Welding Tips Metal Fabrication, Tools and Layout Stair Handrails

what's going on guys my name is brandon and we have a fun episode today we've got a lot of welding and a lot of fabrication we're going to be using a lot of tools and there's going to be lots of tips and tricks stick around we bought our house guys this is the door off the deck which leads into our kitchen area and then to get down into the basement you'd open up a door and then it would go down a set of stairs there well i took the stairs out when we first moved into the house made this a pantry because it didn't seem to make sense of having a stairwell in the kitchen and then i actually put the stairs off our hallway so now when you walk downstairs you can see that there's no handrail so the stairs used to come out right there and then come down into the basement this used to be a closet right here i took this closet out moved the stairs made a stairwell down here and i'm in the process of you know making it look nice so what i need to do is put a railing down here and then i can finish the stairwell i want to be able to remove this handrail as it goes up the stairs so you can get you know large items in and around this corner which is kind of important not that i'd have to do it very often but if i do i want to plan for it now so i know you guys are asking me a lot about you know where i get my medal and what does it cost and whatnot so yeah don't go buying your medal at a big box store it's going to cost you an arm and a leg and it just costed me an arm and a leg right now for the stuff that i just got i'll show you what it ended up costing me you see this place they make trailers they sell metal they do weld and they do fabrication they do everything here this is where i've been getting my material for years put a little red flag on the back tie it all in good to go the price of metal has literally gone right through the roof you can see for that metal i have in the back cost me 276 bucks but it's definitely a lot cheaper than buying it at your big box store by far to give you an idea of how much metal prices have risen in like the last eight months so check out this slip this is november 2nd of 2020 and you can see how i bought some inch and a quarter by inch and a quarter it was 125 a foot okay now that's today uh of when i bought that metal september 25 20th of 21. look how much it is only two dollars a foot so just in eight months the price of steel has gone through the roof so you know 125 to two dollars you're looking at you know a 75 74 increase so what does that translate into a consumer price goes up i mean everything's gonna cost more if the metal costs more it costs more to to buy it it's gonna cost more to sell it so unfortunately uh i wish wish i knew all this stuff i would have bought a lot more material and had a lot more in stock but it is what it is so anyways let's get going it is what it is this is inch and a quarter material this is one inch so the inch and a quarter like i said are going to be the top and bottom rails the one inch are going to be the spindles this is all 14 gauge metal i was really hoping for 16 just to keep it light because it doesn't need to be that heavy duty and then i've got some 2x2 uh which this is eighth inch that'll be the bottom uh post down down below at the bottom of the stairs and pretty much everything i do guys i just build it in my head so this will not be any different there's always a million ways of doing something and this is how i'm doing it i'm sure that someone else could do this that probably does this every day for a living they could probably arrive at a totally different process than me but this is how my brain works and this is how i'm building it so what i've done guys i've just laid a piece of uh that one and a quarter bar it's just it's actually a scrap piece that i had laying around and i just laid it down the length of the stairs because i need to make a bottom rail and a top rail and then the spindles which are going to be the one inch metal are going to go in between so this end right here obviously is going to be vertical so it's going to be mitered because it's going to touch up in there needs it needs to do that at the top and the bottom so that's going to be a a mitered cut there and it's going to be a mitered cut here because i'm going to have a 4x4 post that this is going to weld to so to do that all i'm going to do is take an angle finder and i'm going to take a level and find where vertical is and then transfer that onto an angle finder and i'll show you how i'm going to do that so i think it's important i show you this little trick guys this is what i use to mark the metal it's just a mark all silver streak and i'll have links down to some of the tools down below but check this out i used one of these for years no one ever told me this little cap on the end all you do is stick it over that spin it and it's a pencil sharpener so for all you guys that don't like to read directions like me nice and sharp and when you're doing stuff like this so this is important that you get a nice crisp measurement so i want to share that with you but yeah get one of these silver streak markers they're awesome basically this is just like a soapstone inside here they work really good so now that i have that bottom rail or top rail doesn't matter they're both the same they're going to both have the same angle now i just take a level make sure that i have a nice plumb line and then draw a line onto your metal now i don't particularly like working with numbers guys but i'm sure that there's some of you that do i like to keep things simple and kind of just do things obviously by the seat of my pants because obviously i'm building this entire thing in my head so that right there that's the angle and i would take this and transfer this back to my saw again this is just about what's called a bevel gauge and that right there lines up to that but for you number guys uh there's a couple other ways you could do a speed square you could use a protractor so here's here's another tool that you could do so that's going to be easy that's 45 degrees that's a 45. i'll show you a third way if you're so inclined to know now the third way no of knowing guys involves using what's called a speed square and this is really simple here this is always the pivot point and you know for you carpenters or guys that work in construction you'll probably recognize this tool line this back edge up with our line okay and then we come over here again that's the pivot so then we draw like an imaginary vertical line down it you can see there we are 45 degrees see where it says 45 on there so that is a 45 degree angle so now guys i'll go over to my evolution dry cut saw and i will set 45 degrees on this table now if you guys are looking to get into metal fabrication and you think that this is something you're gonna do for a while i'm telling you guys this tool is awesome and uh you know i only like to like plug tools and and kind of recommend things that i believe in and that work and i actually got an exclusive deal with uh evolution that i'll leave a link down in the description that you guys can get uh some percentage off by using that link and it gives a little bump to the channel but uh yeah but i just personally i like to see people get into welding and metal fabrication and if i can save you some money in the process like i say it won't cost you any more using that link but it will save you some money and that's the saw that i'm using right there nice heavy duty saw love it anyway so back to setting this sarah okay so this one is real easy guys because this model saw has detents all pre put into it and i will tell you that it's pretty rare that this actually worked out to be a 45 degree angle it's extremely rare that's kind of like almost unheard of but in any event you just literally there it is you can see so that's 45 it's all pinned into place but let's say let's say it was uh 42 degrees how would i go about setting that well let me show you so this is where your bevel guide comes in handy guys and that's why the first tool that i used was this i don't necessarily need to know what the bevel is i just need to set it right on my saw so obviously the saw cuts parallel in this groove so i know that my fence needs to be opened up at least so that this edge is in parallel with it so what i would do is take my fence and bring it in so that this edge is kind of like in line with that cut so we know we're getting close right there and i would actually cinch down the fence a little bit so that i can still bump it do fine tune adjustments by bumping it okay so now with the saw unplugged you'd open up the blade guard bring the blade all the way down see that guys and i would adjust the fence in and out just until the bevel gauge touched the blade all the way down through and i'd lock the fence down so these types of saws make cutting metal super super easy it's pretty much no different than what i would do if i was setting up to cut wood same idea you know i do the same thing with this saw you can see how kind of you know it's the same principle you can just see it a little bit better what i'm doing here so yeah that's that's it now i just need to get a rough length for the top and bottom rails and i'll cut it just a little bit long just so i know that i have enough material and once we set the bottom post then we'll cut it to the exact length and that vertical post is going to be somewhere where that little white dot is there ahead of my tape measure so we'll call the top and bottom rails we'll just cut them to nine foot six so we need a top and a bottom so we're going to cut two of them we'll put the 45 degree cuts on the top and then we'll just cut them straight on the bottom until we know where exactly we want that vertical post then we'll make a mark on the bottom and cut those at a 45 as well and already guys this material uh this material piece that we made in last week's episode is already getting used i told you that so simple little projects that sometimes really make your time in the workshop so much easier because this little piece that pins on with this little uh shoulder bolt that piece right there just keeps the material completely flat and level in my saw but you can see i need to cut it at 45 so rather than move my material at a drastic angle just move this off 10 times easier that way work smarter not harder so that just literally just like that so all you do is put a 45 on one end cut it for nine foot six these saws are really loud guys so you want to wear ear protection and you want to wear eye protection but the great part is is that they don't throw sparks all through your shop so you don't have to worry about burning your shop down all right here we go guys look at that guys bur-free it's not hot not hot to the touch at all nice clean cut look how obviously look how straight it is it cut that end right down to a sliver yeah you can't beat this for precision and for speed guys really nice so now i just flipped my piece around measured out nine foot six and here's that mark right there now somebody asked me what do i do with all my scraps that's a good question so i take all my scraps this is a scrap so pretty much anything less than a foot long at least for me and my shop i just throw it in a bucket and that's my scrap bucket right here you can see it's ready to go i dig out of this a little bit when i build tabs and stuff but for the most part this is all just junk that's down in there this thing probably two couple hundred pounds in in metal i throw that in there and then i just take it basically just haul it to the recycle yard every so often but yeah so that's what i do with my scraps that's how i kind of determine what scrap and what isn't pretty much anything a foot or less goes into that bucket and then i just know if i'm looking for a certain size and it's less than a foot i check there first and if i haven't used it in about a year or whatever once it gets full however long it takes then i just scrap it because i don't like keeping waste around and i know i'm wearing shorts guys and it's super hot right now especially it's hot in the shop but i won't be wearing this when it comes time to weld for this just kind of like light cutting i've been doing this long enough guys that i don't see an issue with it but if you're not comfortable make sure you're wearing the proper equipment it's going to be the top or the bottom it doesn't matter they're both the same now spin this around do it again next thing we're going to cut is this is 8 inch two by two and this is going to be the vertical post at the bottom that those top and bottom rails tie into so i'm going to make this 38 inches because the standard railing height is excuse me is 36 inches tall now i'll give a two inch little piece on the top and then i can weld like probably just weld a cap on it it's probably what i'll end up doing this we're going to cut on the bias and i'll explain why because if you go to cut on the flat right here that's like a lot of surface area that the blade has to cut through so we're going to cut it like this so it has a lot less surface area to cut and it just cuts better and it'll save the life of your blade a lot too so to be able to do that we're going to use this little apparatus for the saw it comes with it so that just slips over this just like this and then we just bring the saw up to our mark just like that just like that that easy you can see now there's just a lot less surface area to cut it's the preferred way of doing it it would cut the other way just fine but again rather than replace these you can send these out to a company and have these blades sharpened too but a blade like that lasts me probably about a year before i need to have them sharpened all right a little bit more there we go 38 inches all right so we got our top rail and our bottom rail and we got our vertical column at the bottom now we got to cut the spindles they're gonna go about every four inches all the way upstairs so remember i told you i hate math so we know that this is nine foot six long so i just need to figure out how many of these do i need to cut then i go over to my construction master calculator that i've had for umpteen years nine feet six inch divided by every four inches will put a spindle equals so 28 and a half so i'm going to make 28 of these and then we'll figure out the exact spacing after we know the perfect length but 28 of those will do that and then for the height i'll show you how i came up with that all right in in the way i came up with that guys is basically i just cheated a little bit so you can see i've got a mark and a mark here so that's going to signify this is out of my scrap bin that's the uh scrap metal so that's going to signify that railing running up so that's going to signify the top rail and that's going to signify the bottom rail and it'll miss these treads by about an inch and then you go online to osha according to occupational safety and health administration the top rail must be at least 42 inches in height section 1910.29 f and the handrail must be 30 to 38 inches in height section 1910.29 f as measured at the leading edge of the stair tread to the top surface of the rail there you go 30 to 38 inches in height so long as we're between that and we're gonna be good so my outside rails they're 32 so this is going to work out to be pretty much right about that so now i just got to take a measurement between the two marks and that'll tell me how high or how long those spindles have to be when i say the short to long measurement what i'm saying is is like the long side of the 45 degree cut so you can see how this is simulating the bar going up so this would be the bottom rail heading up the stairs and then this will butt into that so that's the long measurement of that 45 and then it's going to go up to there all right let's cut one of these and we'll give it a try now we said long to short is 23 and a half i'm gonna skip ahead you guys don't need to see me cut 28 of these you know what this looks like you see me cut one i'm going to do it 27 more times i'll be right back i want to share with you how i'm doing this because i'm not measuring any more so to keep them real accurate so i've got one two three four cut and then i've got this one this one i'm using as my template and i've marked it with a t now it's important that if you're gonna do what i'm showing you right now that you do it this way because you can't just you know set this on top of a piece mark it out then cut it off and then use that piece to mark your next one because what will happen is that you'll get cumulative errors over and over and over again so it's important get one that you like and use that one as your template to mark all the others and put it so i put a t right on it but check out how satisfying this is it doesn't always work out this way but this is how i do it line up that edge right there then i come down and then trace this edge out just like this but the impressive part is that's my scrap right here this is what's left over after cutting a full length of metal so i've utilized it and that's just luck i didn't plan it that way that's sheer luck but so i will mark out that i will set this aside because this is my template i'll cut that piece off then i'll set this back in this in the in the pile like i said continue to use this as my template don't cut this one off and then use this piece to mark your next one because if this one's off you know a fraction then the next one's going to be off a fraction and then that one's going to be off a fraction and it's just going to keep accumulating and before you know it you'll be off a lot especially on 28 or 30 of these so i made a couple tabs out of some two inch plate and some inch and a half plate and then i just rounded the corners by taking a flat washer then just tracing the corners out and then just bringing it to the grinder and grinding it off so so now i've got a couple tabs and i'll show you what those are going to be used for i'm going to weld a tab to the bottom just like that and then i'll drill a hole right here to anchor it in and then i'll do another one right here just like that so it'll anchor on to that top step there and anchor there that'll give front to back stability and it'll also give it side to side so that should work pretty good and it should be pretty simple if i need to take the railing out i'll only have two bolts to take out and because it is where it is it's actually going to be right in a stringer a stair stringer so which are inch and a half wide so i can lag bolt right down through so that'll give real good meat so it'll bite into it make it nice and solid in order for me to get the exact length of the top and bottom rail i kind of got to have this bottom rail in place so the next thing we're going to do is we're going to weld on these tabs right where they got to go and bolt that bottom rail in place so we can get a nice accurate measurement for our top and bottom rails and then once we have that we'll cut the top and bottom rails to length then we'll know how to space out all of our spindles so that they fit evenly along that width like i was just saying that stringer at the bottom of the stairs is an inch and a half wide well i want to hit that right dead center so half of that is three quarters so half of inch and a half is three quarters so in from the end i'm going to make my hole three quarters of an inch in and i'm going to do the same thing on both of those tabs so although it won't be centered on this tab it will be centered in the stringer and that's where most of the meat is for that and i'll do the same thing with this this one actually will be in the center because this tab is inch and a half wide there and that'll take care of that i might as well just keep it consistent and i'll keep the whole three quarters of an inch in as well from from the end three quarter there now i'll just center punch it so that the drill bit doesn't skip off to make things easier i'll bring these over to the drill press now before i weld them on i know i mentioned this a lot in my videos guys but i'm just like super proud of this tool this is a drill press that i picked up on facebook marketplace i think i only paid like 75 for it i mean that includes the base the drill press and everything but the top part of the drill press was uh junk so i ended up cutting it off and i mounted my drill press or my mag drill to that and my i'm telling you i love it i absolutely love it it's probably one of my favorite tools that i have that i've built i just absolutely love it if you want to see how i did it i'll put a link to that video up above and you can check it out but um it comes in super handy the one thing i like about it guys is that i can run an annular cutter with it which is basically like a hole saw it just has a ton of power a ton of torque so first thing i'm going to do is i need to start a pilot bit uh pilot hole so i'm going to drill it with a pilot i think this is like just a quarter inch i don't really know the exact size but i'm going to drill them both with quarter and then i'll open it up to like 3 8 so i can sink a a lag bolt like a 3 8 lag bolt down through it all right i decided to go with a half inch bit guys that way i can put a nice big lag bolt down through it and i don't have to worry about it pulling out all right here we go they're all ready to be welded on now and for this i'm going to be using my fronius transdeal 2200 and i'm just about out of wire i went and looked inside the cabinet and not good i'm just about out of wire i've only got like two or three wraps on that i've got some smaller stuff some smaller wheels down here i think but yeah that's some of that but i don't particularly like using the small reels nothing wrong with i just like the big reels i don't know why so but anyways let's uh get this set up and i'll walk you through the parameters as i normally do so we're looking at eighth inch steel and right now this is a synergic machine machine you can also run it on manual mode so i'm set on material thickness right now so we're going to go to 125 thousandths and it automatically sets the voltage and you can see i'm on 2t mode i'm running steel solid wire i'm running 30 thousandths wire and i'm using c25 gas so let's purge it and i've been doing a little bit of experimenting with gas as far as like flow rates and you know obviously we try to conserve gas and still maintain a good weld and uh i've been having really good luck around 16 cfh as always turn on the gas bottle slowly and off to the side and when you open it up you want to go all the way out open because that's how c25 bottles seal and we'll turn on the gas solenoid by pressing this you can see we're set at just about 20. so let's go down a little bit more we'll go to about 16 and give that a go because i've been having some pretty good luck with that lately so now we'll shut down our gas solenoid now we're ready so i just got to get some proper ppe gear on and we'll get going and just for the heck of it i'm going to clamp down the piece to the table why not it'll give a better connection as far as the uh the working lead or the ground lead or whatever you want to call it and then we're just going to weld that on just like that you can see on the backside guys i ground a little bit of a bevel on there and that's so i can get some weld on the back side and i'm gonna have to grind it down flush so that so that it'll fit against the back of the stair tread but you'll see why when we get to uh welding that on i'll show you why i did that i'm gonna get a quick tack on this and then we'll weld it right out yeah that's a good tack and we'll flip it over and weld that out now you can see why i beveled that out guys you see how that gave me a little place for that weld metal to go down in then i'll fill that in of course the bead is going to make it proud but then i'll be able to grind it right flush along the back side of that weld and that will be able to fit tight up against that tread that's why i did that there then i'll just grind that flush i'll do that right now while i have it right here that way i don't have to keep flipping it around there now that backside's all good now flip it over and do the top there that's ready to be bolted at the bottom now we'll let that cool down a little bit and then i'll put the other tab on it for the stair tread but we'll have to bring it in put it in place to do that i've got this just set in place now and then i just took that other tab and then set it on that step then just use the magnet to attach it temporarily so we can get a welded and then i just made sure i plumbed it up this way and the other way so that we know that it's good and it's gonna be nice and solid so now we just gotta bring it out to the workshop and weld it alright guys so this is where we're gonna start assembly now i held the top rail up like i said i was going to and then i made a mark on the vertical post which is right here and then i cut it off i did the same thing with the bottom rail so now i've got the post clamped to my fixture table and to keep the distance even on either side of this inch and a quarter tube i've got a 3 8 inch plate underneath so now i'm just gonna put some weld here and then we're going to weld on the bottom rail and then i'll hold it up and put it in place just to make sure that uh my measurements all good and everything looks right and then from there then we'll figure out what our spacing needs to be for the spindles all up the railing and then we can start welding those in but yeah it's coming along really good i'm happy with how it's looking and if you guys want to see how i built uh this fixture table it's pretty slick this is just a piece of 3 8 plate and i ended up making a template and i used my mag drill to make these holes all perfect and as you can see i've got some shoulder bolts in here as stops these are some modified harbor freight clamps same with this so this is all budget stuff but this just makes layout and fabrication so much easier i'll put a link to a video up above and for now i'm just going to tack everything together pretty much so i can test it and try it [Music] now let's take a couple measurements make sure everything's running parallel that's 19 inches between them 19. that's where it's got to be right there so i've got it just setting there guys and i've got a spreader that i just tacked on and i put the tacks on both sides and the reason for that is if you put the tacks on opposite side you can't break them so this is a small attack i'll just be able to grab this bar rotate it around it'll snap that right off but that's keeping that distance there parallel all the way up now and i've just got it set in place this is still plumb down here but i've been trying to find a good way to attach the uh the top up here and i think i found i think i found probably the best way that i can do it let me show you we have this little piece of molding right here at the bottom that sticks out about 3 8 of an inch more so i had to make the bottom rail 3 8 of an inch shorter as compared to that one i think what i'm gonna do is butt this up like that put a couple holes here like a hole here and a hole down here and then i can screw right through that wood and that'll hold the top part of the railing but in order to do this and have it sit flush i'm gonna have to notch out a little bit of this metal so i'll have to notch here and then come down and notch all the way to the bottom so that's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna take a little notch out of this piece of metal right here and then it will sit flush to that then we can put a couple holes in it and that's how i'll be able to cleanly bolt the top part of this railing up to here because i didn't really want to put like a tab coming up and then have a bolt or have a tab coming down you'd have to have it like way down here and it'd be hard to get the anchor in so i think this will just look a lot cleaner a little more finished so that should work good let me go notch this out right now yeah so that's the piece i'm going to be cutting over here for this i'm using a blade it's called uh graf black it's a diamond blade but unlike most it's it doesn't matter which way this spins it's interchangeable the lennox type blades you have to put them on a certain way then the mark wears off after a while i like these because it doesn't matter it's a german made blade and they work awesome i love them again i'll have links all this stuff that i that i like to use down below guys [Music] [Music] [Music] uh put a couple holes in this right now guys before we weld it on it'll just make it a lot easier all right we're back on the fixture table it's just kind of lightly clamped down it's not really holding anything and now i just gotta tack this piece on and this ought to be pretty easy actually so got a little tack there little tack down bottom we'll be good to go then we can start laying this out we'll take a measurement and then figure out what the spacing is on them and then get all these spindles tacked in so this is the setup obviously this is one inch tube this is inch and a quarter tube so i've got a little thin piece of metal that's going to act as a shim to keep this side so it's centered then this side i'm just going to center it with my fingers i've got a four inch block and i'm going to put this four inch block in between every single one of them just like that and then i'll tap this bottom edge move all the way through so these will all be spaced out at four inches once we get two thirds of this rail done then i'll take the measurement and then we'll just slowly cheat them uh into place we might have to move them like by a sixteenth lasso more or whatever but uh it'll all work out it'll all come together and it'll all look great when we're done so that's what we're doing i just wanted to share with you and i'm just going to set it up make it go fast forward and we'll just roll right through this [Music] [Music] [Music] so all right guys we made really good progress it worked out to be that the last uh spindle was just about exactly four inches so we didn't really have to correct anything i just moved them like i said about a sixteenth of an inch on the end and that was it but right now i've got probably about 30 minutes to weld all this out and you guys don't need to watch me do that so what i'm going to do is i'm just going to like plow right through this i'm just going to run right down through weld it all the way then flip it around weld it all the way and i'll be done with it then we'll get it then we'll get it cleaned up and installed and check it out show you how it looks so i'll just show you what i've done so far all down through then i'll do the sides and then just wrap it all the way around so now i just cut an eighth inch plate out on my portable bandsaw and now i've just stuck it to a magnet and now what i'm gonna do is i'm just gonna weld it into the end of this so it's got a nice feel to it so i'll weld that cap in and then we'll grind it all nice and smooth make it real slippery feeling so when your hand touches it that it feels real nice yeah there we go now i'll just grind this nice and smooth we'll wire brush all our welds then we can get this primed and painted [Music] i started off shaping it with an abrasive wheel just because it's easy to get a you know a contour because the wheel you know it's like a rock it's solid then i'll switch over to a flap disc that'll make everything nice and smooth and it'll ease all the edges and for that one i'm just using a 120 grit wheel i'm sure probably a lot of you guys know this but this is set up to have a tool put in it i don't ever use the tool i just press in on the little detent button then press this edge down against something solid then just spin the wheel in a counter-clockwise motion and then that loosens up that right there and just throw on your new disc and i do the same thing just in reverse i don't i don't use a wrench to tighten it i just again press that detent turn everything in a clockwise motion and that's plenty tight right there i've gone over everything with the wire brush and just made sure that everywhere i touch that it feels nice and smooth and everything looks good so that we're not gonna have any you know sharp edges or snags once it's all done then what i do is i just wipe it all down with some paint thinner mineral spirits and then i'm gonna just shoot on some paint and primer and we'll be ready to install it [Music] [Music] so and here it is guys all installed it is super rugged i couldn't be happier like i said although i didn't make it a quick disconnect there are only two bolts at the bottom and two at the top and this thing is super rugged there's no wobble at all so yeah you can see three eighths by three and a half inch lag bolts up here yeah it came out really good you can see how i notched around that trim how nice that looks and now i can get these stairs finished up and make the stairwell look nice and that's one more thing that i can cross off my list and that's all there is to it guys i want to thank you for watching thank you guys for tuning in new videos every friday so be sure to tune in if you're not a subscriber i'd appreciate it if you did don't forget to like comment and subscribe if you're wondering about any of the tools that you see me using again i'll have links down below until next friday guys i'll see you then take care stay safe see ya [Music] you

Channel: Brandon Lund

Views: 70,158

Keywords: Welding Metal Fabrication Steel Steel Fabrication Metal Welding Mig Welding, welding, welding tips, mig welding, metal fabrication, layout, handrail installation, do it yourself, stairs, tools, cutting metal, metal cutting, diy, how to, weld, fabrication, using tools, welding tools

Id: ko4hm5Rubsg

Length: 41min 29sec (2489 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 24 2021