Probably a long shot, but does anyone know of a place/street to go in Taipei to get random things welded?
Nothing too complicated - just the bent/partially snapped T-bar thing from the back of a cheapish old office chair that I’d like to get repaired if possible rather than binning the entire thing. I’m guessing it’s several minutes of work, and I probably wouldn’t want to spend more than a few hundred or it’s not worth it. Does anything like that exist here? Zhongzheng/Da’an area would be good, but don’t mind going somewhere else if there’s a street or something.
You will see racks of steel stuff there in addition to oxygen cylinders. They tend to have blue signs and blue trucks parked out front. They not only do windows and doors, they also build those sheet metal buildings…
Yea, sorry but welding galvanized steel is extremely bad for your health unless you first burn it off, and not breathe the fume (it’s very bad). I know some Taiwanese do it but I don’t know how they deal with health issues. It also messes with the tungsten… so I try not to do it if I can avoid it.
If you ever find yourself needing to weld galvanized, consider grinding it or dipping in muriatic acid instead of burning it off (and wear a respirator). Not really too huge a deal when it needs to be done.
I said burn it off because galvanized is often on both sides, not just one, and you can’t always reach the other side. If it’s flat sheet it’s probably easier to do. Muriatic acid is not helpful, and if the residue isn’t cleaned off will lead to future rusting especially at the weld joint.
Paint is just much easier to deal with vs. galvanized. Paint will mess with welding, but the fumes won’t kill you.
Most try to avoid it as much as they can, and you only galvanize it after all the welding is done (you will notice this on street lights).
Well, doing it outdoors help. I think most Taiwanese just stick weld galvanized outside, so that becomes a non issue. If it’s not something that should be stick welded, like say something really thin (anything less than 1.5mm thick basically), then it becomes a problem. I prefer TIG because you get much more precise welding and it works better for thin materials, but the coating makes it problematic.
And plenty of Taiwanese won’t even wear welding mask when welding… because you know, they just look away (meaning their weld is shit because they can’t see).