Cazo

Cazo

TIG Weld

Rickati Tank

Flip Side

I finished welding in the bottom of the Rickati tank Monday. All in all, it's not looking half bad. I need to weld the mounts on it now and it's a done deal. So I've got a little progress going for me there.

The other two photos are of the cazo or in English, the big ass bowl. This is for cooking up carnitas. Load the cazo up with pork, along with molasses, some cola and all kinds of seasonings and cook it up into some scrumptious Mexican grub. This thing is for the padre of one of my students. I showed him and another kid how to do the layout and then they plasma cut the pieces out - I did all the welding. I finished welding it all up yesterday and will put the handles on it today then out the door it goes.

The cazo is made out of 304 stainless sheet with a 1/2" diameter bar wrapped around the top for strength. I welded the bar to the sheet all the way around and it will get sanded smooth before it leaves. The top seam was easy to weld, the bottom was a little tougher. I don't get too much stainless to weld. Most of the little bit that I do is some little job for the kitchen here at school. I TIG weld all kinds of aluminum stuff but stainless is a lot different. The thermal conductivity is the big thing. Aluminum sucks the heat away and stainless retains it. Mild steel or chrome-moly is about half way in between them. It was good practice for me. I did a little job for Surly a while back out of the same material and was ashamed at the way that one turned out. The weld looked OK but I had a bunch of melt-thru that he had to file off the backside. That's never good.

I've been working on the gym van some more - I'll have the brake line replaced today. The next thing will be trying to get the bleeder screws to cooperate. As rusty as everything else is, I'm not anticipating anything easy here either. The pipefitter is coming in today to finish hooking up the heater, so I'll need to get it out of the shop until he's done. That being the case, it may be a little while on that job yet. I'd like to finish up the body work on that rig as well. That was one of the things I was going to work on this summer that didn't get done due to the construction at the school. It's also another reminder that I need to get things plumbed up at home so I can do that type of work after I retire.

The father of one of my students is building a tandem bicycle and was looking for me to weld it up. He's in a big hurry - like today or tomorrow - so I told the kid no on that. I'd like to tackle that job but not if it's a big rush. I guess he's got everything jigged up, but even at that, it's not something I'd want to do on a hurry up basis.