How to fit a round thing (sprocket / pulley) in the middle of another thing ?

[Saul Goodman]

I suppose that would work ... I will have to see if there's enough friction without putting a tyre on the motor ...

Luckily there's enough room ...

I suppose at some point I should look at how they usually do this sort of thing ...

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I doubt you'd have enough friction without some sort of friction material, especially so once you start producing electricity and put a load on it.
You could attach a piece of wood to the motor spindle, then power up the motor and use it as its own lathe, to whittle it down to a round shape, then glue a bit of emery cloth around the circumference. You'd still likely need a method of pressing it against the tyre, maybe springs or a weight on the motor.

 

[gentlegreen]

You need to use dowels and glue on your joints. But I would use screws through plates across the joints too or it will shake to pieces.
I have, successfully drilled and tapped MDF with metric threads before and they proved quite robust and long lasting.
Though nothing beats a welded steel frame.
I would recommend a small inverter welder about 140Amp for all your home workshop jobs. Big enough to manage quite decent thickness welds, but also very portable and weigh about 6 kilos.

It seems Screwfix is open for business ...
And I may be trapped at home for some time - on the other hand there's less chance of finding scrap metal to practice on ...

I can technically afford any of these (I once bought a brand new cement mixer for very occasional use
I'm inclined to go for the one with the proper transformer in it as there are very few safe places for me to actually do welding and I had a bad experience with an inverter microwave...

 

[High Voltage]

Depends on how much you need to carry it about I suppose - I've got a mate who's really "into" tools and he swears by his inverter stuff

I've thought and am still thinking long and hard about what, if anything to get, and the advice I've come across, for MIG, if get a really good second hand set, the wire feed is better, and the wire feed is the weak link on a MIG set up

Then there's stick - seems to be great training for TIG and you can TIG with an arc set up with adaptation

BUT

MIG seems to be a good all rounder, mainly for steel, but you can weld ali

And you can get gasless MIG - so you don't need a bottle, but it's dirty, and best suited for welding outside . . . like stick

Arrghghghghgh!!

And welcome to my indecisive world

 

[WouldBe]

It seems Screwfix is open for business ...

Double check. The ones round here are only open for click and collect orders or delivery.

 

[gentlegreen]

Double check. The ones round here are only open for click and collect orders or delivery.

That's the way I always do it - order online then walk around the block and collect it

 

[Sprocket.]

In my experience the inverter arc welder gives you a much finer adjustment to your current settings than a traditional stick welder. You can get better penetration with less heat on thinner material.
MIG is a great welding style for repetitive and production jobs. Basically point and squirt, if you have problems it will be as High Voltage says above be with the wire feed.
Personally I would go for the inverter welder at £149.99, but if it’s a one off job and not going to get much use, go for the basic arc welder at £84.99.
Or if you can source one get one of the basic sets from Lidl. This would be as good as the impax unit and cheaper.
Hope this is helpful, get the correct grade of face shield too. Arc eye is horrendous, but can be alleviated by also wearing safety specs that block UV.
Any questions do not hesitate.

 

[gentlegreen]

Ah I see the invertor one has a current control ... that would presumably let me weld small stuff too ...

 

[teuchter]

That's the way I always do it - order online then walk around the block and collect it

Then get there, find a desk labelled click & collect, queue for that, realise no-one's manning it, move to the regular queue, get to front, get told that you are supposed to have logged in to some kind of terminal, go to terminal, log in, rejoin queue, get to front of queue, wait while they go and find your stuff in the same amount of time it would have taken just to show up and ask for it.

That's what usually seems to happen to me anyway.