Who wants to widen a tank for the new guy?

[Shawn_howell]

I'm working on a bobber rat bike style build and need an old sporty tank about 5" wider than it currently is and don't hear any TIG access. I have a ton of decent parts I won't be using and SOME cash. I'd love the opportunity to learn how to TIG and you won't even have to do the work. Any takers?

 

Edited August 11, 2016 by Shawn_howell

[Shawn_howell]

I guess I can't figure out how to rotate the images.

[cecdoo]

Sorry cant help with the tank, but thats one helluva wall hanger:thumbsup2:

 

Craig

[Freebird]

I can't help either. Don't have a TIG and not a very good welder. Will love seeing how your project turns out though.

[Shawn_howell]

Guess it's time to start trolling craigslist for an old scratch start tig setup then. Wish I'd planted that money tree years ago.

[syscrusher]

Look for "Arc to TIG conversion". Evidently the Lincoln "tombstone" stick welders are a good candidate to start with. Harbor Freight Tools offers a lower price TIG setup too. The first photo of this $200 one doesn't show a torch but the second one does:

 

http://www.harborfreight.com/165-amp-dc-240-volt-inverter-tigstick-welder-61792.html

 

This one is twice the price but might not be twice as nice?

http://www.harborfreight.com/240-volt-inverter-arctig-welder-with-digital-readout-62486.html

 

It takes skill and patience to weld thinner materials like a gas tank. I have never TIG welded myself, but have you considered brazing in the sections that you'll need? The gas is easier to control and you can use the heat to help form things as you go. Your joints won't rust either. HF sells small setups for $200 and you can lease tanks from the welding supply store. You may be able to lease a full setup.

 

http://www.harborfreight.com/industrial-oxy-acetylene-welding-outfit-92496.html

Lastly, have you gotten any bids from your local welding shops or have you considered just starting with a larger tank?

 

Tell me about these parts that you won't be using.........

Edited August 13, 2016 by syscrusher

[cowpuc]

After High School and working in a Machine Shop (Gardner Denver (anyone remember them?) in Grand Haven Mi - spinning parts out for air tools) for a few years I went to the Boilermakers Local 169 over on Chase Rd (as I recall - maybe an east sider will varify that Chase Rd exists over there) in Detroit Mi - stood in line for almost 14 hours just to get an app in, got an interview and got put to work building a Power House on Lake Michigan.. Rigged for em for a few months before they started taking apps for Weld School to learn how to tig and arc weld pipe. Had 4 years of welding in High School so, in their opinion, I was a good fit for weld school = took almost a year but the results were no bad x-rays on all high pressure steam pipes I welded (all "scratch start" as you mentioned Shawn) and stamped = paid off BIG TIME making a good living and stayed with them till I got married and decided not to travel any more and went to raising a family..

Landed a shop job with a German firm, did a TON of fabbing using an English Wheel and tossing tig at sheet metal work. After all my years of Tig welding - this shop job was my first exposure to a high end, water cooled, foot pedal controlled Tig outfit = NICE!!! 12 years later I found myself doing ground up bike builds (a dream of mine - what a BLAST) in my own shop using all the skills I had learned thru the years..

From all of that I would suggest:

1. If you are unfamiliar with Tig welding and interested in getting started in the art form, go to a Skill Trades Center or a College and sign up for a Tig class.. Hopefully by doing so you will learn to "see the puddle" (until you get to that point - your welds will be mediocre at best), grow to appreciate different Tungsten and grinds for flame angles and intensities and become very aware of how much welding is similar to painting from the perspective of 95% preparation and 5% application..

2. If I were just beginning and wanted to buy a welder to play with AND be able to do some sheet metal work I would not buy a Tig welder - I would buy a Mig welder.. I know,, I know,,,, sounds insane BUT - I can tell you,, a decent (using cover gas - NOT "flux core") Mig is almost as versatile as a good Tig outfit and a whole lot less expensive to operate - a lot more affordable for the home shop.. Tungsten is not cheap, you HAVE to have a diamond wheel on the bench grinder to grind Tungsten, if you cant afford a water cooled Tig outfit you are kind of throwing your money away IMHO and on and on..

3. IMHO, as suggested = a good Oxy/Ace torch setup is a MUST have for the home shop - have owned a set since I was just a kid and gotta tell ya, aside from my 16 inch channel locks and my vernier calipers = my torch is my favorite and most used tool.. The problem I found early on with trying to use a torch for sheet metal work like we are talking about is the heat needed to make a weld will more then likely create warpage problems.. Either Mig or Tig would be wayyyy more controllable in that regard. On the same token though,, unless you are planning on clear coating over your welds so you can show them off - you will probably end up needing to use some body filler anyway so warpage may not be that big of a deal..

4. Something else to think about.. I believe you will find that factory fuel tanks are coated internally after finish welding, no idea what the factory process is for doing this but I do know that once that "coating" has been disturbed the tank becomes very open to rust and, as you probably already know - rust and gas can create havoc on carburation.. Very early on in my Chopper Daze I discovered that my home made tanks had to be coated internally - I spent many many hours playing with homemade coatings and using different tank coating applications. In the end I found that Red Kote (used to be used commercially by tank/radiator shops) worked the best for my shop use.. Tig up tank - clean it internally and coat it = NOT ONE BRING BACK because of tank rust after using Red Coat.. Another really fantastic thing about Red Coat is that it forms a tank within the tank which I found to work hand in hand with using Mig instead of Tig for doing tank work..

 

Sheesh,, I am writing another book here,, sorry about that Shawn - fingers got carried away.. Anyway,, LOVE the looks of your project - TONS of fun and wish you nothing but the best completing the endeavor... Wish I lived next door - I would gladly sit in your garage and druel

Puc

[Shawn_howell]

Man! There's a lot to reply to here. For starters, the donor bike in the pictures is (was) a complete, working, running 84 Venture Royale. The only thing I haven't seen work is the radio but in disassembly I found two blown fuses, so who knows. Maybe I'll grab a couple fuses and plug it all back in just to see. The fairings aren't in great condition, but are complete minus one of the side covers. I won't be using or keeping much of anything that's not in the pics so if you're looking for something let me know. I have gotten rid of the original Tci (which was faulty) in favor of the Ignitech replacement and am switching over to COPs. The coils are fine as far as I can tell but I want that space open for other things.

 

I do do have some self taught welding experience and do own my own torches and junk mig welder. It's one of those Swedish things that I tore down and installed a better mig gun and a gas valve so I could run it as a real mig instead of just a wire feed. I also installed power lugs so I can reverse polarity to go back to wire feed as necessary. One of these days I'll pick up a new one. I wouldn't weld a tank with it. I certainly don't have tons of play money laying around, but have been a professional mechanic for some time now and have amassed a fair collection of tools and experience. I've been thinking that a tig would be on my shopping list for sometime now and this just might be the time to splurge on it. I'm talking with a guy that has a Miller thunderbolt ac/dc welder already running a tig gun on it for $350 (no argon tank for that price). That doesn't seem like a terrible deal considering I could make use of the arc welder as well. Buying a tool like that to learn the skills I need is kind of how I am. I decided one day that I wanted to learn how to run a metal lathe. Now I own a 13 inch South Bend and know how to run it. Kinda.

[Flyinfool]

A TIG welder is on my toy list as well, (Miller Diversion 180) I do have a decent 200A MIG and a torch set. I sold my stick welder a week after the first time I tried the MIG.

 

It is scary to think that you sound an awful lot like me with tool acquisitions and then learn to use them later. You are my kind of people. Next thing you know there will be another SNOW machine located in New York. Won't that make @cowpuc happy.

[Rob Swallows]

I know several folks whom have purchased Harbor Freight tig welders; an absolute exercise in frustration is usually the end result. I have a couple tig machines and both are older industrial units but work very well. The advice to take a welding class is good as the practice needed is long and arduous to start out with unless very good at oxy fuel welding. Puddle manipulation and feed rate of filler material after baseplate wetout is absolutely essential to be right in this process. Quite easy after a bit of practice but until you can "read your puddle" and read it well, there will be no good welds to trust. Cleanliness, cleanliness, and more cleanliness is paramount especially with aluminum and knowing the composition of the baseplate material to use the proper filler for.

 

I couldn't part with stick machines so only have five. Three are portable engine driven units, (older Hobart Bros. machines) and a couple are Lincoln. I'm a little light in migs with only two but they satisfy the spectrum I work within. I have also recently acquired a 500 amp Lincoln "Commander" but haven't picked it up yet. I'll use it for my portable bore welder setup working on dozers and such once I retire from my current employer.

[Shawn_howell]

A TIG welder is on my toy list as well, (Miller Diversion 180) I do have a decent 200A MIG and a torch set. I sold my stick welder a week after the first time I tried the MIG.

 

It is scary to think that you sound an awful lot like me with tool acquisitions and then learn to use them later. You are my kind of people. Next thing you know there will be another SNOW machine located in New York. Won't that make cowpuc happy.

 

I've always had to do all my learning by trial and error and error and error. I grew up in a household with few resources and had to make my way through without little to no real training. If I wanted a bicycle I had to learn how the worked and build one from spare parts I could find at the dump/garage sales for instance.

 

Whats the reference to the SNOW machine?

[Shawn_howell]

I found a Lincoln Thunderbolt AC/DC arc welder on good ole craigslist with a tig torch for $300 and then I found another guy with a pair of 50lb CO2 for $50 each. I grabbed all of the above and traded the CO2 bottles for an 122 cu.ft. Argon bottle and a 122 cu.ft. Oxygen bottle for a spare for my torches. I'm picking up a flowmeter later today for the argon bottle and can start my trial and error classes maybe tomorrow. Worst case scenario is that I have a decent arc welder and know I don't know how to tig, but I'm a pretty stubborn S.O.B. So I'll probably end up being a mediocre tig welder for quite a while.

 

Wish me luck. Lol.

[Condor]

I wonder if mod-ing a 2ndGen RSTD tank would save a lot of trouble??