Chassis welding

[H-L-Smith]

Originally Posted by voucht

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YES ! I found how to attach pictures to my post (sorry for the mess, I'm new on the forum).
Bye.

God, the layout on your build table is so neat! Did you do that on a plotter and then glue it on the top surface? It looks too legible to be done by hand.

In either case, congratulations on some very nice work.

[CTWV50]

Originally Posted by H-L-Smith

Thank you, Bob.

I see what you mean about doing too much along one side (chassis rail) and switching off as you go. How about the 3-dimensional aspect?

For example, would an expansion of that technique be doing a joint on a lower rail on one side, switching to the analogous joint on the opposite side lower rail then going back to the first side, but now doing a joint on the top rail in close proximity to the very first one you did?

I'm trying to get as smart as I can before I weld up the chassis. It would be a shame spending all this time trying to stay withing one millimeter on measurements then see the result twist by 5mm due to a poor welding sequence.

If you do find you get distortion and the back or front lifts substantially you can simply grind back the weld on the high side, grind a groove over the old weld and reweld it, 90% of the time this will pull it back into shape. I used this method to fully weld the bottom rails before I started with the uprights and the top rails, I've just finished stage two of the chassis and it's sitting flat.

[voucht]

Originally Posted by H-L-Smith

God, the layout on your build table is so neat! Did you do that on a plotter and then glue it on the top surface? It looks too legible to be done by hand.

In either case, congratulations on some very nice work.

Thank you very much for the compliments mate !
Yes, I drew the base frame map of the chassis on a 2D vectorial drawing software, and then I made it print by a map printer company (the guys printing maps for architects or designers).
Then I pined the map on my table, with the centre line as the main reference. I was trusting my skills with the computer much more than my skills at drawing on the table with a pencil and a square ! And I have to confess that I don't regret it at all : the map was spot on, and the tubes just fitted perfectly. For the price (printing the map was about 20 euros), it was actually worth to do it.
Of course, sometimes when you tack, the paper is burning a little, and you have to be careful and not let it burn too much, but it is not a big deal. Now, after having tacked the complete chassis, yes, the layout looks much worse !
Thanks and good luck to you for the full welding !