Learning to Weld...

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Cheers Ian,

Thinking about it he did mention that it tube was gas filled. He also mentioned that NAG stainless was a joy to weld compared to other grades of stainless metals.

Cheers, Nick

The first thing i noticed was they are welding bacwards with the mig and tig .

The second thing inoticed is they seem to be free standing and the first thing my tech teacher taught me was to brace myself any way i could , sit down ,lean against something use both hands on the mig and stick welders etc.

In the real world conditions are seldom perfect and i don't know how that programme would show stick welding rod when it nibs on you ( a small peice of the flux coating breaks off one side of the rod ) this causes the arc to blow out to one side ,usually causes a slag hole and loss of penetration .

So what do you do ?

Stop, clean the weld crater up and do a restart . Peg that rod in the bin mand check the next rod for cracked flux coating .

What does the computer do ? Probably nothing!

Ian

Just a mild reproof. This seems a good and useful video to me, I believe many welding instructors recommend running a weld with the power off as initial practice and this seems an advance on that.

The mild reproof is the posts making cracks at the Chinese. Reminds me a bit of years back when I was an apprentice in Rugby and we used to attend occasionally the motor cycle racing at Silverstone. This was the early sixties and Hondas were just appearing initially with little success. Very soon race results were Honda first,second and third. Eventually I believe the Association of British Motorcycle Manufacturers belatedly took a Honda to pieces and were astonished to find it was built like a watch. We all know what happened next.

The Chinese are now well into the "what happened next stage" and I don't think we need be unduly worried by what happens at Hinckley Point. What is worrying is how slowly some of us get the point.

Hi Alan

A touch of Frost!

Yes its already happened. The third world is getting better at making things. Not sure where the Fourth world will be? Someone has to do the menial work. Japan is a good example of where China is heading. Japan has a population of 127 Million. China 1.3 Billion, we are being run over by a Juggernaut.

Will China maintain Dollar Yuan exchange rate at the currently artificially low ratio? or will it follow post war Japan allowing their exchange rate to rise? right now this is unlikely, business is depressed, they plan five years ahead anyway, they can wait; but for how Long? Not that long I suspect.

Free (Sic) trade has decimated Manufacturing. It would be Ironic if in the end we have to pay the piper. Will our cheap goods stay cheap?

Oh I forgot! We now have to concentrate on Services and High Tech. RIP Manufacturing. Well that's what the Politicians tell us......

Regards
John

Ha, the answer..... learn Mandarin

Mark

Maybe the Brian's lathe problems in another thread are down to China working to German quality standards then Alan.

My own collet chuck problems are similar - didn't realise that the aspect that is wrong matters or maybe just couldn't be bothered.

Japan was a touch different. All exports were checked to meet certain standards and they managed to produce goods with all round acceptable performance at much lower cost than the west. Many bits had a "quality" sticker on them - reassuring if nothing else. Factually they were generally inferior products to what the west produced but at 1/2 or under the price and able do what ever it was meant to do, well that sort of thing always wins in the end. They also most definitely dumped to gain market share. They also propped up the USD for a long time. China's foreign reserves seem to be falling rapidly but it's hard to find out how many USD they actually have. At one point getting rid of them would have cause the USA a lot of problems.

Taiwan deserves some comparisons with China too. The same thing will probably happen to China eventually but given rather a lot of them and communism - rule by technocrats - it could be a very very long time coming. Possibly never.

John

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> Not sure where the Fourth world will be?

Africa, The Chinese are already investing heavily, cash and political capital.

Neil

I must admit I don't visit the site that often and have n't read Brian's thread , but as John S's trip to China a few months back made clear , China gives you the choice. You can buy cheaply and get reasonable quality at staggeringly low prices, or you can pay something nearer western prices and get top quality.

I must admit I do have some admiration for the Chinese based on a lot of history. Despite being the biggest boy in the class for centuries they have seldom bullied , the Tibetan "invasion" being their only transgression in some eyes .although there is little historical doubt the Tibetans were for most of history seen as a province of China paying homage to Beijing. The Chinese I presume did not subscribe to the view that anything had changed this.

Remember also they signed a deal to lease us Hong Kong for 100 years and honoured the deal fully , even though they could have walked in at any time. I don't think Margaret Thatcher would have done a Falklands had they done so. Do you ? You would think that any nation with our record in China would keep very quiet about human rights and moral superiority .

As for their track record for hard work and technology contributions its been going on since before the Ming dynasty. Anyway this is n't metal , but neither is making cracks about the Chinese.

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England, The Chinese are already investing heavily, cash and political capital.

It's cyclic ... Modulo 3

MichaelG.

No, they've been investing in Africa for 20 years, we'll have to wait our turn (it's MOD 4)

Two or three (maybe more)years ago, the NZ Railways had a large number of rolling stock built in China(cheapest tender), they could have been built in their own (NZR) workshops, on arrival in NZ they were inspected, and found unfit for service, they were taken from Auckland(port of arrival) to the workshops in Dunedin, the welds ground out and redone, I think the total cost far exceeded the cost of building them in NZ. No doubt if a higher price had been accepted from the Chinese, the waggons would have been OK. Over 100 waggons I think. Similar(not welding) problems with some locomotives.

Ian S C

Well, getting back to the original topic...why is everyone so negative about the idea of a welding simulator? Simulators in other fields have been shown to aid in training..the airline industry for one. I saved a lot of balsa wood learning to fly radio controlled planes by using a simulator. That is not to say that I did not sacrifice any real planes in the learning process, but I am sure that the simulator helped a lot. Sure, it is not the same as the real thing, but it does not have to be to be useful, it just has to be good enough to help get you on the right track. You can use up a lot of materials learning to weld, so anything that can reduce the cost has to help.

John

The real future is with high end kit which will change the current and/or voltage, wire speed and gas flow to compensate for operator error so that basic welding will really be no more difficult than slowly moving the torch along the joint. The best welds are already made by robots...

Neil

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Neil,

[Not that it matters] ... That is roughly the scenario I had in mind when I made my first response; and I was even pondering the possibility of working [very?] remotely.

But; this forum being what it is, I was [it appears] accused of making anti-Chinese comments.

MichaelG.

I didnt read it as anti chineese. And if it was, well we still live in a vaguely free country, for now at least.

Elsewhere you will notice the curious background to the comments that fired all this up.

Hopefully things will calm down a bit now and we can address the matters in hand.

Neil