welder show and tell

[blackvento36]

you know for what it's worth the wire that was in the machine might have been three years old and the machine does live in a garage hah. It's raining all week... not prime welding weather. I wish I had a garage myself.

In that case you should probably pop the spool out and get a new one, wire is cheap. All I'm saying is that when you go to the welding supply don't stress yourself out whether to get the Lincoln or Hobart wire (or whatever else)

[big65]

my loaner mig ran out of wire last night just when I got set up to tack something together. hah figures. I'd like to know what are the good brands of wire... I want to try to make it as easy as possible, since before my welds came out pretty inconsistent. The funny thing was, I'd make a nice bead, and then a terrible one without changing settings on the welder... don't get it.

I'll see what we use at work tomorrow but the stuff runs real smooth though I am using 1/16 71t1hyn.

Generally a good bead then a bad one comes down to operator error and with fluxcore you really have to stay on top of your travel and work angles otherwise you'll get a ****ty bead. Temp and wire speed is critical to specially when doing vertical with an open root and working with thin material. Myself I'd rather go back to running stainless stick than work any more with fluxcore but its not my decision.

Try http://www.weldingweb.com for advice and tips, its been indispensable to me in dealing with many welding issues ranging through smaw to mig to fluxcore to tig and from mild steel to stainless to aluminum.

[cabrlicious]

yeah I gather most of the inconsistency is probably coming right from me, though I do try and do it as repeatably as possible. And I am going to buy new wire because i ran out hah

[MKIGTITDI]

being able to consistantly weld time after time take alot of pracice and experience. ive gotten to the point with tig welding that i can fall asleep and still end up with a nice bead...At the cost of burnt fingers a rude awakening and being written up for ruining a frame....Like i said experience and practice are key.

[big65]

yeah I gather most of the inconsistency is probably coming right from me, though I do try and do it as repeatably as possible. And I am going to buy new wire because i ran out hah

The wire we use at work is ESAB military grade fluxcore .035 / .045 / 1/16 diameter wire with the largest running $150 a roll in bulk which is generally 2 to a box 12 boxes to a layer 8 layers on a pallet.

Which ever arm is not dominate should be used to support the dominate arm as it holds the mig gun. In my instance I use my left to support my right and my left arm always rests on a solid surface or my leg for stability. Doing this will add stability to your bead as you weld along the line which takes some worry off your shoulders so you can focus on maintaining a consistent travel speed and the correct work angle.

Another thing you can do is to practice without welding by taking a dowel rod about a foot and half in length and about the diameter of a pencil and hold it like you would a mig gun and follow a line on the wall or table for about a foot. This will allow you to see at what point in your travel path you start to change travel / work angles and your travel speed. The length of the rod will also allow you to see how much natural shake you have in your upper body and allow you to focus on getting it under control.

A trick you can do to work on your travel speed is to get a hobby airbrush kit along with some food dyes and water. Put some water into the bottle and pour in a few drops of food dye, use a medium spray tip and then spray a path along a line on some white paper. The width of the pattern from the spray will change with your travel speed and give you something to work with on controlling that for greater consistency and the water and food dyes are biodegradable and cheap.

[Taiden]

big65, do you have any tips for practicing TIG?

[cabrlicious]

well got some wire from the depot. Same exact wire that was in the welder, which itself probably came from home depot.

I'm trying to learn technique a bit before welding up my mk2 recaro seat frames for my mk3. If it wasn't structural I'd already be done, but, I'm not trusting my own ass to crummy welds.

So some questions ... I keep getting porous welds. Not all of them, but most of the time. I'm starting to wonder if somehow my gas is contaminated, but that sounds silly. Surely its just my set up. What is the more likely culprit: wrong gas flow rate or not clean enough metal? I've been grinding down to fresh metal, isn't that all you need?

So aside from that I've been trying to get a feel for pushing the pool around and what wire speed and amperage to use. I really feel like if I had a fancier welder with more than 4 positions for amperage I'd have an easier time. Maybe that's just newbie moaning. I got a great looking bead on a butt weld but even that one wasn't penetrating deep enough.

Next time I go out there I'm gonna go to town on the ground clamp and the mig nozzle again. I bought some nozzle jelly since it tends to gunk up. The fact that theres that much crap shooting off the weld makes me think I haven't prepped enough somehow, but I fail to see how. Next day I do some more practice I'm gonna write down what I did and take pictures so I can remember more clearly between sessions and also be specific when asking for help.

[nubVR]

Turn that welder up to it's highest setting, and typically with those little ones I find my wire speed way slower then the little chart tells you it needs to be at. This will help with your splatter... Also like you said make sure your ground is touching bare metal, some times it helps if your ground is directly on the piece your working, not hooked to a table then going through your piece, not sure wich way you have it. Keep up the practice!

[MKIGTITDI]

Cleanliness is godliness as well yes you sdaid that you ground to base metal but make sure theres no contaminents. Also you said your using nozzle jelly. make sure all the excess of that is burned off the nozzle before you go to weld. that will make you weld pourous. take the welder to a piece of scrap for a couple of seconds. pictures will make a big difference post em up here and im sure youll get more help that way.

[blackvento36]

yeah, it's oil and dirt that usually cause porous welds. As it burns it creates another gas inside your shielding gas pocket

[cabrlicious]

yeah, it's oil and dirt that usually cause porous welds. As it burns it creates another gas inside your shielding gas pocket

now that I think about it I didn't clean my work surface. I need a little welding table. Anybody got like a 2x2 chunk of 1/4" or a little thinner plate they want to donate? That way I could just put it inside and not have to worry about mother nature.

[Taiden]

As long as you aren't welding directly to your surface to hold things in place, you can just cover your workplace with sheet metal. Get a 1" thick 4x8 sheet of ply and throw a 4x8 sheet of sheet metal (not galvi) on top and you'll be good.

[MKIGTITDI]

Dude i did a ton of welding on stacks of pallets as a work bench.

[big65]

I'm actually working on tig pipe at the moment to refresh myself before going to aluminum tig. Give me a day and I'll post my tips for tiging with the newer digital machines and the older machines for mild steel.

[MKIGTITDI]

In all honesty ive found the old syncowave three phase welders out preform any of the newer digital welders in preformance for time after time consistancy but its all preference. Plus i didnt work with many shops that had too many of them on the floor so ive only worked with them a handful of times so i may be a bit biased.

[big65]

Dude i did a ton of welding on stacks of pallets as a work bench.

good way to start a bbq.

Oil, grease, dirt, paint, rust, most cleaners, water, you name it it can cause porosity and if your using fluxcore wire and your pushing the bead you could end up with slag causing it due to the bead cooling before you get through it. Flux is more fluid than regular mig so you generally have to move faster but with those little buzz boxes you have to go slower due to the low output and the size of the wire. Use acetone to clean the area to be welded and let dry, make sure that you have good gas flow and little to no drafts coming through that will disrupt the shielding gas from the bottle and from the fluxcore itself as this will cause porosity. A higher voltage will ease the spatter and a lower wire speed will help as well even with vertical though not much there.

[big65]

In all honesty ive found the old syncowave three phase welders out preform any of the newer digital welders in preformance for time after time consistancy but its all preference. Plus i didnt work with many shops that had too many of them on the floor so ive only worked with them a handful of times so i may be a bit biased.

Loves me a miller xmt setup for mig tig and smaw ac/dc 300 amp %100 duty cycle with water cooler for the tig and it all sits on one cart.....just gives me shivers thinking back on it.

[big65]

With tig I like the modern rigs such as this http://www.millerwelds.com/products/...ocess/xmt_350/ with a water cooler for the tig box. The set up is nice and mobile and doesn't take up much space and with the option of a foot pedal or thumb wheel variable controls it makes tig work a dream along with the digital display and the various control options.

That being said I am currently using a 40 year old Linde power box with a remote control box and an amp box with high frequency start and %100 duty cycle and %100 output based on the settings. The trigger is a rubber encased unit that can be located anywhere on the air cooled torch that you want to use for your thumb or fingers. With air cooled torches you have to stop after a few filler rods worth of bead and let the torch cool otherwise it will damage the torch and melt the parts of it that are rubber and plastic.

Regardless of what type of machine your using you have to have a steady hand more so than with other welding processes because tig is really unforgiving of a shaky hand or to fast or slow of travel speed and to slow or quick on adding the filler metal. If your doing pipe you can allow yourself a little push or pull of +/- 5 - 10 degree's but no more as to much push will push the puddle to far ahead overheating the weldmont and pushing it to far back can cause it the bead to lump up.

Use a shield with a shade 10 - 11 lense and uninsulated long leather gloves, the gloves will make it easier to manipulate the torch and feed the filler rod into the puddle and the lense will be about the shade you need. Really make sure you watch your angles specially if you have an application where your not using filler metal because it is more easy to undercut and to blow through specially on thing material. Always make sure the weldmont is cleaned of any contaminates when ever your sharpening your tungsten use a dedicated sharpening wheel to avoid contamination from other metals such as if you have a dual bench grinder use one wheel solely for sharpening your tungsten if your working on stainless steal. For cleaning weldmonts you can use acetone but you have to let it air dry before any welding.

Speaking of stainless you have to watch your temp and travel speed otherwise you could end up burning the bead and surrounding material resulting in a blackened appearance and a weakened material prone to failure. Ideally you want a nice honey wheat colored bead though the coloring can range to a rose gold color and some blue green color but shoot for the honey wheat or rose gold color.

Ok wife is talking to me and I lost my train of thought but always remember that slow and steady wins the race, never get in a hurry or you'll regret it and always keep what your working on clean clean clean.

[MKIGTITDI]

good way to start a bbq.

Eh i live my life dangerously. plus it was only a little 125 flux core so not much in the form of sparks that would actualyy start a pallet on fire. I must say on the whole digital set ups ive always prefered analog machines. Guess i get more of a feel for them. Plus ive seen many younger (should say newer) welders that use the digital settings religously and never fully learn how to properly set up a welder. I love the old linde machines for power sources. ive ran many of mile of various type of welds using those. as well as the older lincoln 1000 amp power sources. those more so for sub arc and the 600 for dual shield. Never really used the thumb controls on tig actually ive maybe used it a handful of times. Ive been spoiled with the foot pedal.

[big65]

I love the foot pedal to with the variable control so I can tailor the heat to the location within the bead, this high frequency to full on to high frequency nonsense bothers me and the air cooled torch is another thing I dont care for considering that I can't take the heat past 6 without risking melting the red rubber sleeve.

[MKIGTITDI]

Ive never worked with an air cooled torch either. altough i have popped quiet a few power lines on water cooled torches...Makes for a wet work area.

[nubVR]

5" sch 40 y I made today.... 1/2" flange..... 245amps flat footed all the way around, double pass on the flange.
Welder= Miller Dynasty 350

[big65]

nice bead pattern

[cabrlicious]

5" sch 40 y I made today.... 1/2" flange..... 245amps flat footed all the way around, double pass on the flange.
Welder= Miller Dynasty 350

How many years of practice yield such immaculate results?

I noticed a silly steel tchotchke today at my friends house. It was a fisherman welded from bits of nuts, bolts, wire, and real thin sheet. I thought it was tacky as art but really cool that the guy was able to weld huge thick nuts to thin wire, and such. Just imagining the process of making it is what impressed me.

[nubVR]

Metal art is cool stuff.... when ever im at a farmers market or anything like that, im always checking out metal work people are selling!

ive been welding for 10 years..... for the last 5 though, i do alot of baby sitting and less welding.... i only weld maybe an 1hour or 2 a week at work... then practice in my garage after work

[MKIGTITDI]

ive been welding for 10 years..... for the last 5 though, i do alot of baby sitting and less welding.... i only weld maybe an 1hour or 2 a week at work

Im right there with you on that brother.

[bmxdarcy]

is that 5356 or 4047 rod?

I'm impartial to the miller/lincoln debate but those dynasty's are really sweet machines.

[nubVR]

Owning a Lincoln at home, and using millers at work..... Miller weld quality is better..... Never once had a failure with the lincold though, so I can't knock it. I used 3/32 5356

[bmxdarcy]

I hear a lot of people say that about millers. We use lincolns at work and evidently they are 10+ years old no failures! There is certainly something to be said for their quality.

Our work is a bit more cosmetic and rarely do we anodize so we run the 4043 rod. I like that the 4043 rod doesn't frost the puddles, it's also very predictable.

[nubVR]

4043 welds very clean, i dont like how soft it is compared to 5356. I usually only use 4043 on cast, and anything under 1/8th".
I should take a picture of some of the miller power sources we have at work, i wanna say we have 30-35 from the 60's-70's. Still runnin strong..... Not real ideal on power, i tried telling my company they could cut the power bill in half, and get half of the new machines payed for from government programs and stuff, but there kinda hard headed! Ill get a pic up next week

[kkkustom]

some simple control arms for a RWD Honda DelSol project. 1.5" .120 wall DOM, QA1 tube adapters and rod ends. The adapters are welded to some 1.25" .90 wall first, then the 1.25" slides inside the 1.5" dom... because nobody makes a tube adapter for smaller hiems and larger tubing.






the ones tacked are fixed at 13.25" and the customer said he didn't want them ever moving and asked that they be tacked. I cant fully weld them because the PTFE liner would melt. at least this way if need be they can grind the tiny tack out and replace the rod ends still. Now that I looked at it, I should have just put the jamb nut on them, adjusted them and tacked the jamb nut. ohh well customer is always right.

[cabrlicious]

I finally got the bulk of my spring cleaning done so outside for some welding practice, and naturally I continued to have the penetration problem like I've had all along. This time I took plenty of pics, seeing as how I found my camera while cleaning

http://www.flickr.com/photos/madrush...7626739518619/

[kkkustom]

I have used that same little machine on a bunch of stuff when my miller's weren't around. its a good machine for exactly the stuff you are trying to do.

first thing i notice is the brown **** everywhere after the welds. And it looks like the metal is damn clean (for mig). What kind of gas are you using? 75/25 mixed? is it old gas, is it coming from a GOOD dealer (I fought with aluminum tig issues for a while and it turns out they gave me a **** bottle of argon). The gauge pic doesn't do me any good as to what the tip flow is. pull the trigger and let some wire come out for a few secs and set the gauge for the flow when its running. when you get off the trigger the solenoid closes and the needle will go up a lot and sit as XX. Also are you pushing or pulling when you weld? Take the cup off the torch and make sure the little ports for the argon flow arent blocked. If you use tip spray they will clog up all the time. if you aren't using spray they can get spatter seized on them and block the gas flow. Also check to see if your gas lines from the tank, through the machine and out the gun aren't leaking, sucking in oxygen somewhere spitting it out at the weld puddle. the brown poopy soot all over is a sign of poor gas coverage.

make sure the right tip is screwed into the body, and its not protruding past the gas nozzle, or too far inside the nozzle. I had someone do that on me once at the shop. Swapped out the tip from one machine to another like a retard, even though it screwed in the gun, it was way to long and the nozzle wasnt shielding the weld puddle. took me a few mins to figure that one out too.


And dont weld in a tornado outside. ANY draft, wind or even an over head fan will blow the shielding gas away in a heart beat.


Are you plugging the machine DIRECTLY into the wall? not on a mile long thin ass extension cord. Even though the thing is set to D max voltage, the amperage might not be behind the outlet to power the machine properly. If its directly in the wall, have someone test the outlet to make sure the electricity is clean and strong. Been there too, fought with a machine at a location that had piss poor commercial power. bring the machine to my shop on the same settings and it was night and day different. If you need an extension cord, better get a friggen heavy duty one!


Lastly has this machine ever been running flux core, and maybe later converted to gas? maybe a used machine and the prior owner had it set up for that. If so the ground and gun cables might be backwards! check those.


on to setting the machine up, mig voltage/wirespeed is all by ear...at least that's how I do it. You want it to sound like frying bacon in a hot pan, steady crisp crackling. If it sounds like pops and farts, and lots of big spatter pieces all over, keep adjusting!

[MKIGTITDI]

Yeah it looks like somethings going on with your gas. also try backing off your wire speed a bit.

[Taiden]

Man... I can't stand flux core...

That's just me though. Give me a stick welder over flux core any day. Get that baby on the bottle and dont look back.