One of the most important things about TIG welding (I think I say that a lot - there must be a lot of important things!) is keeping things steady.  I've shot a video on keeping the filler steady so it doesn't get bumped into the tungsten and mess everything up, and now here's a video on using your hand as a sort of tripod to control your torch. I've used the writing analogy before, but here's another one: think about shooting a rifle.  You don't get a steady shot by holding the gun with both hands on the stock - the muzzle would be waving around and there would be almost no way to prevent some movement.  The best way to steady a rifle is to have some kind of support as close to the end of the muzzle as possible while still being able to fine tune your aim.  Think of a welding torch in the same way - support the torch as close to the cup as possible without burning yourself.  Of course, there will be compromises like visibility and pain.  But to produce a good weld,...

This is a short little video on keeping things steady when you're tig welding... specifically the filler rod.  A new rod is 3' long and quite floppy when you're holding it at one end, so I thought this little tip may help at least someone keep that filler rod steady....

Part 1: Introduction The idea to shoot some informative welding videos has been brewing for a long time, and when Pikesan asked if I'd be interested in doing something with MyRideisMe.com, that was the final straw!  Although it's taken almost a pair of years to finally have something to show, I think you'll enjoy and hopefully benefit from the series. After I started the Welder Series parts assembly videos on YouTube, people began emailing to ask why I weld the way I do, and to please offer some tips.  I was flattered that people were even watching the videos, let alone asking me for welding tips!  From the beginning, they were never intended to be welding tutorials - I was just putting parts together! Basically, in these videos, I'll be bringing you into the Welder Series shop and blabbing away about welding.  The videos  will be loosely broken down into categories based on whatever aspect of welding I feel like talking about at the time.  I might even slip in some general shop tips once in a while... What I won't do is tell you what type of gas...

Member Benefits If you don't like free stuff. Stop reading now. I've posted some how-to articles from the Lincoln Electric website in the past and since then have kept in touch with the well known welding brand. Lincoln even included at tiny MyRideisMe.com back in 1997 in their iWeld newsletter when we barely had any content.  (Sure wish they'd do that again!) So now, Lincoln has asked MyRideisMe.com to make sure these brand new Viking welding helmets go to deserving members. So how do you get one? (If you don't want one, this might not be the right website for you!) How to WIN one of these welding helmets: Members Only. If you haven't signed up, click here to sign up now Members must have an avatar in their garage. (it's easy, just click on it!) Maybe that's enough rules. Write a welding tip and leave it as a comment below.  My Ride is Me is a community. Car people, in my experience are a friendly bunch and willing to lend a hand. Do that now and get some new gear! Ideas for Welding Tips: Tips or tricks you've...

Salt Flats Speed Shop in Orem, Utah is run by Chris Davenport, a metal fabrication and finishing craftsman and hot rod builder who is dedicated to building 1930's traditional hot rods.  Chris has been in business officially for about 2 years now and is attracting more and more customers as the word gets out about his affordable, high quality craftsmanship. "Need a Chop, a roof insert, fender, or a quarter panel? Well you've come to the right place. We'll fix all your cars issues, and have it looking as good in "bare metal" as it did when it was made." Chris (in the white shirt) showing us around his shop in Orem.  This is a customers 3 window coupe with suicide doors.  We dropped in on Chris Thanksgiving week.  He willingly took an hour or more to give us the full shop tour.  He explained all his tools, showed us all his projects and talked shop.  I could tell Chris is passionate about hot rods! I had emailed Chris letting him know that a friend and I wanted to drop in and check out his shop.  My friend, Gary, has a 1928 Model A Pickup of his own...

Fabrication, Welding and how-to's for your home built hot rod from WelderSeries.com Dear Welder Series... I have a 1956 Chev truck and want to put a 4 link in the back .was thinking of a triangulated one. would that work? the frame is 34 inches wide.or should i use a parallel 4 bar and a panhard bar and which kit # do you recommend ? thank you Dave Dave, this is a good question... There are several considerations when choosing a rear suspension system. An important one is frame width. A typical triangulated rear 4-link has the upper bars mounting off of the frame boxing plates and angling back to each side of the differential housing. The narrower the frame, the less triangulation is possible unless the upper bars get shorter. Shorter upper bars cause greater pinion angle change. The upper bars could be angled from wide apart on the axle tubes to close together off of a crossmember to get more triangulation. A parallel 4-link and Panhard bar is not as sensitive to frame width. The bars should be mounted as wide apart as practical to stabilize the...

Here at Welder Series, we get emails. We reply to emails. All of them. Even those nice people who want to see me more satisfied. (What's a "male product", anyways? Am I a product of my own imagination?) Anyways, I thought some of these tech type emails would be beneficial to more of you than solely the person who penned keyed the question. Onward. Dear Welder Series... "Hi there, I recently purchased one of your triangulated 4-link from Horton's (www.horton.on.ca). I am currently building a 28 Model A Tudor and I am building my own frame. I'm about ready to start fabricating the rear section of the frame and I was wondering if you can give any tips on how to rig up the rear suspension/frame so I can get the car as close to the ground as possible without loosing to much headroom since the car is going to be chopped. I will be running 32" tall rear tires and I would like the frame to be about 5 inches off the ground (at the floor before the rear Z). Also, I will be channeling the body. Thanks...

All Ways Hot Rods, located near downtown Phoenix, was founded in 1999 by the Way brothers Mike and Randy. They help hot rodders build their dream cars. One of those dream cars you may be familiar with is a flawless 1932 3 Window Coupe that won the 2008 Goodguys "America's Most Beautiful Hot Rod" award. In this shoebox how-to we'll take a look at how Gregg Grisham, a long time member of the All Ways team gives the custom touch to a '50 Merc's front and rear bumper by adding '51 Merc' bumper guards. Let's listen in to the how-to instructions from Gregg: "This method will work for most combinations. I need to mention that it is important to clean off the chrome and copper from where you are welding, and to make the surfaces of your welds as pit free as possible, and a good chrome shop like Kerr West can do wonders to finish off the parts. Here's a list of the Chop Shop Tools All Ways Hot Rods used: Rolloc grinder with various pads to clean chrome and grind for fit, 45 degree with cutoff wheel...

Just to wrap up the header I built for my car (Pikesan's garage) I thought I'd post a few pics and the video of the car running.. you can hear what it sounds like! I build the header with help from Schoenfeld Headers and my friends at Nissan with the TIG welding skills. When I finally got it assembled, the next question was what do to for a coating? I media blasted the header and it was a shining clean silver color that looked really cool but I knew it wouldn't last. So I took the advice I got from Schoenfeld and used ATF, yea, Automatic Transmission Fluid! I'd never heard of that, but they said it would turn the header a really cool BLUE color. Hmmm... Here's how everything turned out. Here's the header I had on it before... I tried to paint this one red... I didn't do a very good job and it turned black then white, quickly until it looked like this (Click on any image to see it full size): Here's the 1st video of me running the car for the first time with...

I'm not sure when I started working on this project, but it was at least 4 years ago. I wanted to build a trick intake setup for my Pinto Powered Roadster called Bonnie. Bonnie's always turned heads, even parked next to MUCH higher dollar rods. I have to admit that I like that. The intake design is from a tech article I read from the Inglese website. It explains why individual runner intakes and weber carbs are the hot setup. Now, with the new intake finally on, I'm gonna get more people asking, "What engine is that?" So here's where I left off... the last thing to do was weld the flange that would hold the throttle cable: My Friend Aaron welded everything up for me. It came out nice, then I took it to the sand blast cabinet. After, it looked like cast aluminum, but it weighs less than 3 lbs. These are the before and after blasting shots. Then finally, here's what it looks like all mounted up. I can't wait to spend hours trying to tune this thing! But, I'm gonna wait to fire it up...

From Lincoln Electric A Guide to Aluminum Welding Reprinted courtesy of Welding Design and Fabrication magazine. Equipment Selection, Material Prep, Welding Technique... A Guide to Aluminum Welding Reprinted courtesy of Welding Design and Fabrication magazine. Follow the rules of thumb offered here for selecting welding equipment, preparing base materials, applying proper technique, and visually inspecting weldments to ensure high-quality gas-metal-and gas tungsten-arc welds on aluminum alloys. Even for those experienced in welding steels, welding aluminum alloys can present quite a challenge. Higher thermal conductivity and low melting point of aluminum alloys can easily lead to burnthrough unless welders follow prescribed procedures. Also, feeding aluminum welding wire during gas-metal-arc-welding (GMAW) presents a challenge because the wire is softer than steel, has a lower column strength, and tends to tangle at the drive roll. To overcome these challenges, operators need to follow the rules of thumb and equipment-selection guidelines offered here... Gas-metal-arc-welding: Base-metal preparation: To weld aluminum, operators must take care to clean the base material and remove any aluminum oxide and hydrocarbon contamination from oils or cutting solvents. Aluminum oxide on the surface of the material melts at 3,700 F...

Some how while trying to make this website and taking care of my family, I'm also working on my Pinto Powered 27 Ford Roadster, "Bonnie". I thought I'd update everyone on the progress. I'm doing this so that all of the 230 users of My Ride is Me will do the same! We're talking to our web designer about how to show EVERYONE's blogs all in one place. That way, we can all keep up with what's new. First off, here's the car... if you haven't seen it yet, I haven't done enough self promotion! (hardly possible) This is what it looked like before the 2006 Goodguy's show. That red paint you see on the header is GONE (as soon as it got hot!) and the car hasn't been that clean since! Plus, the paint (primer really) had faded here and there unevenly, so here's what I'm trying to finish before the show: 1) Custom dual Weber 44 IDF carbs. Here's a few pics: The idea here is best said by the guys at Inglese: Weber-carbureted engine to idle smoother, have a slicker "feel" to it a low speeds...