Santa's sleigh: Unistrut ?

admin

I got suckered in by my nephew to make a mobile for the church lawn.Hope I'm not going to the "Hot Place" for being a scrooge.Anyway the project comes with enough Unistrut (www.unistrut.com) to build a battleship.  One full of holes if you know unistrut.Being that this is galvanized metal (using a Lincoln Pro-MIG 140 mig welder) are there any special considerations I need to implement due to it's metalurical properties?Ho Ho Ho...Thanks,Pete in Houston TX
Reply:Weld it outside and don't breath the smoke. You'll be fine. Where a respriator if you're worried. you can grind off the zinc if you're worried but you'll really need to take the same precautions for grind it as welding it.Tough as nails and damn near as smart
Reply:Thank you TRESI!
Reply:I would grind it off where ever I was going to weld.  You will not get it all off because its on the back side of the weld too.  What is on the back side will not get into your weld, but the fumes will be there.DON'T BREATHE THE WHITE SMOKE!Been there done that, it gave me the shakes, the sh*ts and more.David Real world weldin.  When I grow up I want to be a tig weldor.
Reply:LOL, sorry to laugh at your expense but the image you painted of shakes n sh*ts was effective.  I have a blower motor from a furnace that I use to cool off my garage.  I will weld down wind from the blower.Thank you for the additional smarts.  White Smoke=trouble is what I have learned.
Reply:The white smoke is just about as bad as lead fumes. If you try it inside make sure the blower is sucking the fumes away from you and blowing them outside. A fan in a closed garage will do nothing except give you a false sense of security.Tough as nails and damn near as smart
Reply:blower > you > welding zone > smoke-going-awayHey, I'm all for welding, but why don't you just BOLT the Unistrut together?  It does have all those slots/holes already there made just for bolting it all together.If you do weld it, grind off the zinc coating first before welding (zinc in the weld puddle does not make for a good weld, in addition to the zinc fumes giving you "metal fume fever" as already mentioned) and use the FCAW NR-211MP wire that your machine came with or uses as it is more 'tolerant' of 'crud' than the solid L-56 GMAW (aka MIG) wire that your machine came with and can use.That also means that since you removed the galvanization (from grinding or welding or both), that the weld zone is now pretty much bare metal and as such will rust if outside and not protected with paint or some such metal coating.  But painting over a FCAW weld is 'iffy' for a 'good' paint job, as ANY flux left behind messes up the paint job from underneath.  If this is just supposed to be a quick and temporary job, then OK if the paint job or bare metal starts to rust after a little while.  If this is supposed to be a long-term 'quality' job, then you may have to rethink the materials and processes used.  Just an FYI there.  The best laid schemes ... Gang oft agley ...
Reply:BOLTS!!!! Are you try to put use welding guys and gals out of work? Seriously though your correct unistrut really should be bolted when ever possible. Oh it hurt to type that.Tough as nails and damn near as smart
Reply:i get all my steel from mechanical construction demolition.. often large heavy structural angles and channels.. its always pprimed/ painted and i always grind it off..thats why i hate unistrut-you cant grind it well...makes a uglyass bead because of it...its made to bolt together...