bigwave said:
Brilliant redneck brake.....that deck came together nicely.
'redneck brake' LOL Yep, it works pretty good. The biggest expense I have in it is the jack, and that was only about 100 dollars. As I said before, the rest is made from scrap metal that I bought from my former employer, before he closed his shop down several years ago.
With an 80" width capacity, it can bend just about any sheet metal I ever need to work with, and as thick as 11 ga. (1/8")......try that with a standard press brake, those only do like 20 or 22 guage. Not only that, but it will also bend narrow widths of thick material, like 1/4" x 6" flat steel plate. Again, try that with your standard brake. I used this brake to build the cowling for my jetboat, and that's made from 1/8" aluminum.
The only thing I noticed was the fact that you used two different colors of foam, they dont match so they will not float........just kidding :mrgreen:
LMAO, yeah, I was wondering about that. The foam police might pull me over, do an inspection, and write me up for not having all my foam the same color. :LOL2:
I envy the fact that you can weld all your bracing.....That is the one thing that I plan on doing for my next build. I want to learn how to weld aluminum on my next boat project.
A lot of people are leery of aluminum welding. While it does have a few quirks, once you learn how to weld it, you'll really enjoy working with aluminum. No specialized cutting equipment required, you can cut with with circular saws, or even a miter saw for complex angles, just like cutting wood. Easy to drill, easy to grind (other than clogging abrasive wheels) and very easy to machine.
The trick to remember is that unlike steel, aluminum doesn't change color before it melts. Instead, you see the puddle form, and you have to be able to watch it to tell if you've got too much heat, or not enough. Basically 1 amp for every .001" of material thickness, until you get to about 3/8" then, you have to grind a root face (bevel the edges) to get proper penetration of the base metal.
Because aluminum has 3 times the thermal conductivity of steel, you can start out with the right amount of heat, but as you progress and the work piece gets hotter, toward the end of the weld, the puddle may start to sag and even blow out....so, you have to back off for a second, then do a back-stitch to finish off the weld and fill the crater to prevent a hot-short crack.
Also, aluminum is not forgiving of contamination, it has to be clean to weld it. All weld surfaces need to be cleaned with a SS brush before welding. That's MOST important.
And finally, while aluminum may not require specialized cutting equipment, it does require specialized welding equipment.
Stick: Yes, they do make aluminum electrodes for stick welders, but they don't produce a very good weld, they're OK for fixing something non-structural, but that's about it...and the coating of these rods is very sensitive to moisture, you have to keep them in a heated rod cabinet.
Gas: This was how they originally welded aluminum, before discovering TIG. You use an oxyacetylene torch, except, you switch out the acetylene to hydrogen gas, as it has a lower burning temp of about 4K, instead of 6K like acetylene. You can also braze aluminum, using aluminum rods dipped in a special type of aluminum brazing flux. This is a very slow method of welding aluminum, and unless you're just doing it for sh#ts and giggles, I don't recommend it.
TIG: The highest level of skill is required for this. You either have to add a TIG torch and a high frequency stabilizer to your existing AC stick welder (and remember this cuts its duty cycle in half), or buy a specialized TIG welder. It's like gas welding, but way better. TIG produces the most precise and the strongest welds.
MIG: If you're doing production work, general purpose repair, etc....this is the way to go. It's the fastest, and requires only a moderate amount of skill. A MIG weld will be about 80% as strong as a TIG weld on the same piece of aluminum. While you CAN run aluminum through a regular MIG, it's a PITA....you have to put a teflon liner in the gun lead, use an oversize contact tip, minimal drive roll pressure, and while welding, the gun lead has to be straight, any bends in the lead can cause the soft aluminum wire to 'bird-nest' back at the drive rolls.
A spool gun eliminates this problem, because it's only pushing the soft wire a few inches, not 15 feet.
Well, there ya have it. When you decide to give it a try, let me know. Be glad to help out any way I can.
Keep up the good work......looking like she is ready to fly down that creek and get her fish on.
It's raining here today, but, at some point, I'll get the wiring and hoses done, caulk my edges, and finish up on the storage boxes. Might even go ahead and round up material to do those rear panels.
Then I'll drag it outside and rinse it down really good to get all this dust and everything off it, and see about trying to etch and paint the metal to match.
But like I said, the worst is over, and it's getting closer to being back in the water. Can't wait to try it out.
opcorn:
