K60

Hey I'm k60 , been a welder for 38 yrs I'm interested in building a welding positioner , any ideas ?

Hi K60 - welcome to HomemadeTools.net :welcome:

Here's a link for ideas: Homemade Tools Search: welding positioner - HomemadeTools.net

A large lathe chuck would be a good idea. That way you could mount different parts or auxiliary plates.

Agreed, large lathe chuck and/or faceplate. Most I have seen made(home) are box shaped using flange mount bearings for the mainshaft and using a braided ground cable rubbing on the mainshaft to connect the ground from the welder to the work. Now for the rotation some have used a chain drive reduction but you have the problem of when your working with a lopsided piece it comes overcenter and jumps due to a slack chain. Yes you could use a tensioner but it will still end up jumping some. Now if you had access to a gearbox that would be closer to ideal and a DC motor and controller or an AC with a VFD I think its called would give you speed changes with the spin of a knob. Something I must say if I havent already is do everything possible to prevent arcing through the bearings and drive, doing so will improve the life span of your tensioner.

Take a look at this. Relatively cheap and easy to build and very accurate speed control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0DBmhCe3Lo

Adapt a face plate to an "off the shelf" engine work stand, which gives you a rotating axis _very_ inexpensively.
Some times its easier to rotate the work than move the gun in a circle.

I like industrial grating for the plate material, giving lots of flexibility for clamping the work.

- Add a "timing plate" like a dividing head to improve the radial positioning options.
- Add a 4 jaw chuck to the face plate for odd, small work; or customize your jaw arrangement from there, according
to the type of work you like doing.

FWIW.

--frankb

Nice one dgbingham! That build is actually by our very own dozerbuilder01. He won a Homemade Tool of the Week award for it. Here's the full thread with more details: https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...2381#post61202

Some positioner ideas:
Try to make it like the small table top units commercially available. it's good if the turntable can be horizontal and flip all the way down well past ninety degrees. On this turntable/faceplate you can mount your three or four jaw chuck, work, etc. You really need a hole down the center of the rotating shaft. You can use a full floating truck rear end hub. This centerline hole would be minimum 1/2 inch up to 2-3 inches in diameter. This allows for hoses, long work, etc. But be careful, no arcing through the bearings. The truck hub is super heavy duty but it's cheap. Try to use a DC/PM motor with a gear box. It's good to have maximum RPM of around 15, and low speed super super slow - .05 RPM. With all the torque you can possibly get. You need something to drive the DC motor, possibly on a separate pendant with an on/off switch, forward/reverse switch, two 10 turn potentiometers and a high/low switch to switch between the two potentiometers. This allows you to go fast to your next location and flip a switch to slow for welding. To ground your rotating shaft you need a machined round smooth surface to press against, either with a curved spring loaded piece of copper or a braided copper grounding strap with spring tension purchased from McMaster-Carr.
I wish you the best.