Custom Fighter Welding School

It's just the egregious ignorance that pisses me off. People that are too stupid for the job should be fired.

A person clearly ignorant of military history and the tradition of government issued combat knives with skull crushers, in WWI, WWII, and Vietnam. Vietnam pilots carried skull crushers to bash their way through the plane canopy, if necessary. And 99% of skull crushers have never been used to actually crush skulls.

What about the fact that the symbol of this website has a fucking knuckle duster on it? And the highest compliment I can make on this site is :knucks:?

How about the fact that there are countless pics of knives of all types on this website and discussions of knife making and combat knives. And pics every kind of fucking firearm, including assault rifles?

Knives with skull crushers are censored nowhere on the internet, and are available on amazon.com. You stupid bitch.

Getting back to basics. Started doing some aluminum butt welds, focusing on penetration.

Have a long way to go, but improving slowly. Was able to go non-stop, start to finish, on about half the beads- that's new. Still have to stop and re-start sometimes to adjust my torch hand, or the filler rod.

Got some penetration on all my welds, but need to work on consistency. Also, my starts, stops, and spot welding need a lot of improvement.

Got a mix of convex, flat, and concave beads. I started noticing a small divot in the weld pool before it sinks down. That helps. Also getting better at filling up the depression fully with filler before moving on.

My travel speed is definitely too slow. Having decent results, but I'm sure the coupons would be very warped, if I wasn't using a welding/purge fixture.

Getting better at staying on-line, and not veering off in the wrong direction.

Front sides:


Back sides:

I think the reason the instructors are big on penetration is because most students are focused on certification. I guess it takes a strong weld to pass the tests.

I've got a stack of aluminum coupons with various quality of beads from my practice. Thought I would test some, and see how they hold up. There's a big press they use. I think it's 20,000 lbs of pressure.

I throw away the worst beads, and save the better ones. For testing, I started with the worst ones that I kept.

First 3 pretty much just snapped in half.



Next 3 ripped apart on the weakest part of the welds.





Last 3 held together pretty well.





Still hanging on to my best ones for a while. Functionally, they're probably okay. Need to work on consistency, and better appearance.

Off from school in-between semesters.

Here's a peek at my holiday project. Was going to decorate a skeleton like a xmas tree, but you guys know what happens with my projects. The holiday skeleton is becoming something I couldn't have imagined, and completely different than my original idea. Haven't got very far yet.

Was going to add white hair and beard. Then decided, I don't want it to look like Santa's skeleton. That would be fucked up. And I don't want it to look like a real skeleton, at all. I want it to look like a medical anatomy skeleton.

Had to cut and sew the hat down almost 50% to fit the skull. Need to design and fab a hanger out of aluminum welding rod for the disco mirror balls.





Made a matching disco mirror centerpiece tonight. Past 3 am now, so will get a pic tomorrow.