Last week, we asked Zak's school to fix his tray on his wheelchair, as on one side the weld had broken, and his tray flapped, meaning he wasn't able to use his switches for his pc - a major part of his free time!
We sent Zak in with a message for their engineering department to have a look and fix the tray/chair. Unfortunately, the trained and experienced engineers could figure out that the weld had broken on a certain part, so did pretty much nothing for Zak.
Annoyed by their lack of common sense, I went down to Halfords, and bought myself a welder, and a few welding supplies like electrodes, wire brush and gloves.
Now I have NEVER welded before - not even picked one up, but I was determined to fix Zak's chair - so onto Youtube I went, and began teaching myself how to weld. After about half hour of watching I decided to go and have a little play to see what was what.
After an hour I thought I had picked up the basics and took the part off Zak's chair that needed fixing.
It took me no more than 10 minutes to drill out the plate, push the bar into the hole and weld everything back together.
Now Zak's tray on his chair is fixed, and rock solid I might say - ok it's not the prettiest weld in the world....
...but it works!
I decided today to make Jo a little pressie, so I found some washers and a bolt and got to work.
Everything went well, apart from when it came to welding the support nail - it just MELTED!
I made a blob on the plate, then hurriedly pushed the nail into it while it was still soft - SUCCESS!
The butterfly is quite small - the plate on the bottom is approx 2" long, and the butterfly stands approx 2.5" tall.
Here is Jo's present, it's not pretty, but at least you can tell what I tried to do...
...and remember - this is only my 5th attempt at welding!!
12 comments:
I love it, thankyou xx
that's brilliant Dave - career change perhaps??? LOL I'll have to get my other hald on that.
You're very welcome Jo!
:D
Thanks Carol, I think I'll need a LOT more practise though!
:D
I think that is fabulous! I see a lot of fun ahead for you.
My father bought some wood turning machines & has made some awesome stuff,he is so proud of all he has made.
I can see you making some brill stuff & selling on ebay.
Well done, Dave on fixing Zak's chair when the experts couldn't! Where would we be without You Tube? lol
Jo's butterfly is brilliant. Can't wait to see what you come up with next. :o)
wowser - how cool is that! We'll all be over for lessons ;-)
That's really cool! Well done.
remember the iron chickens on the clangers, yes? Right, get to work! :0)
Hats of to you Dave - a very grungy look to it and pretty cool too
I'm going to have to reply to all at once on this reply I think!
Thanks you so much ladies, it's just a case of doing what has to be done though really, Jo and I went to a garden centre and saw some cool little figures that had been welded, and I wanted to make something that wasn't just a big blob!
You're all very kind!
:D
...playing catch up.....
haha this made me laugh. my hubby and I took a welding course together. he is fabulous and perfect at it. i was (and am)a mess at it - all globs- but we had fun...i even got a plasma torch to cut metal with...
haven't done any of that in a very long time!
congrats on your medal!
Aww, this is touching! :) I’m also pleased to know that your first time using the welder didn’t go bad. It’s been three years since you started welding – I can only imagine how good you are right now! Hmm, are you still using the same welder or did you switch to another one? I’d definitely like to hear from you!
Jeanette West
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