Metal Shop: Day 4

A lot of nothing (or so it seemed) happened yesterday in shop. I had my frame all put together with its filler pieces at the weld points. However, I did not realize just how much I had to prepare when it came time to actually weld. It took quite a while to create a small jig for the single bottom weld. Over all, that was the most important connection, because if it's off, the chair does not sit flat and will teeter on its two lowest points. So I made the jig and did the weld, which turned out alright.

Then I spent the rest of the day building a giant monstrosity of a jig to do the remaining 6 welds at once. It doesn't look like much, but it involved A LOT of measuring and drilling and un-drilling and wedging.



Early this morning, I did the welding. I had a little help, both from Hee and from Tristan, but the grinding and sanding was all mine.

This is the chair just after welding this morning:



Here is a close up of one of the MIG welds:



The next step after welding is grinding them down as close to the tube as possible.



After that, you use a belt sander to sand the weld as perfectly as you can, so that no holes or dips show. Then you hand sand with sanding strips with a higher and higher grit to make it as smooth as possible. Here is my best weld.



And the full chair:



Perfection is actually not all that important, considering I'm going to be covering my chair in a black matte powder coat. But I'm not 100% sure on that color or even on powder coating at all (we have the option for clear coat or spray painting as well), so I don't want to be forced into it because of bad finishing.

We found a few things out today that will completely change my next few days. In order to have our chairs powder coated, we have to have them done by Thursday morning. That cuts two whole days off of production time. However, we have the option to work this weekend, both Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 6pm, the same amount of time per day that we get now. So the plan of action now is to go into shop both days this weekend and get as much done as is physically possible. I'm slightly nervous, but confident that 5 days (38.5 hours) should be enough time to finish.

In sort of related news, shop has started taking its toll on my body. I burned myself yesterday, not badly, but enough to leave a mark. I was sanding a weld and while changing the position of the chair, the weight of to top part caused it to slip and I caught it on a weld point with the inside of my forearm. It hurt a little, but it was worth it to not drop my chair. I just slapped on a band-aid and went back to work. I may start wearing long sleeves or a hoodie when I do welding now. I've also noticed that I've been having insane hand and leg cramps recently. I try to eat a banana a day to get some potassium, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything. I woke up this morning and almost fell over when I got out of bed. And I'm not too fond of nearly dropping my piece every so often. I'm also not very fond of the scary looking calluses that are developing on my palms. So very gross. And smelling like steel. Also gross. I have been able to get rid of the dull gray color that had been staining my hands, so that's definitely one plus. Oh, and I'm getting super buff arms from all the lifting and precise work I have to do with semi-heavy tools. So, all in all, I think I'm slowly turning into a construction worker.