More first welding attempts (1 Viewer)

[Cruiserdrew]

Bear with this, but I welded for about 10 minutes yesterday once I got my new machine all set up and running. The gobs on the first picture reflect this!

In the second 2 pictures are from today-maybe 1/2 hour of practice on scraps. It is much easier to have a job to do, so the last 2 pictures, the job was to weld one piece to another at a 90 degree angle. I put the magnets on it, tacked it , removed the magnets and did the second set of welds.

BTW-both pictures have Cruiser parts in them, anyone know what they are? If you guess correctly, I'll send you a small piece of this artwork.

edit-the spatter was already present before welding from some voltage experiments earlier!

 

[Jan-78FJ40]

40 series running board mount

oem shackle piece

please don't send me the artwork
j

 

[Isotel]

lookin good.. Practice makes perfect


clean up the metal a bit before you weld.. What machine are you using?

EDIT: Nevermind Miller 210 -- Nice Choice.. Ive been using a 175 for all my projects.. love it!

 

[hammer1]

i see shackle plates!!!!!

 

[Cruiserdrew]

40 series running board mount

oem shackle piece

please don't send me the artwork


j

Very impressive-exactly right. The running board mount if off a 71, and the shackle side plate is from an FJ60.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

lookin good.. Practice makes perfect


clean up the metal a bit before you weld.. What machine are you using?

EDIT: Nevermind Miller 210 -- Nice Choice.. Ive been using a 175 for all my projects.. love it!

The area of the weld was cleaned, but the rest of the piece is from my outdoor scrap pile, so it is a bit rusty.

The 210 is way more machine than I'll need, but I did weld some 3/8 at a 90 degree angle and could not break the weld with a sledge, so I'm thinking the 210 will do.

Tomorrow, I'm going to weld on my 80 series-FZJFilmore sent some ARB reinforcement tabs-not a critical weld, so I'm just going to clean it up, and do it.

 

[chicago]

Hey Andy,
those look pretty good! The machine looks to have some really good power to it!
What kind of settings are those? What size wire are you running?

Good job!
Its pretty fun isnt it?

Keith

 

[MrMoMo]

Just a little advice. (Don't take it the wrong way!)
From what I can see you are travelling a little too fast. See how your welds are very "pointed" the "ripples" or "arrow bars" in the welds are very steep "<<<" If you slow your travel speed down you will end up with better penetration into the metal and the bars will look more like "ccc".

The other thing that I notice is that the welds are very high in the center, sometimes not even making contact on both sides. (1st pic, bottom weld) You should find that if you slow your travel speed down this will help the weld "flow" more. This will give better pennetraition and a better weld.

Not sure what angle you are pointing your tip, but perhaps this could be playing into the same thing. Try pointing into the work more, and less pointing in the direction you are travelling. This again, pushes more heat into the work, making the weld flow into the surrounding metal more, instead of putting the heat ahead of where you are welding.

Really concentrate on watching the puddle, the small molten area right where your wire meets the metal. This should stay as a round puddle, and move as a round puddle as you move along the work. If the puddle is round and you can keep it a consistant size, you will have nice round arrow bars, with a consistant size of weld. It is very easy to weld and forget to watch the puddle, but if you train yourself from the begining, it will help you later on.

Please don't take this as harsh criticism, the welds are pretty darn good for a new welder. I have seen worse from people who have been welding for a long time.

Play with angles, play with speed. Volts and wire speed are not the only things that need to be adjusted to get a good weld!!!

In this pic you can see that the "arrow bars" are almost not visible, and that both sides of the weld are smoth with the surrounding metal. (there is a bit on the corner where it is pretty V shaped, that is where I whipped around the corner, so my travel was a bit too fast, and I was at the wrong angle for a second) This is 1/8th and 1/4 steel, welded at about 24V and a wire speed between 6 and 7. (.023wire) - Blueshield gas.

Hope something in there helped, Keep it up, you have a great start!

 

[Cruiserdrew]

Believe me, I appreciate any and all advice. I will try pointing more into the work as you say, and see what happens. I did notice you have to keep moving or it gets gobby. That looks terrible.

Here is a dumb rookie question. Let's say hypothetically, you are welding 1/8 to 1/4 steel. Do you use the settings for 1/8 or 1/4? I'm guessing 1/8 so you don't burn holes, but this is a pertinent question when welding to a Cruiser frame.

And what the difference between cold rolled and hot rolled steel besides $.15 per pound?

 

[MrMoMo]

I like to run hot, as then I know I am getting penetraition. If you set the heat just lower than what you woud for the thicker material, and aim your wire more at the thicker material, more heat goes to the thicker material. If you set the heat for the thiner material, you risk not properly penetrating the thicker material. Not saying that is the correct way or the only way to do it, but it works for me.

Lets say you are welding 1/8th to 1/8th Lap joint. Your lead angle might be 15 or so degrees (pointing in the direction you are going), your wire angle should be about 45 degrees up (1/2 way between horizontal and vertical)

Now you are welding 1/8th to 1/4 Lap joint (as in my pic) Lead angle is still 15 degrees, but pointing way more into the thicker metal, which is ontop, I drop my angle to.... 22.5 degrees up from horizontal (just a starting point). Maybe not quite that far. You can get a feel for it as you watch how the edges of your weld flow into the two metals.

Can't answer your second question, something to do with molecular structure - but I don't really worry about it.

 

[spressomon]

Believe me, I appreciate any and all advice. I will try pointing more into the work as you say, and see what happens. I did notice you have to keep moving or it gets gobby. That looks terrible.

Here is a dumb rookie question. Let's say hypothetically, you are welding 1/8 to 1/4 steel. Do you use the settings for 1/8 or 1/4? I'm guessing 1/8 so you don't burn holes, but this is a pertinent question when welding to a Cruiser frame.

And what the difference between cold rolled and hot rolled steel besides $.15 per pound?

Hot rolled is a beatch to cut...that's what bed frames are made of.

 

[sleeoffroad]

Andrew, one thing overlooked a lot is that people do not support their hands and they get tired and "wave" the gun around. I find the welding is very much hand/eye coordination. Make sure before you run the bead that you are supported, but have free movement from start to end of bead. Makes sense? Try different grips on the gun using two hands. As mentioned earlier, look at the puddle not at the arc. Then just manipulate it. Once you know what the correct puddle looks like it is easy to move it around the work. In the beginning don't worry to much about the settings. Use the guide on the welder to get close, then just concentrate on getting the beads to look nice. Take a flat piece of metal, grind all the millscale off it and write your name on it with the welder. Good excersize.

Once you can run beads on the flat masterial and get them to look good then read up on different joint types and how to prep and weld them. Have fun.

 

[honk]

All good advise above. The settings listed on the inside of the welder door are minimum recommendations as I recall. They assume that the power supply will be 230 volts too. If you're using household surrent it'll usually run between 218 and 222 or so meaning that recommendations made for a supply of 230 will be too low.

It's not something that you need to get too anal about but it means that the recommended settings are lowball estimates and your welding will most always be better if you exceed them.

I'll often bump the voltage one step over the recommendation and use the wirefeed to get the weld right by ear.

Wire speed equates to amperage because the size and speed of the wire dictates the amount of current that is delivered to the tip. Bigger wire is less resistant; faster wire is also less resistant. Less resistance allows more current. It's an ohm's law exercize.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

Ok-Measured my wall voltage with a DVM. 238!!! Interesting the Miller has different settings if you have 215 vs 230 voltage. I'm at the upper range. There was some fluctuation between 235 and 240.

Cube Dweller gave me the locations for steel supply that he likes in the area, so I'm going to hit those today.

 

[Cube Dweller]

Andy, the only comment I have on the above advice is that when welding two pieces of different thickness you'll need to spend more time on the thicker piece and sort of "dip" into the thin piece. It's hard to describe, but you'll know when the bead looks good and doesn't blow thru the thinner piece.

If you're getting full penetration on the thinner material, that's enough heat. Getting full penetration on the thicker piece won't do much good- your limit is the strength of the weld on the smaller section. If for example you're welding 1/8 to 1/4 and you have full penetration on the 1/4, does it matter since the 1/8 will fail before the weld tears out on the 1/4? Though it does take more heat on the 1/4 piece to get 1/8 of penetration than it does on the 1/8 piece, since the thicker section will "sink" or conduct heat more than the thinner.

Course I never took a welding class....

 

[MrMoMo]

Ok-Measured my wall voltage with a DVM. 238!!!

Is that a true RMS reading?

You must live in the country, but not far from the main power distribution line.

Voltages in the country are jacked up because of the distances they are required to travel (more voltage drop)

Apparently a major fire problem on farms. Farmers hey conveyors use "Farm duty" electric motors, designed to run at higher voltages. Often when these motors die they are replaced with old washing machine motors - not farm rated. Because of the load placed on they hey conveyors the washing machine motors often overheat (because of the lower voltage rating) and catch fire. Not a good thing around lots of hey.

I live out in the country, I usually get 133V at my 120V outlets.

 

[Ian Rogers]

say it with me 'burn it in" no really when you are welding say 'burn it in' it works great.

 

[camcruiser13]

another thing, practice practice practice

 

[BC Cruiser]

Nice job, I just setup my new welder too, its a Lincoln mig pak 15. I haven't welded in a long time, so i gotta relearn.

 

[turbocruiser]

Great advice all along guys, one thing I think I do pretty well is weld ( I get alotta encouragement - a joke for some in the know ) your welds look pretty good, Mr. MoMo has added some super advice, one thing I do differently is pull away from the weld instead of pushing towards the weld, I also add alitte more 75/25 gas than I think I really need to - I like a long cloud of shielding gas sorta hanging over the weld without pushing my tip through that cloud - so, I use about 15 pounds of gas and pull away instead of pushing towards I seem to have much more control this way with good penetration.