2ND QTR 2000                    •   • 
04/29/00 - 2.5 hrs
Setup my Lincoln Square Wave TIG 175 Welder, then practice TIG Welding on mild steel. Note: Weld2 is actually 1st one at home. My very first TIG weld ever was done in the Lincoln welding workshop at this year's (2000) Sun 'n Fun EAA Fly-In. The last time I did any welding of any sort was some gas welding back in A&P school, the year 1983.

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05/01/00 - 4.5 hrs
Practice TIG welding butt joints on 0.1" (10 ga.?) mild steel. Four welds done, two at 80 amps then two at 125 amps as per Lincoln slide card. Figured I would start out with thicker material to learn heat control before going to thinner stuff. Also started work on my web based build log.

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05/02/00 - 0.3 hrs
Another butt weld on the .1" steel plate at 125 amps, Weld7. Had decent penetration whole weld, but a little too much heat as the weld progressed. Probably first airworthy weld though not smooth yet.

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05/03/00 - 0.6 hrs
More practice butt welds at 125 amps max, but only getting about 3/4 into the pedal. Weld8 looks ok about 1/3 across but almost burnt through. Weld9 was actually two welds from the edges towards the center, which would have worked good except both welds could have used more heat and penetration. More practice needed!!!!

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05/06/00 - 1.0 hrs
Welds 10-12. Some digression in progress and kinda erratic today. Had trouble starting arc with machine. Was using torch setup supplied with machine which has 1/2" cup, and found out I was probably running my argon flow too low at 15 cfm. Also, I didn't get eough heat and penetration into these welds for the most part today.

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05/11/00 - 0.8 hrs
Fillet welds with the 10 ga. plate. Used 7/16 cup, 3/32 gas lense and tungsten. Machine set to 125 amps. I found that my fillet welds went better with the torch in my left hand and rod in my right, welding in the opposite direction. Goal is to be able to weld both left and right handed equally well. After seeing little penetration on the backside of these welds and consulting the Lincoln slide card, I will try more amperage next practice session. Also received 4130 tubing assortment for practicing with when I'm out of 10 ga plates. Also modified this log system to use seperate files for each month, to eliminate large downloads.

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05/24/00 to 05/28/00 - 4.8 hrs
Design work to shorten fuselage 6" for use with short engine mount and to recline aft seat slightly. Then after further discussion with Kevin at the Watsonville fly-in, decided to only shorten fuselage 5" from plans, move aft seat bottom 5" forward and forward seatback tubes forward 2.5" to recline seats.

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05/29/00 to 05/31/00 - 2.0 hrs
Worked on plans fuselage parts list to organize for steel order. Transfer of parts list to Excel file.
06/01/00 - 2.0 hrs
Getting more tools set up. Got my grinder on a stand and set up my harbor freight drill press, then I Set up the joint jigger in the drill press and did a test cut. It works pretty well, I need to set up some method to lube the hole saw though. I then decided to weld the cut tube to another. The result was pretty good for a first attempt but could stand some improvement. I happened to use a 15/16" saw cut to fit onto a 7/8" tube - it looked pretty good until I went to weld it. The gap made welding more difficult on one side. A little gap probably wouldn't be too bad, but this was more than a filler rod diameter, fit is important. Also I think I need to clean the parts better before welding, there is what looks like a small band of burnt sugar on the base metal, almost like it was boiling and foaming at the surface a little bit. Settings on this one: Lincoln Squarewave 175 set on DC- about 110 amp setting but using 1/4-1/3 pedal. 1/16" 2% thoriated tungsten 1/16" gas lense with #6 cup, Filler is ER70S-2 rod 1/16" diameter about 18 cfh on the argon flow

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06/04/00 - 1.8 hrs
Today I cut the small tube off the big one and did another 45 degree weld on the two tubes. Settings on this one are: DC- set about 75 amps, using about 1/2+ pedal. 1/16 tungsten, same 3/8" gas lense, about 12 cfh argon flow. Rod is still ER70S-2. Tubes are still Chrome-Moly 4130 7/8" x .049. With help from people on the sci.engr.joining.welding newsgroup I tried much more cleaning, before and after each pass, less gas flow, less amperage setting but more pedal. I didn't flow the bead as well because I was distracted by the boiling metal on the edges of the puddle. Tungsten is discolored well inside cup to gas lense. Do I have contaminated gas?

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06/05/00 - 2.5 hrs
Worked on refinements of 164" fuselage. Updated 3-D wireframe model in CAD program so I can figure out flat table layout of fuselage side "ladders."

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06/06/00 - 1.5 hrs
Another tube weld, this time at 50 degrees. I flipped the tube holder around in the Joint Jigger to hold tube with the cut end down so oil and metal chips don't flow down the inside of the tube. Makes cleanup a lot easier. Looks like I had a bad tank of Argon for the previous welds. Today I went and got a different gas cylinder at my welding supply. I broke the bad part off the tungsten and ground a new tip. The welding tonight went much better. My puddle and filler control obviously need more practice, so thats what I did. The welds shown here are the results of multiple passes over the same beads with hardly any cooldown time to practice torch control and filler rod control. On these tubes the angles of everything is changing as the weld progresses. I also wanted to see what would happen, would I overheat the metal? Everything seemed to go just fine, and I'm pretty sure the contamination shown on the top part of Side A happened on the third pass only because I forgot to wire brush it clean before that pass. The tungsten stayed clean all night.

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06/08/00 - 1.5 hrs
Tube weld 18. I didn't sand the tube ends prior to welding, only wire brush and acetone wipe. I got a little slag, so next time I will sand the tubes. I also need to practice feeding rod with my left hand.

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Quarter Total 25.8 hrs / TTD 25.8 hrs
 2ND QTR 2000                    •   •