Grinding welds on roll cage

[ZJSAMPLE]

What is the easiest way to grind out welds from a roll cage? I need to remove most of the weld so I can re-weld them.

[StinkBug]

Normally I'd say that grinding welds is for people hiding crap welds, or OCC wannabes but since you say you're rewelding I'm guessing they are crap welds that you plan to fix. Best thing I can suggest is a 4-1/2" grinder with a standard grinding wheel. If the weld beads are really huge and gruesome you can use a cutting wheel and cut them out in sections.

[Todd W]

With a grinding wheel and/or flapper disc.

OR you can use a porta-band careful then a flapper disc.

Most likely if you remove the welds it will suck to re-weld to the same tube because you made it way to thin grinding old welds off... Or am I not understanding ?

-Todd

[Todd W]

Normally I'd say that grinding welds is for people hiding crap welds, or OCC wannabes but since you say you're rewelding I'm guessing they are crap welds that you plan to fix. Best thing I can suggest is a 4-1/2" grinder with a standard grinding wheel. If the weld beads are really huge and gruesome you can use a cutting wheel and cut them out in sections.

Why do you have a problem with ppl who want to grind welds and make them look cleaner/smoother and/or ppl who want to make OCC Welds? (don't they TIG most anyway).

I think it's good that people are paying more attention to detail in the 4x4 world now.. maybe someday they`ll start filling with bondo, sanding, and then painting/powder to go all hot rod :confused: and bling ??? I don't have a problem with people wanting their shit to look nice and bling.

People are coming from different auto sports and blending...

I`m no pro welder and sometimes I put a MIG bead to thick and like to hit it with a flapper to make it smoother... what's the problem with that?

I've tested my welds with a BFH and real-world vehicles.. the steel rips apart first so I`m not worried about the strength, but sometimes I want it nicer looken :)

[ZJSAMPLE]

Yes I am trying to fix booger welds. I picked up a CJ and want to not only clean up the welds, but get a bit more penetration then what is on there. The welds are pretty much just sitting on the cage.

[Brian1]

Ask Sceep, he re-did a cage that was boogerwelded.

[Hellbound]

no easy way.. grind old boger and then cut a grove in with a cutting wheel and reweld, that way you get penitration.

[TLCObsession]

no easy way.. grind old boger and then cut a grove in with a cutting wheel and reweld, that way you get penitration.

They just showed this on Extreme a couple of weeks ago. Ian would be disappointed that no one mentioned it.

If you use a cutting wheel and groove it, you get good penetration, and usually (my experience) you get a good enough puddle to get the boogers to flow. I suggest using the cutting wheel, hit it with a wire wheel disc, turn down your wire speed a hair (based on how much extra booger you want to flow), and your amperage up a hair.

[almighty_yota]

could you just go over them with a tig? no filler.

[StinkBug]

Why do you have a problem with ppl who want to grind welds and make them look cleaner/smoother and/or ppl who want to make OCC Welds? (don't they TIG most anyway).




The problem I have with it is that 90% of the time people are using it to hide crappy welds, and the fact that they probably aren't qualified to be welding such things. I'd WAY rather see some beautifully TIG'd tubework than some bondo covered POS. Personally, I'm proud of my welds, and I wont cover em up. Seeing welds ground down just screams bootyfab to me. If you're a good welder and can put down nice beads you shouldn't be ashamed to show them off. Not to mention the fact that ground down welds aren't nearly as strong as ones that are properly done in the first place.

[Static-XJ]

The problem I have with it is that 90% of the time people are using it to hide crappy welds, and the fact that they probably aren't qualified to be welding such things. I'd WAY rather see some beautifully TIG'd tubework than some bondo covered POS. Personally, I'm proud of my welds, and I wont cover em up. Seeing welds ground down just screams bootyfab to me. If you're a good welder and can put down nice beads you shouldn't be ashamed to show them off. Not to mention the fact that ground down welds aren't nearly as strong as ones that are properly done in the first place.
FYI, there are times when welds are required to be ground smooth. I am a welder by trade. It's pretty much standard practice for round handrails to have welds ground smooth. I have worked on a series of parts made entirely from 2x2x11ga tubing that the customer required all weld to not only be ground, but smoothed further with scotch brite pads (takes longer to do all that than actualy lay down the welds). A series of pressure vessels I worked on regularly had a requirement that the welds inside the inlet and outlet piping must be ground smooth. I make a point to grind between each pass of a multi-pass groove weld when using flux-core wire to ensure all slag is cleaned before making the next pass. I'm assuming that you weren't thinking about applications such as these when you made your crappy welds and bootyfab comments.

Reinforcement beyond material thickness adds no strength to a weld. In the case of a butt weld you can grind down all the way to base metal without loosing strength.

Something like a rollcage or tubework on a buggy I personally would leave as welded over ground down. Something like a bumper fabricated from plate looks far better with welds ground smooth.

As for grinding out welds on the cage in question, I would go with an 1/8" grinding disc. They don't round off as much as the 1/4" disc do, they'll get into smaller angles better (anything below 90*). Grind the shit welds completely out, don't try and melt over them. If you're going to cut a groove for deeper penetration, be careful that you don't get carried away and grind deep enough that you start blowing through the tube when rewelding it.

[DRM]

Good points Static-XJ. I picked up a start of a tube buggy with some crappy welds that I am gonna have to check each one and grind/re-weld quite a few of them.

A bit of work - but still less work than starting over on the tube work from scratch.

[StinkBug]

You make good points Static-XJ, but there are reasons for grinding all the parts you used as examples, handrails so that your hand doesn't catch, Inlet and outlet so that they have the proper amount of flow, and that other project simply because the customer wanted it that way. I also agree on the plate bumper example, it does look better when corners are smoothed, but you also reinforced what I already said. Grinding the welds is generally purely an esthetic treatment, and serves little function except in some unusual situations. In a roll cage, which is what this thread is about, making a nice weld and leaving it alone is generally the best course of action.

[Landslide]

I trust my welds with my life and my passenger’s life. Not all of my welds are perfect to look at and really could care less as I'm more concerned about their strength.

My welds are by no means booger but sometimes a spot around a tube just pisses me off cause of how it decides to lay out.

For a while I was having trouble with my wire feed, I finally think I found my problem with that, my welder wire drive rollers were worn out. Sure, no welder supply shop heard of this but I replaced them after replacing the liner 3 times and over a short time still had the same jerkiness feed. New Rollers fixed that.

I can say that over all the years I've been welding I've never had a weld fracture and most of them have been put to the test of abuse.

If the weld is contaminated by a crap weld, a 4.5 grinder/cutoff wheel/sander flapper is your friend. Any kind of saw blade will be crap after trying to cut through a weld.

I don't think most people even look at other peoples welds on their rigs. I do, but I'm always looking at detail things, always have.
__________________

[my name is mud]

could you just go over them with a tig? no filler.
In my experience you can't go over a booger weld with TIG and expect it to come out nice. If it's already nasty that ain't gonna work

[Todd W]

....If the weld is contaminated by a crap weld, a 4.5 grinder/cutoff wheel/sander flapper is your friend. Any kind of saw blade will be crap after trying to cut through a weld....

Really? My portaband has cut through TONS of welds and was def. not crap after cutting them.

[Landslide]

Really? My portaband has cut through TONS of welds and was def. not crap after cutting them.

I use the special band saw teeth eater wire through my mig:flipoff2:


They work ok but it is hard on the blade in my experience - could be just me though.:confused:

[Azzy2000]

I've had good luck cutting through welds with my portaband at the house. We cut through a lot of welds at the shop too and the blades lasted quite a while. I usually break or kink a blade before I wear the teeth out.

[sceep]

PITFA.

heres a wirteup i did that may help if you find its as bad as mine was.

http://www.offroadfabnet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=375&highlight=splice

[ROXROES]

Could be what brand bandsaw blade your using, I'd recommend Lenox.

But I typically use a cutoff disc, get it down without gouging the basemetal, then fracture the rest of the weld with a 3 pound hammer and chisel. :D

[Wyoming9]

I don`t know for sure about others.

Having been in the welding industry, I always check welds every where I look at some every time I go past what ever it is.

Drive rolls are a consumable, they do wear out.

Sad to say but most Counter people, would have to ask someone which end of a stick electrode goes in the stinger.

I spend enough time grinding things, i would only grind welds to reweld the joint.

[78bronco460]

I made my cage in a street rod shop, and the owner insisted I blend the welds. "It has to look like it grew there" was what he said. His shop = his rules, so I blended them. To me it was a complete waste of time and electricity, but I have to admit it does look good. I did find two spots with porosity (Most likely dirt) that appeared when I blended them, so I ground them out and re-welded them.