How flame straightening works
How flame hardening works
Author
Tom Lipton
Tom Lipton is a career metalworker from the San Francisco Bay area who has worked at various job shops. For more information, visit his blog and YouTube video channel.
Lost art of flame straigthening
>Flame straightening is one of those old-timer skills everybody has heard of but few have had the opportunity to witness. The ability to straighten bent plates and shafts is almost magical in its simplicity. It's definitely a valuable skill if you intend to spend any time around a welding shop, unless you relish the thought of beating a stubborn shaft or plate into submission with a mallet
Put your finger right there!
A shop I once worked at had a beautiful cast iron welding table. It was 5' wide × 12' long and had started life as a surface plate for assembling diesel engines. The owner bought it at auction for $100. With a screen in the middle, two guys could work on it at once.
Roll grinding to finish corners
A technique I call roll grinding is used to finish corners to match bend radii. Long weld seams that need to be rounded can be handled using a rolling technique with the disc grinder. It takes a little practice, but once you've mastered it, the results look just like a formed corner.
Additional tips for part finishing
Tom Lipton offers more tips for part finishing in the December 2014 Cutting Tool Engineering Shop Operations column.
Effective finishing work
The Shop Operations column offers still more tips for effective finishing in the October 2014 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering magazine.
More tips for effective finishing
Shop Operations Columnist Tom Lipton shares more tips and tricks for effectively performing finishing work.
What kind of shark would you be?
Some shop workers never seem to get it right, laments Shop Operations columnist Tom Lipton in the August 2014 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering magazine.
Tips for effective finish work
Shop Operations columnist Tom Lipton shares his tips for performing effective finish work in the July 2014 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering magazine.
You try and break it!
A testy welding test.
Layout work tips and tricks
Tips and tricks for performing layout work.
Defining the ‘welding shop’
My first experience with welding was when my dad taught me to stick weld in the basement of our home. When I was about 9 years old, he came home with a new welding hood. I remember asking him who the hood was for and being mortified when he said it was for me.