New Member Build - DETONATOR - 69 Camaro

[DETON8R]

Things have been a bit slow on the Detonator build. First my Father-in-law took his welder back, so some of the welding got put on hold. I started looking for a welder. And a few other projects popped up in the interim.

First, Junior and I have been working on his 1987 K5 Blazer, as this will be his daily driver. It has been in the family since it was purchased new back in 1996, and it hasn't been used for about 5 years. So Junior and I have been distracted with that project. Now that he has his license, he has a daily driver to get to school and around town. And there were a couple of brake and maintenance projects on the other cars, so Junior and I have been spending quality time with greasy hands.

And after checking the classified ads, I found a used Lincoln Pro-Mig 175. We used it on a few little tests to see how it worked. Come to find out it welds a ton better than the other welder we were using. That welder had some maintenance issues, which became obvious really quickly after welding with this newer welder. Attached are a few photos of Junior putting together a cart for the new welder from some sheet metal, pipe and casters. After getting the hang of the welder on sheet metal used to fab up the cart, we cut and notched some 1-1/2" heavy walled mild steel electrical conduit that we had, to get the feel of welding with heavy wall tube.

After welding up the tube in various joints and configurations, we cut up the tube to check the weld penetration, and strength. And of course, there is always the destruction test. Can the welds break before the tube bends and deforms? We found that while the welds looked good with .023 wire, we were able to break the weld instead of deforming the metal. Used the .030 wire and the welds looked just as good, but the welds were stronger and didn't break like the .023 wire welds did.