Bar Clamps Build Process

16/5/2021

The sun came out briefly, so I took advantage and ground all the welds on the end plates. Then I got on with the test of welding a painted part.

I don't want the split nut to be tight as the face of the other split nut (that is inside the jaw) isn't as smooth as the action of the bearing. Therefore, I used a couple of my feeler gauge scraps to help me get consistent spacing on all the jaw frames. With the feeler gauge pieces in place and the nut hand tightened onto them, I tacked in a couple of places. I had the current return clamp attached to the top of the threaded rod to prevent any issues with current trying to spark its way through the jaw face paint.

I then welded all the way round the nut. In all honesty, the tacks would probably do the job, but I prefer the appearance of the full weld.

After welding (and cooling) I inspected the paint carefully. There was some definite marring underneath the bearing (which can be most readily seen if the bearing is slid to one side). Given that it's hard to see unless you're looking very closely and also hidden behind the bearing face, I've decided I'm happy with this. When I do the rest of the jaws, I'll try to weld a bit on each of the nine remaining jaws in a cycle rather than welding all of one and then moving on to the next. All being well, that'll reduce the heat build up in any one part and should lessen the damage to the paint even further.

With that done, I couldn't resist a quick test. I'm happy to say that any paint that got on the inside of the jaw frames has had no effect on the sliding action of either jaw.

Next up was a long and very tedious process of masking all the jaw frames and getting everything mounted in a suitable way to allow me to spray paint all the parts. This took a couple of hours and was very dull.

With that done, I could spray everything with a coat of primer.

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