MIG welding and advice

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Friction stir welding. That's what I want to try. I have my cordless drill....

Handheld friction stir welder... Yeahbuddy!

SpaceX does friction stir welding to make their rocket bodies, it's really a extremely cool process. Worth a google for all those looking at this thread.

On a side note, I've heard the reason that we beat the Russians to the moon was because we had better welders. Ours could figure out how to weld tanks which were good enough to hold liquid hydrogen, whereas the Russians could only make kerosene tanks. We ended up with the slightly smaller and more reliable Saturn V for our moonshot, and they ended up with that massive kerosene powered rocket that looked like a Christmas tree--which turned out to be impossible to control in the sky.