This thread got me thinking about another mig welder I disliked. I once ran a hydraulic seam welder for 2months. I welded in the panels that make up the sides of a box car. I welded the edges of two panels to a frame member then moved the machine to the next seam. It was a production line at pullman std, we built train cars. I worked in the box car ‘side’ shop, we just built the sides.
The welder had wheels and moved on rails. There were two of them at that production line position. One for each side of the center door. They’d pull the welded side 'frame' underneath the 2 seam welders. It lay flat and the panels were already tack welded into place.
I sat in a seat and ‘drove’ the seam welder with hydraulic controls like a back hoe. I welded 5 seams 10ft long, took about 30min. Flux poured from a pipe just in front of the weld. A vacuum pipe sucked up loose flux just behind weld head as it moved along. Flux came in 50lb bags, had to periodically fill a big hopper. It took 2 guys to put on a new spool of wire, weighed about 80lbs.
I hated the job, bored out of my mind. It was a union shop, periodically jobs came open for bids based on seniority. I was a happy camper when I lost that job and got moved to the flat car line (pig line). There I welded the 5th wheel hitch assembly into place. At least I was burning rods instead of wire.
I couldn’t find a pic of these big seam welders, below is something similar, a stationary seam welder (2nd pic). About the same size, just imagine it on wheels and you could drive it... (at least the padded seat was comfortable...
). I marked the vertical frame members in the 1st pic. The seam welds were on the back or inside the finished box car.
Funny, we built both 'Trailer Train' and 'Rail Box' cars. We also built hoppers, gondolas and tankers. I think 2500 guys worked there, maybe 1500 were welders. Takes lots of welding to build a train car.
(Sorry
@Frodo , back to the regular scheduled programming...)
!
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