TITANIUM ATTEMPT
Welding Up The Rear Triangle
by James Morikawa
22 February 2008
I spent some time welding together the Rear Triangle. Things went badly. Lot of mistakes were made. Couldn't weld worth a rat's ass today. Not a good thing to be
happening. I'm feeling a bit depressed at this moment.
I got some rethinking to do tomorrow, and I'll do that after a good night's rest. I may have to trash this frame? Fuck! Lots of improving up ahead for me. Presently I'm not thinking well.
Anyway, I had planned to weld this frame using the single pass method. But, because the welds look so ugly . . . I may attempt doing it the double pass method — run a second pass to clean up the appearance. The welds look like, "Shit City Central". I grade the welding as "Top Shit".
Following are a few pictures, and notes of today.
Picture 1: Chainstays are in the Jig, and were tack-welded. Not shown, but I also tack welded the seatstays. The Rear-Triangle is then removed and welds complete on a welding fixture.
Picture 2: I had troubles doing the welds, just couldn't seem to "get my act together. A lot of blue color at the edge of the HAZ (Heat Affeced Zone). Just too much weld-undercutting on the thinner chainsays and seatstays.
Picture 3: I "blew a hole" welding at the right drop-out, and used a lot of filler rod to fill the hole. After that, I ended welding for the day. I'd gotten too fustrated to continue.
I ground out the excessive weld-buildup where I blew a hole in the seatstay. I'll weld a cosmetic weld over the area, later.
23 February 2008 (another day)
I've decided to continue building this frame, and see what other mistakes I'll make. Good education. I can build a better frame later. To be more positive, there's a lot more I can build. Got to keep on going. I hate life sometimes. If any Ti-builders out there would like to give me advices, please do. Of course, if you're no longer sick of all the dumb questions I may have asked you in the past, or my stupid opinions.
I'm going to continue on with single-pass method of welding. That's one weld-pass with filler rod. I'll do a double-pass weld method in the future, on another frame. I want to experience both methods.
I completed most of the welds for the Rear Triangle. Tried various weld-machine settings. I ended up using the pulser. I had begun welding using no pulse. Because I "blew holes" at the seatstay/drop-out weld, I decided to use the pulse. Difficult task welding a gappy miter joint with no pulse.
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I graded my welding as "Shitty Welding" "Practice more". Bad Shit! Discoloration. More Bad Shit! Insufflicient back-purge.
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Not a shiny silvery weld. Ended up with an aligned Rear-Triangle. That was nice.
Here's some things I personally observed the past 2 days:
1. I felt a bit ill, and tired after working on the frame. Took a short nap, and woke up with a headache. I rarely get headaches. I now think this was caused by welding in a
draft-free, sealed up room. with the Argon displacing the air in the room. I'm going to have to monitor myself in the future, vent the room often. I had to seal up the room to create a draft-free welding space. I also created myself a"death trap", where I could suffocate myself. I need to be careful the next time welding.
2. Compared to steel, Titanium doesn't seem to distort as much as steel from the welding process. The parts held alignment well during welding, quite unlike with steel.
3. I had very tight fitting miters at the drop-out joints, but after doing the first tack welds, large gaps developed there. These gaps made welding a difficult task, and the main reason I "blew hoes in the seatstays". After investigating, I conclude the gaps was caused by tack-welding the top section of the seatstay first, which caused the seatstays to pull upward. I should have tack-welded the lower dropout section first.
4. A lesson I never seem to "learn". I welded feeling tired, and stressed. I think it's is one of the main reason for a lot of my major framebuilding mistakes — past and present.
In summary, I'm going to continue on, and can expect more mistakes to be made — more to learn. It will be good go through the build, and see how my steel-framebuilding methods work on Titanium — so far alls been good — I'm building similar to how I build a steel or even carbon-fiber frame.
I have two options for this frame when completed. First option: I could do a destruction test on it — bend, hydraulic press, hammer, pound, and cut-up the frame and inspect the insides. Second option: Test ride the frame myself and see if it fails on me. I have personal opinions on why the welds are "strong enough", and why I feel the frame may end up "strong enough".
That's all I got to write. Have a good day.
Website Information: www.modikoso.com