I just realized I left out an important part of the vibrational stress relief of the "mushroom" trays assembly. The pieces were not vibrated after welding - they were all vibrated during welding. It made for some specialized fixturing and, as I mentioned earlier, it worked.
Back in the 70's we had a job in our custom fab shop to build a small tower for a chemical company that had a number of horizontal, circular trays (about 48" dia) made of thin (perhaps 1/8 max thickness or a little less) sheets of stainless steel. Each tray had a one inch high vertical lip...
Rather than trying to estimate how many passes are required to produce a given size weld, you might be better off estimating the time it will take to make the weld. First, calculate the weight of the weld. Then divide that by the deposition rate of the process to be used. You may have different...
If you're just looking at holding a sign in place, a relatively inexpensive way to prevent someone from unthreading a fastener is to use a longer bolt than necessary. Saw a slot in the end of the bolt down to the point where the back of the nut should stop. After threading on the bolt (probably...
