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First send cut send trial project - welding coupon bend test rig

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Dan Dubeau

Ultra Member
I just made my first order through send cut send for a bend test rig I just drew up. For those curious I thought this might be a good "real time" test of this service. I will update every step of the way. Design started about 10am, order placed 11:25. (it's taken longer to write this post than to design and send....)

I'm practicing for my CWB all position stick qualification, and want to practice at home on my own time due to time/money constraints. Watching a bunch of youtube videos outlining the procedures, and reading the CWB (S 1gf, 2gf, 3gf, 4gf) specs on the test itself, I thought it might be nice to have my own bend test rig to test my coupons. It'll also be handy for bump bending stuff too, so not a total one trick pony.

bend test rig.webp


It's all tab and slot from 0.25" HR. The holes for the rollers I will put in on the mill to ensure alignment. The rollers (1.5"dia x 2"long) and plunger I will make from shop stock. All in so far I have about an hour of time to draw it up, and upload to sendcutsend, and the total was $143.47 including shipping and taxes. Overall size for scale is 10" long, 6.75" high, 3.25 wide. Could I have made it cheaper from shop scraps and offcuts? meh, maybe? ~$140 isn't too bad IMO if it goes together as quick as I'm hoping it will.....

I've been curious about using them for a while now, but have not really had a good excuse for a project to try them out until now. The local college has "practice days" I can go and do (2x 5 hour days) for about $260. This should allow me to practice at home a bit cheaper and on my own time, plus it's just fun to build stuff sometimes...... I also need to build a test stand, but that can come from scraps.

I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime if any of you skilled and qualified welders out there have any tips for me I'm all ears. I'm "decent" in flat and horizontal, but need a lot more practice in vertical and way more in overhead. I'll be burning many rods padding plates, and practicing tie ins in the coming weeks....Might be a long shot, but I hope to be competent enough to pass all 4 tests by about July. I'll probably start another thread about that when I get going, or maybe just in this one.
 
With that out of the way, I need to go out and cobble together a radius upper die for my press brake attachment to make some patch panels and do some "non" critical welding on my mower deck....Fun times...
 
Thanks John. I would like to find a local source for stuff like this, but have been curious as to the painlessness of sendcutsend for a while. I will do more digging for local (east GTA) places, but from past dealings with similar services, most don't want to deal with one offs, and guys off the street, no matter how much they advertise they do. I know a fuck off price when I see one.

First hiccup, and completely my fault.....I'd assumed that the price shown was in Cdn funds....It's not. My card shows $198.09 from the cross border bendover. Again, totally my fault for not paying attention. Something to keep in mind moving forward.....Certainly takes the shine off things.....
 
Yes I imagine the GTA has lots of places like this. Originally I had found a place on the island here. Laser cutting and bending. But even though they were local the sample and order sat on the guys desk for a few weeks and when I came back they still weren't sure when they would get started. So I took it back and contacted Valid. They are a huge company really. They also built these metal structures.

At YVR airport.
1713806710210.webp


On a Barge floating in Vancouver Harbour.
1713806672861.webp
 
That's a cool looking project. I'm looking forward to being on some big jobs, perhaps things like that in the near future. Stuff you can point out to the eye rolling family and say "I helped build that". Currently I can point to a car, and say, somewhere under that rear seat, I designed and machined the checking fixture that measures that cross car reinforcement panel :D. Not quite the same ya know?
 
Dan Dubeau said:
Currently I can point to a car, and say, somewhere under that rear seat, I designed and machined the checking fixture that measures that cross car reinforcement panel :D.
Click to expand...

I think that's true of most of us Dan. I can't point at a single thing on a car and say I did that. Everything is a result of teamwork. The best most of us can say is that we were part of the team that made that model possible. Even at the very top, the CEOs claim (or the media claims) that they designed the car, but we all know that's BS.

I am proud to have been part of the team and for the many roles I played in bringing vehicles to the market. No one person ever does everything on anything at that level. For smaller run products, it is entirely possible to "be the guy", and there is a lot of satisfaction and pride in that too.

I think the most important thing we all do is to support and raise our families and make good contributions to society around us. A job well done makes that possible.

From where I sit you have lots to be very proud of.
 
Susquatch said:
Everything is a, result of teamwork.
Click to expand...
So very true. For the YVR lamps the chief engineer's extended family sat in their living room for days stripping wires, installing connectors etc on the fifteen 35 meter long cables. People worked between Christmas and New Years when they would normally have taken time off.
 
One of the nice things about my pre-retirement job was I could honestly say “I built that” or “I designed that”. It also meant that I got to say “It broke” or “I need to fix this”.
 
I don't mean "I" as in "I single-handedly built that", I recognize engineering/manufacturing is all a giant team effort. Some more cohesive than others.... More referring to the fact that my entire careers work is buried behind the scenes, hidden in an industry completely unknown to 99.675% of the population. There is a sense of simple job satisfaction being able to point to something in the public eye and say "I worked on that".
 
Dan Dubeau said:
In the meantime if any of you skilled and qualified welders out there have any tips for me I'm all ears. I'm "decent" in flat and horizontal, but need a lot more practice in vertical and way more in overhead. I'll be burning many rods padding plates, and practicing tie ins in the coming weeks....Might be a long shot, but I hope to be competent enough to pass all 4 tests by about July. I'll probably start another thread about that when I get going, or maybe just in this one.
Click to expand...

I have done more check tests for all position stick than i can remember, feel free to message me if you like.

If you put in the time i dont think its a long shot to have an all position some time in july, you will probably fail one or two plates in the process, for many its flat, so be prepared for that likely hood and dont let it discourage you. Getting those first 4 plates under your belt is the hard part.

Not sure if you have come across how to remove that backing strip, the easiest way i know is to make up a jig for the bandsaw and slice the majority off with the bandsaw, clean up with a grinder. Absolutely do not gouge it off.
 
Thanks. You were one I was hoping to pick the brains of.

As a machinist (if all you have is a hammer....), I was planning on milling them off, but will look into a bandsaw jig also. A few videos, mainly the weld.com ones had also mentioned 1gf being the hardest one also, so I will give that some more attention. They have a pretty good video series on the gist of the tests, and a few more have filled in some other blanks.

Will be a few weeks before I get started, but I'll post up my progress for better or for worse.....
 
I don't believe the flat to be the hardest, but it is the most commonly failed, its easy to trap slag. The flat you need to plan your passes so your not leaving any tight grooves, and i would not go above 125, slightly cooler with slower travel speed does a better job of burning slag out than roasting it in on incinerate travelling 100mph/

i skimmed that series your referring to from weld.com about the cwb plates, overall pretty good, i like that they show a fail, anyone can fail, but some things;

there is a time limit, 45min per plate, the suggestion of stopping every few rods to let the plate cool is not a great plan, the plates take a while to weld out, and when its your first time you could easily run out of time if you did that...if you need a couple minutes break that's fine, but i wouldn't be doing it every few rods, if its getting to hot for you to control (doubtful) turn the machine down

you can use a punch to mark your stop/start on the backing strip, its easy to see, and it welds out, you dont want to cruise way past your stop/start, you will be starting a new plate if that happens

aside from the flat, once the plate is in position, it cannot be moved, not to chip/wire wheel, not because your uncomfortable, once you start, that's where it stays, if the inspector notices it in a different position than when he first came in the booth you will probably be failed....so figure out what the best position for you is

the cap is probably more difficult than the root, after a couple fill passes you really need to start planning and sizing your fill's to end up where you want to be, you dont want to overshoot that 1/8 fill and have to weld up another plate

i dont think ive ever seen a booth without 2 arms, one for the plate, one to rest yourself on, that being said there are no guarantee's. its wise to have a bessy, pair of c-clamp vise grips, what ever, something to rest your arm on, 20-40 min of welding overhead without some kind of rest and you will be shaking like a leaf when it comes time to cap

try not to lean against the booth.....its all well and great until the kid beside you screws up, freaks out and punches/kicks/throws his plate against the wall your leaning on.... when your capping of course

on test day, new lenses, new gloves, wear leathers, new rod, every time, do not restart a rod, its not worth the risk, give yourself every advantage. Every welder i know does this on any kind of test day, no one is going to think its weird.
 
Fedex just showed up. less than 5 minutes later it's assembled ready to weld..... No need to touch a grinder for fitment at all. Incredible really.
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I will put the holes in for the rollers before I assemble and weld, but I'm amazed at how perfect everything fit right off the bat. As my first tab and slot type fabrication, I'm a big fan. There is very little play in all the joints, some being a light tap fit. As a whole it's really good.

Was it worth the money? Meh, that's debatable. For this, probably not, but I had an idea and wanted to give it a try. I could have made a similar jig to accomplish the same goal from the scrap bin for a bit more time, and a lot less money. But as somebody curious about sendcutsend from the beginning, I've been itching to try it out for something, and this one was it.

I'll probably finish it off tomorrow, and get onto weld practice......
 
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