[TowerTalk] Tack welding rebar, need howto

[David Gilbert]

Well, my point with the cheap stuff is that you don't really know what 
you're welding to.  It might be part cast iron from an old engine block 
for all I know, and that doesn't weld well at all.  You wouldn't 
necessarily be able to tell if you had a good joint or not.   I used a 
LOT of 60,000 PSI rebar when I built my house (ICF walls and 4,500 sq ft 
of slab) and I was surprised how much variation there was in brittleness 
when I bent it even for the supposedly good stuff.

But no, I'm not really hung up on the strength of the steel itself. All 
of it is stronger in tension than the concrete is, and if I'm in doubt I 
just use more of it.   ;)  I only mentioned it because I thought I saw 
someone earlier in the thread question whether a welded cage was needed 
for strength.

73,
Dave   AB7E




On 1/3/2014 3:13 PM, Jim Lux wrote:
> On 1/3/14 12:05 PM, David Gilbert wrote:
>>
>> By the way, while I totally understand why you'd want to tack weld the
>> bolts to the rebar, I've never thought much of welded rebar cages in
>> general.  True weldable rebar (the stuff that is supposed to hold it's
>> strength after welding) is expensive and harder to get.  The 40,000 PSI
>> stuff you can get at Lowes and Home Depot comes from indeterminate
>> source material (a mixture of washing machine chassis, old bed springs,
>> car frames, salvaged rebar, etc) and almost certainly will not weld with
>> consistent strength, although you can buy better 60,000 PSI stuff from
>> construction supply places.
>>
>
> Yeah, but if you're using rebar from who knows what kind of metal, are
> you really concerned about whether it retains the strength when you
> weld it?
>
> As I recall, about as weak as steel gets is 30-40 ksi.. Unless your
> welding physically damages the steel, I don't know how much lower you
> can go.
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>