Completed the hangers

This is my welding setup. It certainly saved my knees! Today I used it to weld 6 new barrel hangers. That should mean that I'll be able to hang nit just my two existing barrels but also the two planned barrels - whenever I get around to hanging the new ones.

It seems one little online group expelled me. I can't say I'm that bothered. I believe it was because they disliked my bringing reality to their unrealistic, rose tinted view of things. They were some little tiny home group. I only noticed they were not spamming me with announcements when I noticed how refreshingly  empty my inbox was. Such are online groups.

These are some of today's constructions. The welds look a little blobby but each unit had had 4 welding rods. Between rods, the slag was knocked loose with a hammer and brushed with a steel brush. 

One of my most persistent problems is my welding rod getting stuck. I use 1/16 rods and a 70a welder. It's annoying but just means pulling the rod off with pliers. 

People have been saying all kinds of nasty things about my welds. Thus I'm going to test my welds for strength. If they fail then it's an unfortunate coincidence. If as I suspect, they're fine then those online fools will be known to be fools. The plan is to pass the loop through a hole in a section of steel channel, attach a chain to the loop then attach a bar to the other end of the chain. The bar will be suspended and I'll stand on the channel which will be suspended a few inches.

The test above will test the hangers way in excess of their designed use. They're supposed to share the weight of a 15 gallon barrel between 4 hangers. I'll use 6 hangers for extra safety. 15 gallons weighs 125.18lbs. That divided by 4 is about 31lbs. Testing the welds by suspending my weight from them tests them to several times the expected weight. If each weld will support me then mission accomplished. If I have to redo some welds then better to find out in a controlled testing environment.

Well, that's part of my test setup. I'll do the testing tomorrow since tomorrow is Black Friday. There's no point in going anywhere tomorrow. The roads and stores will be absolute chaos with people rushing around and fighting over non existent bargains.

Once the testing is done, I'll look toward installing the new hangers. I'll have to get some 5/16 bolts since my existing hangers use 5/16 bolt holes. I'll use two standard nuts and when both are really tight will weld the bottom nut to the thread to ensure nothing can accidentally come apart.