metal working- brakes, welders, etc

[runmikeyrun]

There is a metal shop next door to my business.  They have large scrap bins with lots of good bits of things and I was wondering if there's a decent brake and/or welder out there for not very much $$$ for making boxes.  They have AL and steel, and i know i would need different rod for welding each, but most of the time its aluminum diamond plate about 3-4 mm thick.  I checked harbor freight's online catalog, i think i just need to get down there and look but if anyone has something they like i'm interested in knowing what you have.

[sfx1999]

Aluminum is a bitch to weld, and you can not do it with the same setup as steel.

In fact, with Aluminum, you are really supposed to use a TIG welder, which costs a lot more than a MIG. Also, you cannot use an active gas with aluminum; you have to use pure argon.

Steel is the way to go (not stainless) if you want to weld your boxes.

Really, you might not even need to weld. If you can brake something that thick, it could support itself. Also, look at some of the Fulltone effect casings. They have two U shaped pieces that are perpendicular to each other.

If you really want to weld, you should definitely take some kind of training course.

[R.G.]

A finger-style pan brake is what you want. HF sells a 24" one for $200. A 12" one would be OK for effects boxes, but I've never seen one, new or used. I have a HF 12" shear/roller/press brake. I don't like press brakes, but some people do. HF sells a 110V spot welder for $130 or so. Spot welding steel sheet is a really useful trick, much better for effects boxes than real welding.

You can do oxyacetylene welding, brazing and soldering on sheet metal as well. An OA rig can be had for $100 used, or a HF rig new for about the same. They also sell a portable OA rig for welding, with bottles, for about $150. The portable rig is much better IMHO for effects boxes where you want to have smaller flames. I haven't seen many effects boxes made of 3/8" plate.

With the OA rig you can also do something more useful - hard soldering and brazing.  A brazed joint is almost the same strength as a welded one, easier to do, and doesn't involve melting steel. Aluminum can be joined by a weird soldering process using special filler rods at about 700F, much lower than the 1000-1300F of brazing. So if you want to make effects boxes, a small OA rig and aluminum filler might do it simplest. The aluminum process is DEMANDING so you WILL have to practice to do it well.

You might be able to do the aluminum thing with the right propane or MAPP gas torch for much lower investment. But OA is more versatile for other metalworking. You will not be able to do most brazing or any welding with propane or MAPP.

[runmikeyrun]

I'd like to stick to the aluminum diamond plate since there seems to be an abundance of it.  I found 3 "U" shaped pieces and a long narrow straight piece last week, that's what inspired me.  The brake i'd like for the bending obviously but I only need the welder to tack nuts to the inside of one piece so i can screw the other one to it.  Maybe i could just tap the Al since it's fairly thick.  I'll have to do some R+D to see how well it would hole up with multiple screwing in/out.  I've welded a fair bit so i'm familiar with the technique i'd just need the correct machine.  Plus if i'm trying to weld steel nuts to an Al housing that is extremely tricky and mostly impossible.  I might try something like JB weld at first to see how that works.

The brakes are what i noticed @ HF but i don't have $200 to drop on a decent one.  I realize that the fingers work much better, that's the kind we had in shop class.  I'm going to see if maybe i can figure something else out, maybe have another shop from where i got the scraps just bend it for me then i can worry about the rest.  Thanks guys!