PMD
Well-Known Member
I guess I should start with a confession: I have been involved with welding from a sales, tech support, manufacturing and fabrication point of view for more than 45 years. I have designed, spec'd, tested and analyzed hundreds, if not thousands of critical welds. I can do a decent job in position and vertical with oxy/acet, SMA, GMA and GTA, but my GTA stuff has been 99% Aluminum. With all of that experience, I am a complete newbie to GTA in thin walled steel...or ANY steel for that matter. When I was involved with building early advanced ultralights, the only steel tube fab was motor mounts, and we had a real welder doing that.
If I ever find the time, money, motivation and reason to build anything, it will probably be a rag wing tail dragger with serious STOL credentials. AND, if I have to weld fuselages and motor mounts, I really need to get my head around the details. EVERY fuse weld project I have seen has had people doing zero/zero fitups. In ANYTHING else I have spec'd or done I would never allow a fitup like that due to the distortion from completing the weld and residual stress induced into the structure.
So, what are people actually designing, specifying, doing and teaching when it comes to light tube joints and in particular GTA welded light tube joints and clusters. And why?
If I ever find the time, money, motivation and reason to build anything, it will probably be a rag wing tail dragger with serious STOL credentials. AND, if I have to weld fuselages and motor mounts, I really need to get my head around the details. EVERY fuse weld project I have seen has had people doing zero/zero fitups. In ANYTHING else I have spec'd or done I would never allow a fitup like that due to the distortion from completing the weld and residual stress induced into the structure.
So, what are people actually designing, specifying, doing and teaching when it comes to light tube joints and in particular GTA welded light tube joints and clusters. And why?
