bduane's Welded Single-Tier Brew Stand Build Thread

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bduane

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Much credit to JonW as my plans are heavily based on his brew stand!

I'll be posting pictures as I go along and try to describe any issues I run into and how I resolve them.

Plans are below (designed in SketchUp Free) .I am using 14 guage 1 1/2" steel tube. I just started tacking the top together, I'll post a picture of that next. This is my first welding project.

Welder: Nothern Tool Flux Core Welder, I bought it at $130, which was the cheapest I had ever seen it go, it is even cheaper now at $120! This welder isn't a high quality name brand welder, but it has tons of positive reviews. If you are patient you can wait until they have reconditioned ones available, they were selling for $99 before.

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I've got the outside of the top of the frame tacked together on one side here. Because my garage floor is uneven, i did the best I could by weighing down the end I was working on (otherwise it the end of the long tubes would lift off the ground and wouldn't be even with the short piece)

I put the inside pieces in just to ensure fit.

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After adjusting for squareness (by measuring diagonally each way and tapping the corner on the floor as needed until they were even), i flipped the top over and prepared to tack the other side of the top. I found a small problem though, the welding pulled the tubes a little bit so there are gaps on the bottom. I ran to home depot to buy some bar clamps to help square it back up before tacking the other side.

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After all corners were tacked, I checked for squareness again and adjusted as necessarily. Once square, I tacked the outside corners to lock it in place, and proceeded to weld the seams. For the inside 90 degree seams, I propped it up roughly at a 45 degree angle to ensure an even weld pool, using the bar clamp and my bike stand. It as also convenient to weld the outside welds at this time too (it was too tall to weld those with the stand straight up on end!)

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After the outside of the top was finished, I began work on the inside crossbars. I propped it up on some cinder blocks to give some room for some clamps. I used some extra steel and some of the tube steel with the clamps to help ensure the cross bars are flush. Used a rubber mallet to tap them into place once clamped to get the measurements exact.

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slakwhere said:
Three Tier... that word does not mean what you think it means. ;)

good looking single tier build!

I know, I was thinking three burner and single tier and that's what came out! And my mistake is permanent, so the only solution is to build an actual 3-tier stand... I better get started!
 
Top is complete.

I had a hell of a time getting the 2 cross sections in for the middle burner in place. Welding the other cross sections must have pulled the steel in about 1/16th", making it extremely difficult to get those short 14" sections into place. It took a lot of time with the rubber mallet and some finagling to get it in, and one of the walls of the 14" sections bent in a little bit. If i had to do it again, I would tack them in prior to welding the rest.

Also, thinking now about how i'm going to attach the legs, I think it would have made more sense to leave the bottom edge of the outer corners unwelded so that the legs could easily sit flush without a lot of grinding.

That's it for today, about 8 hours of time into this today, though I'm sure a more expirienced welder or somebody with a proper welding table or some corner clamps could have got this far a lot faster!


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Looking good. Suggestion - turn up the amperage on the welder but leave the line speed. Looks like you're not getting the best penetration and a bit too much splatter.
 
BadNewsBrewery said:
Looking good. Suggestion - turn up the amperage on the welder but leave the line speed. Looks like you're not getting the best penetration and a bit too much splatter.

I'm a bit confused, do you mean to increase the voltage? There is only a voltage and wire speed setting, my understanding is that increasing wire speed increases amperage.

Now, the voltage on this cheap welder only has 2 settings "1" and "2". Based on the chart on the welder (which I know is just a guideline) if I was welding a little bit thicker material (12 gauge) they recommend bumping the voltage up to the "2" setting and turning the wire speed down to 2-3, so perhaps I could turn the voltage up to the high setting and turn the wire speed down to just under 2? With this slow of a feed speed, I would also have to weld a lot slower?
 
Sorry, mixed my terms. Voltage. You're not getting good penetration, the weld pool is sitting on top of the metal and not biting in. Whatever your welder is, or how the settings are, I don't know. If you have scrap from this build try experimenting with that. Once the metal heats up from your longer welds it'll take the weld better.
 
Plan drawings

I know this is off topic, but i was wondering. What computer program did you use to write up those plans? I have been looking and looking for something to do that and haven't found the exact one yet. Btw it looks great so far.
 
looks like sketchup. free for private use. http://www.sketchup.com/ it's pretty amazing. easy to use and there are lots of pre-built models you can download for stuff like kegs, march pumps, computers, humans, etc. :)

Correct, SkethUp free. I downloaded some keg models from the library. Someone even made a keggle model, however, my laptop doesn't have a very strong GPU, so I opted to draw a simple kettle for the sake of the drawing as it started getting sluggish with the complexity of the keggles.
 
Sorry, mixed my terms. Voltage. You're not getting good penetration, the weld pool is sitting on top of the metal and not biting in. Whatever your welder is, or how the settings are, I don't know. If you have scrap from this build try experimenting with that. Once the metal heats up from your longer welds it'll take the weld better.

I have a couple pieces of scrap, I'll experiment a bit with the higher voltage setting.
 
I found with the higher voltage setting it was tough to get good welds without burning through at the edges. I found using my current setting recommended by the chart on the welder worked better if I slowed down more allowing it to heat up more, and I also switch to a circular pattern to circle back on my weld a little bit to help ensure an even weld pool. Part of the problem before was that I wasn't watching my weld pool so I wasn't able to control my speed accordingly.
 
Finished welding the frame! Next up is figuring out how I want to do my kettle supports, burner mounts, pump mount, and casters!

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Cool! Looks a lot like the fabrication tables in my countertop shop.
 
Finally making some progress on this project, have a question about the gas plumbing to my new BG14 Banjo Burners.

I bought this gas connector at Home Depot per the HD employee saying it will work with propane, I don't think I was specific enough. The instructions say it will work with LP, not to exceed 0.5 PSI.

Does Home Depot / Lowes sell a flexible connector that can be used for HP propane? I swear I read of people using yellow connector hose from HD on their BG14's.

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Well, I decided to go with natural gas! I bought:

1. Natural gas 1/2" ID flexible hose with quick connect fittings with integral ball valve: http://caloreequipment.com/products...valve-quick-disconnect-gas-connector-kit.html

What's nice about the quick connect with integral ball valve is that it will not let you disconnect the hose without shutting the valve off.

2. NG orifices from Brewers hardware: http://www.brewershardware.com/Valve-and-NG-Orifice-for-BURN10-BURNVALVENAT.html

I was going to just drill them out but I like that these have the ball valve built in.

I mounted my burner in a makeshift wind screen, and I plan to mount the windscreen to the stand, currently it is not attached, but it provides a nice stable base to test the burner. Got my manifold mounted and sealed, and my QD installed by a experienced plumber, test fire picture attached. This is at wide open, it puts off a very respectable amount of heat.

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any updates? :)

also, would you be willing to send me the sketchup files? :) thanks! looking to make a brewrig myself here very shortly
 
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