Frame building shop tools

[jameson4170]

very nice information thanks for sharing.
I have collected some information for tig welders please check if it makes sense.

[ebikergal]

You would probably want to stick weld the heavy sections. It's pretty easy to do, compared to TIG.

I went to a local steel yard for my table materials. Cart, actually. 24X30 1/2" top, square tubes, HD rubber casters cost me about 250$, casters were about 80 of that IIRC.

Steel is WAY cheaper at a dirty, crude steel yard, than online, if you have one in town.

I think you could be making decent stick welds your first day, with recommended settings and some practice. Or, an hour if someone shows you.

I'd recommend you try simple practice welds when the welder is set up, before the class, and if they are working decide to build it. If not, sure, wait.

one great thing about welds is that you can add more, later. So, skills improve, later, OK, rework the table a bit as you gain confidence.

maybe make a stool or smaller thing, first, so you don't risk expensive materials. Something you can throw into the salvage pile if you don't like it.

Good advice. Always get steel some steelyard. Don't get ripped off. Definitely practice as well.

[commuter ebikes]

Looking left to right, it looks like he has a bicycle repair stand, drill press, unidentified items (plasma cutter?), bandsaw, approximately 200 and 350A TIG/stick welders, three large cylinders of shielding gas, a tool box, lathe, bench grinder, vertical milling machine, press brake and fire extinguisher.

In the middle of this very slick shop, he has a fixed welding table as well as a rolling welding table with his Anvil Bikes Journeyman mounted to it.

I don't see a tube bender, rotary table, or tube mitering fixtures.

[commuter ebikes]

Here is a photo of the frame building shop at Samsara Cycles https://www.samsaracycles.com/

[geckocycles]

I have been supporting Jody and that is where I get my Tig Fingers and tungsten.
Brazing rod, silver solder, gas flux and past flux I get from Hank at Henry James since the 80's.
I use cheap ass auto darkening HF helmets without an issue for the last 15 years I guess and I had one battery of the two fail once. They are button batteries and easily replaced if you have a spot welder. I did buy another one though. I did have a friend who got one and it flashed him so he returned it and got a lincoln. Maybe I am just lucky.
HF angle grinders are great for the most part as long as you don't have to use them for more than 20 mins at a time. They are not very smooth running and heat up at the head, not unlike my Dewalts. If you only need them for short bursts, like I do, I have no issues with the HF. When I need to use one for extended periods of time I break out the Metabo. Hands down the best one I have.

[geckocycles]

You think Anvil is expensive, wait till you price out a DiAcro. LOL The Anvil will be OK for CS and SS I think but I would still mount it horizontally so you can orientate the multiple bends in a tube from the table. Ask how to mount it to a table or how he orientate the bends. I would be interested in seeing how he does it. If you don't get the bends on the same plane it will be hard to do all other operations after that not to mention look funny.
I thought you already got all the stuff on your list.
Typical 4130 cond N bend radius is 3 times the diameter but to do that you need a very good bender, especially for the .O2THIN stuff. Heat treated material is trail and error and probably close to double or more than that min spec. There are some tricks like sand, frozen water, spray foam, springs, annealing and others that will help. The anvil is no where near that tight of radius. I typically use the next die up with shim tube cut in half to bend a larger radius or make custom die. You can buy different radius dies too if you find you are using one lots and want a dedicated die for the desired radius. Or use a tree stump! LOL I bent a hell of a lot of tubing over a stump, but that was before I was "trying" to make ends meet. You have WAY more equipment than a hobby guy and way better than what I have and it was my job! Enjoy, I'm jealous.

[commuter ebikes]

I don't know but being it is water cooled the gauge of conductor can be much smaller than the #2. Never cut one open.
Once I saw your torch I got a new 250A water cooled torch. WOW have they got smaller with a flexible head too. Almost as small as my air cooled one but still has heavier cables to torch.
Jody says get the old school brass ground clamps. He did a video on them and best grounding practices. Uses braided strapping lots too.

Jody Collier is The Man! I might be his biggest fan. On top of being so knowledgeable, he is so supportive and encouraging.

Post a picture or link of your torch! For steel, I have been using #12 cups at school and #8 cups at home, but soon I will be picking up a #5 cup for aluminum. I always use a gas lens setup.

I love riding, wrenching on bikes and building wheels, but being in the helmet and welding with the music cranked up is the best. Life can't possibly get any better than that.

My #8 cup will still get hot as Heck even with a water cooler at 125A max, 1.8PPS, 30% on time and 10% background current. I should probably take more breaks so I don't fry my circuit board.

[commuter ebikes]

I'm glad you mentioned this because I was saving up for the Anvil tube bender, and it is very expensive. I will check out the DiArco.

[geckocycles]

Back to the topic of the shared coolant return/power line between the power supply and the torch, I found out that the power cable is in the middle and the (return flow of) coolant flows around this power cable. I wonder what size cable it is. As a point of reference, the wire size of my grounding clamp cable is 2 AWG.

Jody Collier discusses this matter in some detail at the 13:15 mark in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lplipcJ5cyc

I don't know but being it is water cooled the gauge of conductor can be much smaller than the #2. Never cut one open.
Once I saw your torch I got a new 250A water cooled torch. WOW have they got smaller with a flexible head too. Almost as small as my air cooled one but still has heavier cables to torch.
Jody says get the old school brass ground clamps. He did a video on them and best grounding practices. Uses braided strapping lots too.

[geckocycles]

These are invaluable. You can put different carbide tips and use as scribes to hook onto miters and measure the next cut length.

http://www.wttool.com/index/page/category/category_id/17365/category_chain/12955,17365/name/Caliper+Extender+Attachment/

[geckocycles]

As for benders, I am not too fond of the Anvil one. It is good for some things but I prefer DiArco horizontal table benders. I bent hundreds of cromo .75x.028x 2,25" radius bends 90 degs without the slightest ripple in the tube. The radius of bends isn't very much and orientating opposing bends is much easier when tubing is horizontal on a table so you can orientate the bends easy off the table. I like the follow block method better than just roller on tube. There are many bends that could use that radius of the Anvil though but I would at least try to mount it to the welding table and attach table to wall if you can.
I have 3 other benders that won't even come close to what the DiAcro can do even with mods I made to them.

[geckocycles]

Speaking of water cooled torches, here is a cutaway picture of a CK 20 series torch head. The coolant flows around the head.

You won't need the water cooled torch for bikes. I use the air cooled ones as they are smaller and lighter. When I do aluminum or heavy 1/4" or better then I break out the water cooled unit.

Jody at welding tip and tricks is your only resource needed. Start welding now! UBI will be good for bike related welding but Jody is your man and practice practice on anything you can and the cleaner the better. Avoid welding after grinding or sanding. Scotch brite pad everything before striking a arc.

I didn't see a carbide tool grinder, chopsaw or alignment table listed.
After I got my BP H Mill I started using it to miter tubes with a rotary table and H Mill attachment for the quill. Before that the lathe was used. Eventually I picked up a Sheldon H Mill and dedicated that to mitering. My tube mitering jig was one that Chris King designed and I made in his and Richard Cunningham (Mantis) shop where I interned.

I suggest going to Scott's or another builder and intern with them. You will be able to get scrap tubing to practice with and get valuable free instruction.

I got all my aircraft steel at aircraftsteel. LOL

[geckocycles]

Why is this? Do some prohibit it? That sounds ominous, what's the problem?

I'm pretty sure it's obvious to them from the usage data, anyway, if they want to know.

Power surges upset the neighborhood. Don't even tell them you have more than a 5hp compressor which is the max more residential power will allow. I ran 2 5hp rotary's starting them one at a time and then fired up 10hp compressor to get by the power surges in my garage shop. After having to move commercial shops at least 5 times because progress moved in, I bought a house on 5ac, had 400A and NG brought into the shop. I got a Phase Tech power converter which I wish I mounted outside of the shop. All is good!!!!!!!! Yes they put in a huge transformer for me. They like my monthly money.

[geckocycles]

I like to buy my tube blocks here http://www.paragonmachineworks.com/f...be-blocks.html. These are economical and functional aluminum tube blocks.

I got 1 1/8", 1 1/4", 1 3/8" and 1 1/2".

With a mill you can make your own fixtures and get valuable machine time under you. It is more economical to buy ready made ones if you got the coin but WAY more fun making your own.

[geckocycles]

Here is B Gillespie providing some tips on filler (tungsten electrodes):

"Filler is definitely a personal preference thing, but I'd suggest 1-2 pounds of 70 S-2 in a good brand, with .035", .045", and 1/16" diameters. Start off with larger diameter and work your way down as your improve. There's a bunch of debate on proper filler for 4130 tubing, but 70 S-2 is just fine. Sometimes I'll cap with 312 just to get the colors, but 70 S-2 is used on tons of chromo welding for aircraft and race cars. For more exotic stuff like aluminum and Ti, you'll have to pick the right filler for whatever you're welding, so I'd wait to buy that. If you want to practice on aluminum, which I would suggest later on because it's not easy, basic 4043 is fine. FYI, Blue Demon is supposedly decent stuff and sells 1# quantities on Amazon, haven't used any yet. The problem with a lot of the fancy filler metals is that they are only sold in 10# quantities and it takes forever to burn it up.

Since you mentioned Ti, that adds a few more items to the list, namely a second bottle for argon purging/backing, second flowmeter for same, and I'd also pick up the Furick #16 BBW cup and Ti shield."

I use 70 S-2 mig wire and just straighten it out some. I also purge my steel tig frames just like I do Ti. Cut a joint open sometimes and you will see why.
UBI was using Miller 151's with snap start so that is what I got back in the day. I traded up when started doing Aluminum manifolds. You need very little to do bikes. Compressor was my big deal when I got a Blaster. Those 5hp compressors, even Quincy QE7.5 work themselves to death even using a 1/4hp die grinder. I got a Quincy 390. Problem solved but I had power power power! All my stuff is 3ph for the most part. My new shop has 3ph digital converter from Phase Tech. Got tired of rotary's.

Funny how this thread progressed.
My $.02 is the welder, belt sander, grinder, lathe,and compressor in that order. If you need to make fixtures then the mill is key. The Anvil stuff requires a Mill and a job. LOL You'll have a great shop. Good luck making it pay for itself. I'm Jealous for sure.