Any welders out there?

[HiSPL]

I am fabbing up some saddle bag mounts for my 750. What do I have to do to the bike before striking an arc on it? I know I should disconnect the battery, but what else should I do?

BTW, I'm not welding anything to the frame, I'm building some brackets that bolt on at the shock mounts and turn signal bolts. I want to bolt on the brackets and tack it all together, then pull it off and finish the welds.

TIA,
-=Tim=-

[Dink]

take a wire brush to the area where the clamp is gonna clamp on to help conductivity, or better still, connect the earth clamp to the new steel of your brackets.
Dink

[HiSPL]

Yeah I'll clamp on to the brackets I'm making.

I'm more specifically worried about the bikes electrics. Is disconnecting the battery enough, or should I do more?

[Anonymous]

I'd think that if you're using 25V arc your other electrics are probably fine. Better safe than sorry, but my thinking is that, while there is a lot of energy in the arc, the low voltage will be unlikely to go shoving electricity where it should not be.

[Planecrazy]

Two points to consider...

First, if I'm not mistaken you shouldn't have a problem with electricity bleed if you clamp the ground cable near the point of arc, since the major amperage will follow the shortest path to complete the circuit. Anyone with more electrical knowledge please correct me if I'm wrong....

Second, keep in mind that there is going to be "splatter" in all directions, so you want to VERY CAREFULLY cover or shield the surrounding area of the bike or you'll have a huge job trying to clean up and correct the damage...

Good Luck,
Steve 8)

[HiSPL]

Thanks guys. 8)

[joe.d]

I would perhaps unplug any major ignition or charging components from the wire harness even unbolt the peices disconect the batery, and bolt the mounts to the frame, if your worried about the paint on the frame or splatter from the welder cover or lay a little grease on the frame, you can allways wash it off, we use splatter gaurd when building our spiral staircases, cause its a sob to get splatter off chequer plate best of luck mate

[gremlin]

pull all the fuses. keep the welding clamp as close to the welding site as posible.

yes it may be low voltage, its that 100+ amps that will kill all the electrical stuff.

[HiSPL]

Well, I did all the on-bike welding that I needed to do today and it came out fine. Bike still works, and no major fires...

OTOH, My welding skills are like one step above first-day-of-high-school-shop-class.

I'll see if I can get some pics tomorrow.

[Planecrazy]

Haha!! I know the feeling -- my skills have been improving exponentially since I purchased my MIG welder last winter...

Steve 8)

[HiSPL]

Look out OCC....

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0RwAAAEsV1gPGSNsCqhtHPSH*vP47eRM*ZAkEE1oKLEe5vh39U HBkSSQGjGzm72NDgaqM1uFhMfBSwplMRLjub2IBM3OkDiJViUT V16iN81Q/Rack.jpg?dc=4675489556667404754[/img]

Here it is in progress. I am hanging the saddle bag supports off the side behind the shock mounts. It needs lots of grinding and paint, but it's coming along.....

[HiSPL]

Oh yeah, the best part is that the mounts are slotted so all I have to do is loosen the two shock nuts and it slips up and forward and then comes off. 8)

[Planecrazy]

I'm in the final stages of modifying a KG rack to attach to my Vetter Hardbag brackets, because the original brackets don't work at the same time and I have a KG slidemount trunk I want to use with the Vetter bags.

I'm almost done with the fabrication work, and will try to post some pics soon.

Regards,
Steve 8)

[Anonymous]

Looks pretty good. When working with metal it's fairly easy to fix mistakes. Add some weld to low areas, grind the high down, etc.

The only suggestion I would make is to have it powder coated when done. That stuff doesn't chip off and looks great. If you go with black (gloss, satin, or flat) you can get a good price on it usually. This is because they will put your piece in the oven with other jobs. They cannot put different color pieces in the oven together. Baking is the most expensive part of the process because the ovens typically are very large (walk in).

[HiSPL]

That's an idea that I haven't thought of yet. There's a powder coating place pretty close to here. I'll see what kind of deal I can get. I have some two part epoxy paint that I was planning on using any way. It's pretty tough, but nothing like Powder coat....