Hiring a Welder

[Boss_Cocky]

G’day Everyone, This is my first post here.

I was wondering if anyone had hired a welder or taken their plans to a fabrication shop to get the get the tubing in the Fuselage and wing welded up? As I don’t trust my own welds on a plane

i know you can get a quick build kit where everything is pre welded but because I’m in Australia the combination of exchange rate and freight make it far too expensive.

[S Lathrop]

Look into the possibility of buying a tubing kit from Bearhawk Aircraft. Even with shipping costs and hiring a welder, it may save a bunch of money.

With the tube kit, you will be paying a welder by the inch of welding and not by the time it takes to prepare the joint and then weld. Also you will not have a bunch of tubing on the floor as scrap.

I have done a lot of work building race car frames and I estimate the cost of a frame as the number of welded joints times 1 hour of labor. The welding time is the least of the labor involved in building a fuselage. If you are looking at building a plane, you have a lot of fabricating skills and building a fixture to hole the fuselage while a welder does his magic should be easy.

[Mark Goldberg]

We just shipped a container with a Model B QB kit to Nelson NZ for $3650 USD. It costs that much just about to truck a kit to the extremes of our country here. Mark

[Bcone1381]

I'm glad I'm not in the shipping business!

[AKKen07]

I paid more to get it to AK and that was a deal! I recommend a kit...

[davzLSA]

If I were gong to hire a welder I would look for one whom is specifically an aviation welder, not any fab shop can weld aviation standard welds. If you do otherwise you are taking a big chance. I bought a tubing kit and attempted to weld it myself with no welding experience, and after having a qualified aviation welder evaluate it I scrapped it and bought a factory welded fuse from Mark. So that was a $3300.00 lesson on welding. The fuse is a very critical part of the airplanes safety. Since I wanted to fly my granddaughters in my plane I was not going to take any chances. I recommend you look at it from that perspective. And make your choices from that perspective. Dont be cheap but get value for your money. Im not trying to be preachy it is just that this subject is near and dear to me. I hope safety will guide your decisions.

[davzLSA]

gravity, physics and chemistry are no respecters of persons in flying we live by their rules or we die.

[Peter Bishton]

To put the shipping in perspective the $3650USD is about $5300Aus when you pay the conversion , so its bit of money. you then have to get it thru' customs and pay duty on the contents....
The Avipro parts however are first class. i wish i had bought a quickbuld kit, but my wife would have never ever have approved or concurred to, the purchase....so we are scratch building and when we can, we buy a few parts from Mark, like the tail feathers, landing gear struts, etc etc. All good value, but the shipping - we call it here in Australia the "Freight", is very costly. That is why there are only a few Bearhawks, i think, flying in Australia.
Peter
4 place
Plans # 1134
Morpeth NSW

[Boss_Cocky]

Unfortunately Aviation welders are a rare commodity here, they are booked out months in advance and charge accordingly. however I do I know a fair few professional welders that I would be confident in. And as Peter pointed out the freight and exchange rate (I think New Zealand is a bit better) are extremely prohibitive to importing anything out of the USA at the moment. That’s why I’m looking at a plan build as my only option.

[davzLSA]

If you would like to see some good looking aviation welds I have posted pictures of the welds on my factory fuse. I wish you the best of luck in your build.

[spinningwrench]

If you get a tubing kit from either Mark or VR3 you should be able to just do the tack welds to hold it together and in alignment. Spend lots of time getting everything square. Then have the finish welder come in to do the full pass welds. This is a common approach for many kit builders and restorers. Don’t MIG weld your tacks but use TIG or gas, MIG produces a very hard weld that is difficult to remelt on the final pass.

[Mark Goldberg]

Bruce - we have tacked with a MIG machine since the factory started and then gone back over the welds with the gas welding. At least with O/A welding - there is no problem tacking with MIG. The man in Australia who started this thread might have a problem finding a good O/A welder. Most all the world has now gone to TIG. Mark

[spinningwrench]

I could see where gas welding after MIG would work since there is such a large heat input. Trying to run a TIG weld over a MIG tack can be challenging as you have to pause and really crank up the amperage to remelt.

[zkelley2]

I'd just like to show why it's so important to know what you're doing.

I'm in the middle of fixing an incredible mess from the previous builder.

exhibit a

20190520_230003.jpg

My two options were cut the fabric off a good portion of the tail, grind all the paint off and properly weld all that in place or cut it all out and return to stock. The latter is the much easier option and the direction I'm going after calculating the forces applied by this unique tailwheel design, that even if it was properly welded, it's going to bend the longerons.

As it sat, I'd be surprised if it lasted two gentle landings.

I knew going in I'd have to fix this, but the point remains. Luckily this isn't somewhere that when this fails it'll kill you, but many other welds on this plane could.

[davzLSA]

Amen brother!!!

[bergy]

I have had 3 people other than myself weld on my Patrol project. I did almost all the tacking myself with OA. Some of the welding was done at no charge by friends, but I like to pay them something if they will even occasionally take money. I met two of my welding guys in church. One travels all around the country doing TIG welding on SS, mostly for the food-processing industry. He is good and fast. The other graduated from a tech-school a couple of years ago and was working for a shipyard building aluminum boats. http://www.lakeassault.com/styles/fireboats/. He abandoned me when he fell in love with the neighbor gal. He charged me $18/hr but was not super fast.... he spent a lot of time waiting for stuff to cool. The best welder I've had is one of the instructors from the tech-school, a 38 year old attractive lady.. https://www.witc.edu/academic-progra...easha-hladilek
She also works for the shipyard during summers. She is good, and fast. She sometimes charges $45/hr but is very productive and well worth it. She is the one I had weld up my engine-mount.

My suggestion... get everything set up for a welder and then bring in an expert. The nearest tech-school can be a valuable resource. If you have everything ready to go it does not cost much to have it done right; It can pay off to bring a welder in for an occasional weekend.

I will probably have only $2k invested in my fuselage (material +labor) although I got great pricing because I bought my 4130 when Charlie Vogelsong was going out of business.