reno808

very nice. Its very popular in Japan. I wish i could do that as i need to redo the intake for the turbo

refresh951

Awesome Paulyy! Hope to start my fab work in a week or so and you are an inspiration! Thanks for sharing.

badcoupe

I sold a intake pipe for a K-27 on here years ago that I pie cut like that. I love TIG welding but not enough for that! BTW I run a 330A miller tig, it's huge and a bit old but steady as a rock and the torch stays cool!

Black51

I'm trying to start apprenticing as a welder; that will definitely be something I'll have to try!

Paulyy

Still pretty

Thanks, I'm sure you could go to a proper fab shop and get them to make you one?

Cheers mate, Appreciate it . Just practice on off cuts. These days you can find small TIGS (probably pricey) that are small that do aluminium with pulse.
Remember you need Pure Argon to TIG weld Stainless Steel and Aluminium

People where doing it before the trend came along haha! Im running a Lincoln Electric precision 375. Tip stays cool also!
I have a small TIG and it's the worst when the tip gets hot. You feel it though thte gloves and it gets uncomfortable.

You have to! time consuming though. Good luck with the Apprenticeship

m73m95

We still needs pics (BEFORE GRINDING) of the inside

It does look nice though.

fwb42

When you do a thru weld with tig, you need to back purge the backside of the weld. In this case it would be the id. Tape over the ends of the pipe .put a small hose of argon in the lowest point and punch a hole in the highest point on the other end. Argon will fill the pipe and displace the air. The vent hole should be big enough so that you get flow thru the pipe and NOT pressurize the pipe. You'll get a very clean id this way. Have fun.Tig is like art.

m73m95

If the pipe was under stress (structural or exhaust) I would agree. But for an intercooler pipe, a little flowering on the inside won't hurt anything.

badcoupe

Or use solar flux type B it's what burns stainless recommends and works excellent in lieu of backpurging with argon. I do all my headers with it.

URG8RB8

Paul:

I am going to try to post a link via the phone, hope it works. This is the welder we use at work. I know it takes the fun and art out of it, but if you are **** like me, you will love these welds. Video is using 1/4" tubing, but we have chucks good for up to 4" 304 SS tubing. Seams are perfect every time. I have never looked for a price used, but this would be handy if you were in the business.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=xdeN1jtgHr8&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DxdeN1jtgHr8

Paulyy

Inside:

Paulyy

Eric,

Pretty neat machine i have to say. Useless for me as we don't really do much with pipes. And they're usually all funny sizes if we do.

I have a picture a friend took of some lobster pipes. The welds are so straight it looks like a machine did it.

AtharRazvi

You should definately back purge with argon if it's pre-turbo. You don't want something breaking loose from high heat and going into the turbo

Here is my crossover pipe

Paulyy

If you show the JDM scene that, they'll cringe and say that it looks ugly and not neat because it bulges out. But in actual fact that looks like a nice strong weld!

Got any inside images?

Paulyy

I did another piece today in some free time after work.

I took step by step pictures so you can see the effort put into it.

I set up my bandsaw a ~6 degree and rotate the tube 180 degree each cut to get the angle i want.
This is what it looks like after it's cut


Cleaned up the edges with a bench grinder and washed it in thinners (or a dirt and grease remover)


Clamped them together with a vice and vice grips


Tacked them into place (i tired to tack them all together first. probably better off tacking one and welding it one by one)


Finished (you can see on the left middle run, that it's larger. That is because it had a small gap so i needed to use filler wire)