Farm Yard Welding, New welder, advice please

In the first set of pictures your attempting to weld a casting or forging, and and I'm guessing iron, this will certainly have hindered your progress........

your second weld is much improved, an inconsistent speed is the main thing at the moment to concentrate on, start without joining material then progress to joints, once you confident with the appearance, It will be worth learning about correct prep, for joints....

well spotted snowcat looks like a forged bar the underneath piece I think is channel dissimilar rod would probably be the best when unsure what it is I also noticed Leads on your wonder look a little light and are the worst for ware might be a good idea to replace with slightly heavier ones and make sure all the connections are clean as you could be losing quite a few amps to bad connections

[QUOTE=snowcat;173097]In the first set of pictures your attempting to weld a casting or forging, and and I'm guessing iron, this will certainly have hindered your progress........



Naw I think its the end on a MS tube that has been flattened snowcat, you can see that its double thickness if you look in the bolt hole.

More current for the welds FarmerBrown. Just use the setting on the welder and the amps on the welding rod pack as a very rough indication. Maybe an idea of the requred setting on a practice weld would be to keep increasing the amps until when you stop welding with a half burned rod, the rod is red hot. Just lower the amps a little bit then and should be about right for farm welding.

As said already, the welding leads look a bit inferior and will probably get hot if you do much welding with 3.25s.

I never had a plug on the a/c welding set I used to use, supply from the mains to 20amp fused switch to welder, but then I did have long leads so I never moved the welder.

Best wishes with it, Brian (",).

Hi Farmer Brown!

All good advice so far. There's nothing wrong with your starweld, as your more recent welding efforts have shown. Any transformer based welder will do exactly what yours has done (blow a fuse after a minute or two) when running 3.2 rods at the correct current.
You can, as suggested, up your supply, or you can get a more efficient weld plant - an inverter, or you can use 2.5mm rods and seldom thicker. Don't dismiss this option, especially if you're reluctant to spend money, as you can lay an awful lot of weld with 2.5s.

You can replace the fuse with something more, er, durable too. But I didn't say that, cos it's just silly.

All the best

Si

Can't thank you all enough, your advice is extensive, I only hope I can live up to it!
I've ordered plugs, sockets, extension lead and an MCB trip all 16 amp (blue).
Also bigger welding rods, 3.2 & 4mm are on their way too.
Oh, the extension lead is a red herring, that would definately cook!
The first pic isn't cast, I take your point that it does look like it, it's a crushed tube, if I get time I'll grind the weld off and try again
I'll post some more pictures when I resume

I've turned up the current and here's a run with 3.2mm rods.
Better or worse?
The aim is to weld 10mm plates, this practise piece is more like 12mm
Any comments or tips welcome please

The weld looks better - from a distance. You need to grind some prep on though so you can put in a root weld. To weld that thickness of material properly should take 3 or 4 runs. As you have only put in one, the job is now only as strong as that weld, which is maybe 4mm deep at best. Any strain in the wrong direction that joint would crack soon as look at you.
Look to be starting with a 60 degree inclusive angle, and a gap at the bottom of the joint. Your first run should burn through to the bottom, you might even want to turn the material round, grind out the bottom of the first weld and burn in another run from that side. Turn the material back round, chip out the slag, do you fill runs and cap.

The idea is that the weld should be stronger than the parent metal.

Thanks Drains.
Here's one of the welding jobs I'd like to do.
There's four edges to weld, I think you mean that I should grind a "V" then weld along the bottom and work up filling it, if so how deep should I grind?
Is the angle of 60 deg the sum of two 30 deg cuts off of either side?

The 60 degree is the sum of both sides, indeed. However with a fillet joint like you want to do there, no prep should be required. It's all dependent on the joint design. A butt would be prepped. A fillet welded from both sides would not. A thick fillet you might prep as it saves weld metal. Et cetera.