Old welder at the shop showed me a trick for fitting tube

I spent about 20 minutes trying to line up a tricky tube joint last Tuesday at the yard in Gary. This guy Frank walked over, said nothing, just grabbed a scrap piece of angle iron and clamped it to the bench. He tacked a magnet to it and wedged my tube against that. Fit perfect on the first try after that. Anyone else have a senior guy drop a simple trick like that on you?

3 comments

3 Comments

wyatt8627d ago

Call me crazy but I'm going the other way on this one. That old timer stuff is why half the guys my age can't read a tape or do basic math without a phone app. I spent years learning to fit tube with a mig gun, a square, and a sharp eye. Having some guy come over and slap a magnet on it feels like cheating. If you can't eyeball it and cut it right the first two or three tries what are you even doing? I've seen way too many younger guys lean on tricks like that and never actually learn how to read a joint or understand why it fits. What happens when that magnet falls off or you don't have a scrap of angle handy?

the_cora7d ago

So we're gatekeeping zip ties and magnets now? Pretty soon someone's gonna tell me a speed square is "cheating" too. Just let folks work however they want, nobody's handing out trophies for guessing cuts by eye.

michael8807d ago

You mentioned "sharp eye" and I get that, but sometimes a trick is just a trick. My buddy Dave, he's a pipefitter over in Hammond, was trying to fit a handrail on a loading dock last summer. Hot day, humid, everyone's cranky. An old foreman named Charlie came by, fished a zip tie out of his pocket, wrapped it around the tube, and used it as a pivot point to scribe a perfect line. Dave said it saved him about three grinder wheels and a whole lot of cuss words that afternoon.