Girder Gussets

So a week or so later I got back to work on the house.  I was really wanting to be done welding at this point because my setup is not nearly ideal, but these gussets really needed to go in before I could get on to the flooring.  I rigged up the welder to my big generator and got to work.

It eats up a surprising amount of cutting disk (3 4.5" disks to make two 12" long cuts) to cut through this 1/4 steel plate.  So happy I paid the extra to have my other materials cut at the supplier.

Ready to be tacked.

Once tacked, I tried hitting it with my engineer's hammer to bend it to shape.

But my welds were obviously inferior.

I cranked up the amperage on the welder as the generator was probably not supplying the actual current or voltage (not sure) that it was suppose to be.

 Much better.

Ran beads at all intersections.

And got the other side done, then spray painted it all so I could work on the flooring tomorrow.  This is a typical weak point in most trailers where the main support beams, which I'm calling girders, are either cold formed to shape, notched out (like I did), or two separate pieces with angles cut at their ends, to form the tongue.  It is especially important in my design as at least 1/4 of the load will be transferred by the columns to the two girders here.  The gusset almost doubles the strength of the girders at this point to keep them from bending and wanting to deflect sideways.