Dang...

It's been almost 3 months since I last posted anything. Sorry to the faithful few who sometimes check this blog.
Much has happened though... I was able to meet with "Jim" the technical counselor from the EAA and it went really well. We pretty much just talked for the first hour. He lives on an airport like some folks live on a golf course. He can literally roll an airplane out his hangar and it's about a 50 yard trip to the runway. I couldn't believe that he actually prepared for my visit by setting up some flat 4130 sheet for me to run a horizontal bead on, and some mitered (super-thin) tubing to tack and join too. I had never worked with .020 tubing before. That was hard. But by the end of my visit, I was told that I was doing just fine... I just needed some "seat-time." -Practice... that is.
Airplane guys are just cool.

Here are some of my awesome sculptures:

This thing was pretty crazy. It started off as a couple pieces, but then I couldn't think of anything creative to do with it so I just kept adding new strips. There wasn't too much thought into this thing, it's just taken a life of it's own. I'm sure all beginning welders have this kind of stuff littering their workbenches...

This was my first attempt at brazing. I was at AutoZone and I found some $4 brazing rod. I'm sure it's junk, and all they tell you is that it's "phosphor bronze" rod. Yes, I know I over-heated it, Yes, I know it boiled, Yes, it's ugly, but see those bends? I COULD NOT break this thing. I went back and forth in the vise with a hammer, and it's still holding. I can assure you that I have gotten a little better at my brazing and heat control since this little experiment...

I bought a box of 4130 cut-offs from a company called "Aircraft Spruce." They sell a welder's kit for about $27. It came with a bunch of different diameters/wall thickness/shapes of tubing. Some of it was just cool. I LOVE aero tubing.

So, I started in on this stuff. There was a 1 inch diameter .090 wall thickness tube that I drilled .5 inch holes in. Then I inserted small lengths of .5 inch .083 wall tubes thru the big tube and welded them in... like this:

This is one of the better examples:

And for the last one, I did a little "fillet braze" joint. Bicycle builders beware...

I've probably tried every welding tip and gas pressure combination I can think of and for most of the good welds (in my .060 tubing) I've decided that my #0 tip at 5psi works the best. With the 1 or 2 tip I'm not flowing enough gas and I get torch pop. With the #0, It's kinda hissy with the gas turned up to melt the .060 steel, but I seem to have much better results. Perhaps that will change with more experience, but for now I think I may be ready to start tackling some of my actual frame.
The plan is to start with the main frame tube that goes from the back of the engine up towards the seat. Then the top tube connecting to the head, then the down tube from the head to the front of the engine.
-But, I'm not rushing this. These are the important tubes!

Thanks for looking! More to come...