Winter Contest Project# 1 from Sportbiket. Category: General Welding repair

[sportbike]

I am a volunteer at my local Fire Department, and sometimes repair or fabricate things to save cost. It's basically my way of fund raising. A penny saved is a penny earned (or in most cases, lots of pennies...)

This time, the light tower on one of our trucks was damaged by a rouge tree limb. I have the whole positioner assembly torn apart and I am waiting on some replacement parts from the manufacturer. The arms that hold the lights were bent. The cost for new arms from the manufacturer was $525 each.

Total cost for the material for the arm repair was about $25 for a small 3ft length of 1X3X1/8 rectangular aluminum tube.

I cut the original apart and made the new parts with my miter saw with an 80 tooth carbide finish/moulding blade. This blade works well with aluminum and still works just as it did on day 1 with wood / trim as well.

Holes were all put in with my small drill press using conventional twist drills and a step drill (which I had to modify to shorten to get access for the larger holes). The large holes are for bolt access and for plastic plugs to keep water out as well as a few grommets for wiring.

Welding was done with a 3/32 2% lan tungsten, 3/32 5356 filler, about 7 lpm argon. I'm not sure on the current as I just turned it up and used the pedal. It was 27 degrees in the garage this morning, so I had to hit it hard at first and taper off quite a bit as it heated up.