Stick Welding Steel to Cast Iron (Video)

[Lanse]

Goodmorning everyone!!

So, this is my latest mini-project...

Recently, I wished I had a way to tack things to the "inside" of my table... Too far from the edges to conventionally clamp them... And this is what I came up with...

I bought a BESSEY 8" C clamp from the local lowes, spark tested it to determine it was malleable iron, and then cut if off and simply 7018'd it to a couple scraps of mild steel plate, which I can tack anywhere I need to...

Anyway, the clamp welded very well... It was my first time welding malleable cast iron, and first time welding dissimilar metals...

And I got another tool for the shop... I'm pretty happy with how it came out :)

Just thought I'd share... I'm probably not the first one to come up with this idea... Hope you guys enjoy the video, and have an awesome weekend everyone

video1


 

[bill mart]

Lanse,you look like a crazed woodpecker when you peen in fast motion! bill
 

[Stick welding]

I've seen a product you can buy like that but it is slotted on the base to slide onto weld on T shaped lugs. Then it's easy to remove to put on another T lug. You knock the lugs off after you're finished. Welding nuts on a piece of heavier plate in an L shape and using a bolt as a hold down is common. Most people call them s_crew dogs. When you weld them on, you put the weld on the front edge(inside) as that's where the force is. Then they're real easy to break off after you're finished. Loosen the clamp so there's some space between your work piece and either pull it forward or whack it with a hammer and the weld will rip off. Sometimes you have to twist it back and forth if you put a big weld on it. On your clamp you could cut off the plate sticking out the back of the clamp cause it isn't needed. If you welded that side down to clamp, it would just bend up using the weld like a hinge when you applied clamp pressure. Putting the weld on the inside, you'd be surprised how much the weld will hold.
 

[Puddles]

That's funny Stick welding! I just mentioned the same thing on another site, except I didn't go into such detail. I said it was the same thing as using dogs and wedges.
Great minds think a like!


 

[Ellis Kinney]

I have had a problem welding malleable iron to steel. The welds look ok except for a lot of pin holes in the weld. What causes that? Nickel and 7018. Ellis
 

[Puddles]

I've always had good luck welding dissimilar metals with 309 stainless steel. But honestly can't remember welding any malleable iron.
 

[Stick welding]

I don't know if I've got such a great mind. Thanks
for the compliment though. LoL I probably go into
too much detail because I figure a lot of people
don't realize what's involved to fabricate some of
the big stuff.

You use a lot of dogs and wedges fitting vessels.
Wedges are used for the heavy jobs like fitting 2
1/2" thick heads. Most times you can just weld on
one side like in your picture but sometimes you
have to weld both sides and grind one weld out to
break it off. Really heavy jobs need hydraulic
porta-powers to put things in place.

I worked in a vessel shop that had a 10' diameter,
2 3/4" head weighing over 10 tons fall off and
partially crush a wire feeder. It put a hole in
the concrete floor as well. A lot of wedges were
used to fit it and it was fully tacked in place
for the root pass but must have been under a lot
of stress. Tacking isn't really the right term.
When fitting thick vessels you lay a piece of
round bar in the bevel and put a weld down each
side so you don't burn the edge for your root
pass. The round bar is 1" to 1 1/2" long and you
put a 1/4" gap rod between the 2 bevels for 100%
penetration. We heard a ping, then another ping
and it didn't take long to realize the tacks were
breaking. It was almost like slow motion, then
BANG! We saw the wire feeder and XMT 304 cart
sitting there but you don't take chances with a 10
ton chunk of steel making strange noises. The
tacks were about 6" apart all the way around! I
helped fit it back on and got to do the MIG root
pass. Had to use a tiger torch to preheat it but
man that was a lot of grinding! You start your
root pass between the tacks and grind out and
clean up every piece of round bar as you go. You
also have to feather your root pass every time you
stop. Once the root pass is done you grind all
your stops and starts and run a 3/16" 7018 hot
pass so hopefully the sub-arc won't burn through.
Fixing sub-arc burn through for 100% X-Ray isn't
fun and neither is grinding off all the welds from
the wedges. LoL


For pulling checker plate up on skids when they're
upside down, we just used a piece of pipe with
about a 2" wide flat bar on the end. In that case
you tack the back side of the flat bar on the
checker plate and place the other end on the I
beam. Then just use the weld as a hinge and pull
the checker plate up and tack it in place. Pull
the pipe handle back and it breaks the tack so you
can move to a new location. Very fast and because
the tacks are on the bottom and nobody see's them,
you don't normally have to grind them off.
 

[Puddles]

Using round stock like that, we always called them bridge tacks.

When we started this project just down river from the Bonneville dam on the Columbia River I had a fab shop in Portland Oregon cut out enough wedges and dogs to fill a 55-gallon drum for each. Takes a lot of dogs and wedges to align 10-feet dia pipe. Had to have a tent made for the weldors, they were running dual shield, that wind can really blow through the Columbia River gorge!




 

[bobpa]

very cool idea. nice job.
 

[Chris(WA)]

Did you ride the bike all the way around the inside of the pipe???LOL!!
 

[Puddles]

No, I didn't even take that picture. That was in General Cascade ship yard on Swan Island in Portland. I started there over seeing the ship yard workers put a crawler crane on a barge for us.


 

[Stick welding]

They are kind of a bridge tack. On smaller pipe you
just put bridge tacks with MIG without the round bar
because you can keep the weld away from the edge of
the bevel. The round bar bridge tacks are always
done with 7018.

That bicycle must be a poor mans weld tractor. You
hold the flux-core gun in one hand and pedal the
bike the opposite way while turning the pipe. See we
can learn something from Hamsters. LoL
 

[Keith Molden]

Boilermakers have been useing them for years. They call them Grasshoppers (why, I don't know). Just cut off a C clamp & weld it to whatever you need to clamp. Keith
 

[John 37A]

Lanse,
I've actually shown some of your videos to my hi school students in welding class, but I didn't realize you we're on here. I have them all design and build a project for the fair in the spring either involving metal fab or wood fab. Do y have any other ideas like this that I could pass along to them? I like them to be small, useful, cheap and somewhat original.

John