So I am going to be clipping an o/t project and have been thinking about something that has plagued me since I was an apprentice welder... When I was taught metallurgy, they told us that making one area thicker while leaving others thin, can cause stress areas and more prone to breaking/cracking at the joints of the thicker/thinner area from work hardening as it flexes. I guess what I want to know is whats your suggestion when splicing 2 frames? Make the joint as long as possible by making the cut on an angle and leaving the weld? Plate over the joint and further? If you plate, should you weld the plate all the way around, or maybe just drill holes in the plate and rosette weld so it can flex some? Thanks for the help.
When splicing big truck frames, the splice is made on a long, diagonal cut, then fish plated. This would be a good way to do it. Also, when we have fish plated joints here, we do drill some holes in the plate to rosette weld it to the frame, and stitch weld arond the perimeter.
Weedburner is right on track. A long splice with a fish plate is the way to go. I have done a sort of "N" shaped cut on a frame splice before with a diamond _________l l shaped fish plat with holes for rosette welds, that truck is still on the road with 40k+ miles on it.
The way we do it at work is similar,with the exception of grinding the joint at a bevel and leaving a gap of 1/16" . For really thck sections we use a backer plate and for thin sections we use a chiller plate about 1" on either side of the weld.
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