You must not weld items in the lathe with the earth clamp on the lathe body.

Doing this will damage the bearings in the head stock of the lathe as the current will be arching across the small contact areas of the bearing.They really should consider a rotating ground attached directly to the work piece.

Lathe bearings will not stand up to the arcing and one day the lathe will be in trouble. Also would have liked to seen more taper on both parts prior to welding…but who knows what’s acceptable given roads, material availability.

Looks great, but that axle will crack and break very, very soon. Welding the end and the outside edge can’t compare to the strength it originally had as a one piece forging, which also broke.

I love watching this being done by hand the skill is awesome. In US everything is done with machines. It would be done with a rotary welder that builds up layers.

Love seeing this.Just a nickles worth of advice. When puting the hub onto the axle. Heat the hub to make it expand. Then when it cools it will be a tighter fit. Hopefully those low hydrogen rods were kept dry in an oven.

Anything that thick should be preheated to about 250f. Considering what you have to work with i would say good job. Hopefully no underbead cracking from welding something so thick with 7018 rods that may have been exposed to humidity for too long.