Mock My Beads

[EricG]

Hi guys - finally got my welder set up and tried a few test beads. It worked alot better once I put the gun together right But it seems like I have to move the gun pretty fast - though I've never actually watched anybody weld, so not sure if it is or not. This is 0.030 wire with C25 gas, wire speed was about 50.

 

[EricG]

I'm going to try cutting this in half tomorrow and see how my penetration is.

 

[black95]

Looks pretty good to me. You're doing right to be moving fairly quick with a mig welder. When you see people moving to slow, they're doing it wrong. If your heat setting is correct and you move slow, you're going to be blowing holes in the metal. Practice, practice, practice. Then try to weld something over your head and you'll really see how bad it can get.

My best advice: wear earplugs! It really, really hurts when a ball of slag ends up in your ear.

 

[EricG]

Looks pretty good to me. You're doing right to be moving fairly quick with a mig welder. When you see people moving to slow, they're doing it wrong. If your heat setting is correct and you move slow, you're going to be blowing holes in the metal.

Yea, I started on some thinner stuff - about 20GA. Couldn't do it - if I went slow enough to keep a puddle, I blew through it. Faster and I was just laying wire on top of the metal. I think I have to go to some smaller wire.

Practice, practice, practice. Then try to weld something over your head and you'll really see how bad it can get.

My best advice: wear earplugs! It really, really hurts when a ball of slag ends up in your ear.

Yea, hoping I don't have to do that any time soon!

This is the first welding I've done in about 25 years - and that was dad's old stick welder. Never was very good with that.

 

[PPFJ60]

Eric,

Looks good. I still find I can lay a good bead once and then struggle somewhat on the next. I like to blame my HF welder for that.

Chuck

 

[EricG]

I took another look at it this morning and found that the vertical piece on some of those inside welds was significantly eroded/cut in. Didn't happen on the outside ones. I'm guessing I was to slow though those parts, because the welder setup was the same.