Fabricating a Belt Guard – Part 2

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This is Part 2 of the “making a belt guard for an air compressor” video. If you missed the first one, click “Video of the Week” in the top bar, and Part 1 should be the second one down.

In last week’s video we left off with the sheet metal all tacked up and ready to weld those outside corner welds.

So this week, it’s time to weld the butts and outside corner joints. I started off using ER70S-2 1/16″ (1.6mm) filler rod.

… But I ran out of small wire.

So, I twisted up some .030″ er70s6 mig wire to finish the job.

I have done this several times in the past when I run out of 1/16″ diameter filler wire and it works like a champ.

All you have to do is chuck up a small eye bolt in a drill motor and secure the other end in a vise or around a worktable leg. Safety glasses are good idea too… while you do it, in case something comes loose.

I like my outside corner joints fit up tight with no gap and corner to corner. That way, they can be welded with or without filler metal.

But for this project, after I ran out of small ER70S-2 wire, I used ER70S-6.

ER70S-6 has more silicon added as a deoxidizer than other ER70 wires.

The higher the number on the end, the more silicon. So, 6 has more silicon than 2.

Silicon helps to scavenge impurities like light plasma cutting dross, which was a good thing in this case because even though I ground and cleaned, I still saw a few sparks when I watch the video after the fact. That means I had a bit of dross because if metal is really clean, you typically will not see any sparks when you tig weld.

The cleaner the metal, the better the weld will flow. ER70s-6 rod does help a bit though when you can’t get to the back side of something.

The reason I bead blasted this thing was that my friend (who owns the machine shop… and air compressor ) was thinking about black oxiding the guard. He does black oxide coatings on some of the tooling he makes for the aircraft industry and he thought it would be cool to do. But then things got busy and we both just wanted to get finished so I shot some black paint on it and then went to eat at Waffle House while it dried.

We love Waffle House.

All in all, this welding project went pretty well thanks to 2 previous projects I have done in the last year or so… The Portable Bandsaw Stand, and the Downdraft Cutting Table.

I just ordered some ER70s-6 tig wire from amazon.com and it’s copper free – so hopefully, it will be rust free. I have never ordered tig wire from amazon before and have not ordered copper free tig wire either. I will let you know how it works.

( As always, feel free to visit us at our sister site, WeldingTipsAndTricks.com. )

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