stainless skimmer

[steve fedyk]

I'm a steel fabricator and weld by trade, I build pressure vessels and heat exchanges all night.
I've been thinking of building one out of 316L SS. We have flow jet to cut the pieces on.

[steve fedyk]

I hate welding chrome it to hot.

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by Hustler

I weld it all day..... and sometimes on weekends Its a cake walk if you have the gear and know what your doing and also its alot cheaper raw than most of the stuff sold in this hobby LOL

Originally Posted by steve fedyk

I'm a steel fabricator and weld by trade, I build pressure vessels and heat exchanges all night.
I've been thinking of building one out of 316L SS. We have flow jet to cut the pieces on.

I knew you welders where gonna say that Personally, I love welding and I look for every chance I can get to weld when doing prototypes for people... but let me tell ya, from a mass production point of view, plastic parts are far too cheap and easy... If I asked one of my manufacturers to do a production model in stainless, they'd laugh at me.

But for DIY stuff, when the raw material is way less than the actual product you might as well go all out. When it comes to DIY, my motto is"do it once, do it right". If I can go all out I'll do it!

[Hustler]

Well i will say this.... inches of weld with tig at work with way thicker stainless happens in a few minutes.... guage thick stainless.... with tig like seconds to make even the most intriquite headders the hot roders need.... I could do mass production in a matter of weeks but the dry run prototype LOL in beer alone will cost a fortune.... And then theres the CNC plasma....And the press to make the parts and machining ect ect ect.... I could probably con my guys with a few beer to do a few but that kind of machines...... TONS of cash...... Not singling out the possibility of renting them for say the weekend once the design is proofed.... but still.... someone would be on the loosing end for #1..... even before tests

[Myka]

I would want to see into the skimmer to see if the walls need to be cleaned.

[Maverick00]

I cant think of an advantage using SS for a skimmer? Other than the fact its be cool

[steve fedyk]

cool and shiny.

[viperfish]

Originally Posted by steve fedyk

cool and shiny.

Shiny won't last long in the salt water! It is a cool idea but it would be very heavy unless you went with such a thin gauge that it would dent too easily. I would be interested in seeing the design. What I'm wondering is how the collection cup would mount? A machined part would be very expensive. How would you do the NPT threads? Couplings are expensive and hard to weld to the thin material without warpage? How would you install the discharge pipe? You need a fairly large diameter and the thin SS wouldn't be able to support it so you would need some serious beefing up in places which goes back to the thing being very heavy.