79 Olds Cutlass Wagon school project...

[SRD Art]

For the welding side we started with several gas welding projects, including butt welding with and without rod, vertical welding, welding up 1/2" holes, brass brazing steel to steel and copper pipe to steel. Gas welding uses a lot of heat so it warps the sheet quite a bit but it leaves a soft weld. Simply hammer and dolly-ing right on the weld straightens it right back out. Pretty neat.







This assignment we had to simulate bullet holes with a pick hammer, much like those that are often in old cars out in the fields. Then using a hammer and dolly I straightened them out and welded up the holes.

[SRD Art]

Finally my most anticipated new thing to learn- TIG welding. For practice with this we worked with steel butt welding with and without rod, vertical butt with rod, stainless, and aluminum. Although I thought it would be easier, aluminum turned out to be harder. Although it's softer and you'd think you would use less heat, aluminum absorbes and dissipates the heat so fast you actually have to use more voltage and ac rather than dc to get a good puddle going. The throttle is sensitive because it's real easy to get it too hot. Here are a couple of my butt welds after some practice. Top one got a little too hot and sank in a bit. Other two aren't too bad for my first time ever welding aluminum.





Now for the second half of the semester we'll have a lot of practice putting to work what we've learned so far. We each have to french a tail light and an antennae and then we each have to build a complete hot rod body for a pedal car chassis out of .063 sheet aluminum. This ought to be fun! ...