Measuring and Marking your Welding Projects

When you are planning to undertake welding projects on any scale, ranging from making a few repairs to metal objects around your home – such as fixing the broken handle of a garden tiller or lawnmower – to larger-scale tinkering or personal construction – including welding new parts of a pickup truck bed into place to replace rusted areas or building a metal frame for a pole barn – to commercial welding, a certain amount of metal fabrication is eventually going to be involved.
 
Only the most basic, occasional welders will do no more than attach two pieces of base metal together without modifying them in any way. In this case, buying a welding machine and the necessary attendant accessories is probably a waste of money and time – if you are going to go to the expense of buying a welding machine, and the trouble of learning how to use it, then you should have at least vague plans to make steady use of your tools and expertise.

There is an almost infinite set of circumstances under which you will need to modify the metal that you are welding, either prior to welding or after the elements have been combined into a single workpiece. Commonly, it will be necessary to trim or reshape one or both pieces of base metal so that they will fit together neatly and allow you to make a solid, continuous weld.
Alternatively, you may need to modify one or more of the pieces before the assembly is carried out because it will be impossible to bend, cut, or otherwise shape the pieces once they are actually combined into a single larger object.  For example, pipes are very easy to bend, using the proper equipment, when they are separate – yet once part of them is welded to another piece of metal, they will no longer fit into the narrow confines of a “pipe and tubing bender,” making it impossible to change their shape except by destroying the whole welded object first.

Another reason for modifying the pieces of metal prior to welding is to make certain that they are sound and will stand up to the strain of modification. If a part absolutely needs to be bent or reshaped, then it is pointless to weld it into place, then attempt the bending and break the piece. The welding would be completely wasted, while if you reshape the metal first, then you are already certain that it is sound enough to be used and the welding can proceed.

You should consider each piece carefully to see whether work should be done on it prior to welding. You should also think of what type of modifications you will commonly make to base metal in the type of welding you are undertaking, and choose your tools accordingly. However, regardless of your welding intentions, you will need some way to measure the modifications so that they are even and effective, and a way to mark the metal as well so that you can work accurately as you change it.
Measuring and marking the base metal to be used in a welding project is carried out using some tools that are familiar to anyone who has ever measured and cut any substance, and specialized items which are detailed in the following articles.