light mount bracket for the KZ1300 to fit the most sexiest tail light assembly I found on Ebay. It's off of a GPZ1100. Just finished fabbing up the Brackets for the A model rear fender and tail assembly. Then moving on to fabbing up brackets for the rear signal lights. Waiting for some insulator rubbers to come from Kawasaki for the signals so I can accommodate them.

OK enough lies for now and I'll stop highjacking this thread. We should keep to the subject matter here and that's your fab project. Get back to work!! (joking of course)

trikebldr wrote: Off topic? Who cares! Now I know someone with a CNC torch! We might just become best friends, Bill! I would sure like to see some pics of that machine, and some of the art you have produced.

I'll eventually get back on topic when the jig is ready for welding. Don't worry! In the mean time, it's show-n-tell time, guys! Let's see yer stuff!

Hi Bruce and John,

I split this Eye Candy business off of Bruce's Hondasaki Final Drive thread for two reasons:

1) Preserve the original project thread.
2) I like this diversion.

One of the projects on my list is to cut out some aluminum blockoff plates for our 13's. My usual technique is to take a photo of the profile I need and then paste that into Turbo Cad as it's own layer. From there I generate a DWG file from which the software for the CNC torch generates the G code and tool paths. I'll post up some pictures soon.

Bill