During this week, I hunkered down and completed some of the welding tasks that needed to be done on the hot rolled steel flat bar and the square tubing. In addition to this, Kevin started mixing concrete for us to test the welded pieces on. We started pouring, mixing, packing, and flattening three of the four compelted bases with flat bar and square tubing. While the concrete was curing, I finished up all 80+ welds that needed to be completed for the base. By getting this much experience and repetition in, I was able to get a quick hang of creating a proper weld. and learned to adjust the current levels of the TIG welder in order to control the amperage of the arc and not melt holes through the thin square tubing. We came across another setback and forgot to weld the nuts on the hot rolled steel flat bar, so it looks like 80+ more welds to compelte. I think I should be good and will get this work done by next week.
On Monday, the team met up and needed to address some of the issues that we had with the welder. Kevin was in constant communication with administration and Dan (from full-scale bogey) to ensure we were taking the correct course of action. Kevin and I took a trip to Praxair to retrieve a new tank of Argon for the remaining welds. After coming back and setting up the welder, I started and finished the welds necessary for the support structures. I encountered some issues during this process as I never found the correct way to properly weld these two components together due to the differences in thickness of the square tubing and the sheet metal. If I utilize too high of a current, the sheet metal would have a hole burnt through. However, if the current was too low, there would be no penetration of the square tubing. Even after completing 80 welds, this process was not mastered and still need to be cleaned up through other methods that will be looked into.
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