When is a fillet necessary?

[ShootStraight]

I'm trying to plan out my first welding project - a bird feeder rack - and I'm a bit confused as to where I'm supposed to put a fillet, or if I even need one for this application as it isnt really going to have a huge amount of weight applied to it.

Basically, the design is made from 1.25^2 1/8 box tubing. The mast will be about 8ft tall with four 18" or so hanging arms coming off of it at 90 deg for thistle seed bags and suet cages, with a larger seed feeder perched on the top.

Would these hanging arms require the use of a fillet? Or could I just butt weld it right to the mast tube?

Any thoughts, opinions, suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks for your time.

-SS

[Fat-Fab.com]

What is your understanding of the term fillet or a fillet weld?

To me it is any weld applied to the intersection of two members perpendicular (sp) to each other.
So in your box tubing joint you would have two fillets and "butt joints".
I would weld all around the tube if for no other reason than to keep water out.


http://www.unified-eng.com/scitech/weld/weld.html
this site might help


Hope that helps


TJ

[ShootStraight]

What is your understanding of the term fillet or a fillet weld?

To me it is any weld applied to the intersection of two members perpendicular (sp) to each other.
So in your box tubing joint you would have two fillets and "butt joints".
I would weld all around the tube if for no other reason than to keep water out.


http://www.unified-eng.com/scitech/weld/weld.html
this site might help


Hope that helps


TJ

It helped alot! Thanks!

I think I was confusing my terms. By "fillet" I guess I was meaning the joint, where in my case, envisioned cutting all the members with 2 45 deg cuts and welding them together. The weld would look like an "X". It was easy enough to understand in 2D but with adding two additional members on the same plane (coming out from the X and away from it) my head started to hurt with all the angles.

From the resource you provided, it sounds perfectly acceptable and structurally sound to just "butt joint" it to the tube with a "fillet weld" around the entire joint.

Thanks for clearing up my mental malfunction.

-SS

[Fat-Fab.com]

Glad I could help

TJ

[rixtrix1]

SS- you may want to add a gusset( or brace) to the arms, depending on how heavy the bags are, especially if the wind blow in your area.

RG