Tl;dr: built a funeral boat and it was sick

My father in law died a few months ago from a long term terminal illness and one of his wishes for his funeral was that his ashes would be put on a boat and burned like a viking funeral. I offered to build the boat, but since we were gonna do it in a state park, we didn't want to leave behind any wooden husk so I thought I'd use the excuse to buy a welding machine and try working with steel. We'd do the fire then pull a plug via rope to sink the boat.

I've layed down maybe a dozen or two sticks of welds in

commercial diving school, but had basically no mig experience but decided to go that route anyway. I was able to get help from my brother who works at a university to plasma-cnc cut the ribs to guide the skin construction. I also used the shop of a neighbor who has a ton of bitchin tools and welding machines.

The whole thing is built out of 16ga mild steel. Everything but the ribs was done by hand, mostly eyeballing things.

The final fire had his ashes, wood, fireworks, some firelogs, gasoline soaked clothes, straw and other stuff. Everything burned down to ash and sank as planned.

A lot of the welding wasn't the prettiest and I know that there's gotta be a ton of spots with shitty fusion and cracks, but it doesn't leak when it's on the water. I'm not exactly sure how many hours it took but I think it was somewhere in the 30-40 hour neighborhood. I know I went through at least one 80cuft bottle of argon lol. My welds at the end were certainly a lot better than my first ones, that's for sure.

Took me a minute at the new jobsite to figure out why the forks weren't level with each other. How much of a bind does one of these need to be in to break? How safe is it to weld it back up? Looks sketchy.

Not going to say too much because idk who all can see but I got a call from another union for boilermakers. The man was straight forward told me everything said I didn’t have to pay a dime for nothing all expenses will be covered. All I have to do is make the first class. He also said boilermakers are high demand and they got work all the country. Anyone a boilermaker? Can you give insight if so. This go around I’ll stick thru it and trust the process.

I'm not great but getting better

Recently my truck failed inspection because the driver side of the crossbar holding the gastank was completely rusted out. Fortunately I managed to find a DIY kit for the exact crossbar.

The actual question: The crossbar came with precut gaps for attaching the U bar and the lid (as pictured), but should I weld the whole seam shut, or should the gap welds be enough structurally speaking?

I'll be welding the bending slits on the lid shut before going over the whole thing with a grinder and putting a coat of zinc spray on top.

I would like to create a cover like this for a 6 foot wide stock tank pond. I have no welding experience, but I think I could do something like this. If I could, what would the investment in equipment and parts be? Do they rent torches? Would it look like Homer Simpson's spice rack/BBQ when I'm done?

I found a company that makes them, but they are overseas.

Edit: Thanks everyone for the feedback! It is in the front yard near the sidewalk (no fences) and I didn't want it to be a drowning hazard for toddlers.

Alternate plans are:

Keep it flat not domed.

Buy metal grid panels and cut to fit (NAP: not aesthetically pleasing).

Use netting at the water surface, but it would have to be strong enough if a kid climbed up on it.

Use metal conduit or PVC instead and paint it, NAP.

Use bamboo, longevity/safety concerns and NAP.

Make a teepee shape, NAP.

Put up circular fencing, 3 feet tall. I think making it gradually higher towards the back like the World Series trophy would be interesting.

Build a square or hexagonal cage out of decorative metal fence panels, $$$.

There is a one foot square fountain column going up the middle of the pond, but I don't think that affects the build. Also I was hoping to do it for under $1,000 US, the tank was only $320, the rest was free on Craigslist.

All jokes aside, what does this mean

Hiya all! Picked up a 100amp flux core welder to learn to patch up my car, despite all the negativity i seemed to find with the mix of sheet metal and flux core. The smaller patch is my very first patch on the car and the bigger patch is my second, which i started after probably not long enough of practice. As you can see its quite inconsistent. The 2nd oatxh has me decently proud of my work but is still inconsistent. Some feel perfect, some blow through and some just sit ontop and dont peirce through. Any tips to get a bit more consistent would be appreciated!

Ps: i really need to get better at making patches, none of the ones ive made have been a good fit.

Cleaning off the millermatic 211 that’s in the shop I work at. Mainly a woodshop, so I’m blasting all the wood dust off of it. I open it up and the spool is chipped and gnarled. Is there any way this happened while it was on the machine or do yall think it was like this and someone threw it on here anyways? Is it good to use?

I have been looking to build a solar structure for around 6 panels. A single panel could weigh up to 35 kg, and my vendor only offers a welded structure made with hot-dip galvanized steel. I live on the 4th floor.

But from what I have seen online, welded structures can eventually start rusting. The nut-and-bolt option is still available, but the pre-made structure is not customizable. They offer 15 degrees, whereas based on my latitude, I need around 19 degrees. The rafter also seems to be of cheaper quality.

So the only way to get a customizable structure would be a welded one. But how can I prevent it from rusting? I live in a mild tropical wet and dry climate.

The main reason I am avoiding the welded structure is the concern about rusting.

Is there any way I can prevent or minimize rusting for as long as possible?

My son just started a welding school. The instructor recommended I buy him a Miller 220. Anyone know where to get one for less? The listed price with all the accessories is $4965.

Do yall think it's worth it to go to school? I want to learn which rods to use for certain applications and what settings I should be at.

I mess around with welding here and there, but I would like to get better at it.

When fabricating things made out of stainless steel should I be worried about using the same blade on my evolution chop saw as I use on steel and using my mild steel work bench contamination wise?

I don’t have many recent pics of my welds, most of them are months old.

I’m a fabricator that specializes in railroad related work. I’m proficient in stick and mig/flux core, and rusty with tig. I’ve been working on restoring a 1925 passenger car since February largely by myself, which entails evaluating good/bad material, demo, fabricating new material as close as possible to the car’s original design (based off of no dwgs, grainy photos of other cars, or what little is left of original structure), welding said material in, and blending it enough for the painters to fill in with bondo.

In addition, I do shop and field repairs/installations of various things in, on, or under cars and locomotives, ranging from 140KW generator mounts to air brake like brackets. I am the only dedicated welder in the company, so I “manage” the welding department in the shop and keeping it stocked/organized for myself and others, as they filter in and out with odd jobs.

I also do general labor on our cars and locomotives, such as changing brake shoes, inspecting/lubricating handbrakes and bearings, etc. as needed.

I currently make $23/hr and am still on my parents’ insurance (I’m 20) because the company insurance is awful, to the point where it’s choosing to use it os almost like not having it at all. PTO is 10 days a year and 2 sick days after being here 1 year. They do match 401k at 3%, but do not offer railroad retirement (which is a whole rabbit hole in and of itself). Am I being paid reasonably for a Chattanooga TN resident?

Sorry for weird post. I recently started a welding class and realized i might be able to fix something that broke at home.

its this small aluminum rod, about the thickness of a pinky finger, that got sheared in half. it attaches to a part that goes inside the transmission of a car and is responsible for the shift stick engaging properly, so without it the car isnt able to shift gears. if you know anything about mechanics its called the manual valve pin and goes inside the valve body, for a 2003 dodge grand caravan

unfortunately finding a replacement is damn near impossible without getting an entirely new transmission and i dont think a salvage yard is going to take a transmission apart for such a tiny part and leave their transmission useless. so i thought about welding it and then throwing it in a lathe to make it uniform again.

ive heard aluminum is difficult to weld so not sure how i would go about it. my instructor said we could bring stuff in as a project, and he would even fix it himself to show how to do it, but i havent had the chance to ask about it yet.

I’ve just started my apprenticeship, 1st day on the tools (yesterday was all paperwork etc). I was judged best weld of the day out of our group, is it actually any good?

Still buzzing though, thoroughly enjoying it!

Edit: christ some of you guys are bitter as hell, yes it’s simple, but I’ve never done it before!

Infinitely more to learn, many more harder positions and materials and welding processes to get under my belt but christ allow a newbie to be proud on his first attempt.

Amazing how these metal sculptures are held together with some crappy tacks.

It's tacked together after being absolutely chopped the frick apart. So now a couple day of welding and then maybe dunk it in paint and call it a day lol. I'm a turd polisher.

I’m particularly proud of the left side, much better from my last post on the wheel hub. This is the mounting surface for a control arm on a semi trailer. There’s a washer on between the bushing and the mounting surface

Ran 18V and 170 WS with 22 CFI on a miller mig machine.

I’ll be grinding it down flush after so I’m not too worried about it being a little over filled. The wear was about 3/8” deep.

Any suggestions to get the right side better? I tried all sorts of different angles but none of them really worked for me.

I keep seeing them getting advertised and I can't find any unsponsered reviews of these machines.

If anyone has used one lmk how it went

I guess what I’m trying to say is that when it comes to food grade, there’s no room for defects. So if it’s being purged but isn’t food grade, is there more wiggle room for tiny defects where it’s still passable?