Kenworth 850 Off Highway

[RCP57]

Welded up the reach this morning and added a little detail to the door area of the cab this afternoon....






Thanks for looking!

Reg

[Hemi1966]

Reg, I can't stop admiring your work, you do a fantastic job
And I love those TIG welds you make
How did you do those panel lines to the door?

[RCP57]

Originally Posted by Hemi1966

Reg, I can't stop admiring your work, you do a fantastic job
And I love those TIG welds you make
How did you do those panel lines to the door?

Thanks Ari, I had a brief moment while welding the reach where I felt like I knew what I was doing. Too bad I can't weld like that all the time!

Is your TIG on it's way yet?

The door lines are nothing fancy. It's just some soft galvanized steel wire bent to the shape of the door opening and glued into position. I was struggling with how I was going to make it look like there was a door there. I was going to dremel a groove all the way around but on the real trucks there is a lip on the door and the frame that sticks out so I gave this a shot. I think it turned out better than I expected.

Jason, I'm always excited when I see you have posted something on your builds for exactly the same reasons! Sometimes the smallest idea that someone else has can be such a huge help.

Thanks,Reg

[ihbuilder]

yea , Reg thanks for the inspiration in tig welding I did soso



OTOH truck looks great

[RCP57]

Originally Posted by ihbuilder

yea , Reg thanks for the inspiration in tig welding I did soso



OTOH truck looks great

Welding aluminum can be tricky it seems. Too little heat and it won't puddle, too much heat and it disappears or warps really bad. I have spent a fair amount of time welding it now but have no training in welding so I'm sure I could benefit from some lessons. That would probably help my consistency.

What is that in the picture? Is that the 990 or something new?

Thanks very much Wolfgang, I don't think it is better than the original, but I am quite happy with how it is turning out!

Reg

[ihbuilder]

It's not the 990 , something smaller that I'm throwing bits and pieces together somewhat welding practice . I had issues seeing the puddle with my old helmet , bit since I got the miller autodark . my next issue is feeding the filler with gloves on ( can't feel it ) . I'm self taught to , look at pro welds and try to copy

[RCP57]

Do you have proper TIG gloves Steve? If you don't they are much thinner and provide a lot better feel. I understand what you're going through though. I rarely ever wore gloves before while MIG welding steel so when I started trying this I had a hard time too. I learned the hard way though that even a tiny weld will give you a major sun burn with TIG. Probably the most frustrating thing for me is when I touch the tungsten on the work and contaminate it! I say some bad words every time I do that for sure. Sometimes I try to keep welding afterward and it's almost always a mistake with this thin stuff. I'm getting better about doing the right thing and regrinding the tungsten now though...too many wasted pieces that were time consuming to make!

Reg

Oh yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing another IH Builder thread!