Created a project to get some heavy gauge practice on. The heavy stuff was good for me and my aging eyes as it's like looking at the puddle under a microscope.
Basically I welded a piece of seamless tube with a 12mm wall and 34mm ID to a 13.5MM base plate. The tube was beveled at 45* giving it an approx. 7mm face.
Tube fuse tacked to base.
I alternated fusing opposed 20mm sections.
Fused 360*
Then I started experimenting laying cover passed by dabbing 1/16 70S rod and 3/32 70S, then lay-wire method with 3/32. I lost control of the heat due to puddle chasing mainly related to poor positioning/posture techniques.
Final pass using 3/32 lay-wire and weave pattern with the torch.
End result
I plan on stress testing it in the near future.
The larger material was good practice for me as most of my practice has been at a much smaller scale. The visual scale made connecting the dots much easier. A water-cooled torch would have been nice to protect from the material heat, surprisingly the torch never got uncomfortable with my non-insulated TIG gloves. A TIG Finger for heat protection would have been nice when propping on the tube though. Ended up laying my insulated MIG glove over it.
