Welding galvanized material

[RandyBell]

Well you did a good job on the chain, that had to be tedious! I welded a galvanized chain link fence down on a trailer for my Dad when I was young and dumb. I know he knew better he welded for years and was a Machinist, but none the less h left me to weld it and went in the house.
I always wondered about the purty colored smoke it was putting off, I had blues, greens and yellow, must of done something right, the fence is still on the trailer and it still being used 30 years later!

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Almost forty years ago I decided to put up an original chain link fence. We lived on a corner and finally had enough of the corner cutters.

I set two inch square tubing posts. Then I tacked up a section of chain links. Then I welded those links solid, broke the tacks at the posts, and inverted it. I had two chains, one sagging normally down on top and the bottom sagged up. I just did the two sections on the corner to see what kind of feed back I would get. They didn't last a week. It didn't matter if they were four or eighty four, they had to step on it to test it. The fence was finished with two sags of chain, no gates. Oh, and I owned a chainlink fence company at that time.

 

[Scooby074]

Now that I have a new compressor

That thing is a hog! What are the specs?:thumbsup:

 

[wroughtn_harv]

On welding the galvanized, I'll be sixty five in less than six weeks, been welding galvanized since I was early twenties. We thought we had a health emergency about a month ago, It turned out I had a serious case of too good insurance-itis. Bottom line, finer'n frog hair. I can no longer say I take no medicine on a regular basis. Cardiologist convinced me a baby aspirin a day won't hurt me.

Zinc poisoning is like the body flu, you only feel like you're going to die.

 

[Shield Arc]

Here are the specs on the new compressor.
Champion VRV7 8 1 Ph 7 5HP Air Compressor Auto Tank Drain Start Stop 2475N7 5P | eBay

In my line of work concrete was the vast amount of the end product. Most of you would be surprised how much steel is involved to hold the concrete forms in place. I've done two all galvanized steel docks. The piling, and beams all galvanized, everything welded together. But most of the steel is cold tar epoxied. You can't burn that stuff off, it has to be ground off.
The first picture is a 24-inch galvanized steel pile. Notice the screw on the bottom? These pile screw in the ground as you drive them. The second picture is of pile with cold tar epoxy on them. The square boxes had to be welded to the pile. Lids were welded on top of the 48-inch piling too. I didn't weld any of this, I was the project superintendent. Every weld on this project was 100% UT. I fired over a dozen weldors on that project. Some of them would walk away from a joint with pin holes the size of your little finger nail in the weld!

 

[Ken45101]

If that was galvanized chain to start with you are lucky you are not in the hospital. Fumes from welding galvanized metal without a resperator can cause permanent lung damage. If you see yellow smoke and sparkes don't weld it.

FYI, google OSHA and "welding galvanized". Even OSHA officially says there is only short term flu like symptoms.

 

[cowski]

i had one of them log chains.mine come off the tennessee river .really liked that chain,but someone else helped their self.

 

[kentuckydiesel]

I weld G90 galv at least a couple times a week. I've never had any problems.

-Phillip

 

[aczlan]

The first picture is a 24-inch galvanized steel pile. Notice the screw on the bottom? These pile screw in the ground as you drive them. The second picture is of pile with cold tar epoxy on them. The square boxes had to be welded to the pile. Lids were welded on top of the 48-inch piling too. I didn't weld any of this, I was the project superintendent. Every weld on this project was 100% UT. I fired over a dozen weldors on that project. Some of them would walk away from a joint with pin holes the size of your little finger nail in the weld!

Apparently your "pinholes" are larger than mine... If its the size of my pinky nail, I would call it a hole, not a pinhole.

Aaron Z

 

[Arc weld]

That's one heck of a nice compressor.:thumbsup::thumbsup: Now you can see how your V-350 Pro handles an Arcair torch.:laughing::laughing:

Oh, I see you thought like did. It's coal tar epoxy, not cold tar epoxy. I worked in a tank shop and lots of underground tanks were covered with it. They also use cathodic protection on underground tanks. About a year after I left that tank shop, there was an explosion in the paint bay. There were no heaters directly in the paint bay but one of the painters helpers went into a tank to inspect it and a static electricity charge caused a flash fire inside the tank. The tank rolled and it took awhile to get him out. He lived but was badly burned and had a long recovery. The painter was so shaken that he refused to ever go in the paint bay again. I heard from someone who worked there at the time that the painter felt guilty for the accident and couldn't work for over a year afterwards. I think the tank was coated with coal tar epoxy on the inside as well. I think after that all coal tar was applied outside. I recall helping roll coal tar epoxy on a tank now that I think about it.