Build Log, Day 4 (01.20.2005)

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Today I don't have very much time. Fortunately, I have a nice atomic little task ahead of me that needs to get done. These eight weld nuts have to get welded into the holes I drilled yesterday. This is going to be the first actual welding of the project.
Here are the four pieces of steel with the weld nuts in the holes. I've never used weld nuts before, so I'm not actually sure how they're supposed to work. I think I can save some bolt length by drilling oversized holes and welding the barrel of the weld nut inside the tubing. We'll see how it works.
Now, to line the nuts up and clamp them in place, I just had to bolt it down and weld. The bolts are coated, so I was really careful to just do a few really quick tack welds, then remove the bolt, and weld the nut all the way around. This way, I don't have to worry about vaporizing any dangerous residual chemicals on the bolt.
Lather, rinse, repeat eight times. Here's all eight weld nuts welded into their holes. Of course, I'm not done yet. There are a few more steps before these are all done for the day.
Well, this is supposed to be a picture of the weld nuts before I do anything to clean them up. It came out really blurry, but you can still see the welds.
A few passes with the grinder and the beads are starting to look a lot better. Everything's flattened out and there should be enough clearance to join the other steel members to this one.
All this welding and grinding is just no good for threads. There's a lot of thermal expansion, spatter, and grit that can screw things up (no pun intended, honestly). To straighten everything back out, I just had to run a tap through the weld nut, clearing out the treads.
We can see here just how bad some of these holes are. Running a tap through the threads shows the angle a bolt is going to have to run through this thing to line up. That angle isn't the end of the world, but I'm certainly not too happy about it. I need to find a better way to keep my holes on target.
Finally, to make sure everything's cricket, I ran a bolt through the weld nuts. Looks like everything is just fine.
Well, this picture didn't come out at all, but trust me, that is one dull tap. I ran it through eight threaded holes, and it's already looking really beat up. I haven't even actually tapped anything, just cleaned dirty threads! This is what I get for buying cheap tools. I'm going to have to figure out what sized taps I'm going to be using and buy some better ones.
There's eight welded weld nuts. All in all, it went pretty well. It took quite a bit of time, but it should go quicker after I've had a little more practice.
End, Build day #4 (01.20.2005)
Progress: Welded eight weld nuts.
Time: 2 hours
Total Time: 30 hours
Next Steps: Grind all pieces to final shape. Double check all fits and tolerances. Evaluate PAD/PAM process. Clean dirty pieces. Weld, grind, and clean. Assemble into chassis framework.
Status: On schedule
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01.22.2005