Hello,
I've got a couple of hobby welders. And a friend has asked me to help him with some chassis work on a classic car. It's going to put me in a position I know I'll struggle in so I'd like a little advice about what rods to pick up.
The machine is a AT161 Clarke inverter. It's DC only, 10-160amps, 78 OCV. (don't laugh it was second hand and cheap). It can run DC+ Or DC-.
I also have a Little Mig but I can't stand it. It's OK in some aspects but I don't trust the strength of the welds. I often find they have only minor penetration when I have dissimilar metal thickness's. It's a clarke 110E set on 0.8 mild steel wire with CO2. This machine really struggles on thicker stuff as well. Even with the thicker wire and full amps it's got no penetration at 4-5mm.
Right so this classic car is an old Reliant Scimitar, The chassis is good thickness RSJ with outriggers that need replacing to act as fixing points for the fibreglass body. The body dumps all it weight onto the RSJ's these are just fixing points.
The chassis is about 4-5mm thick the outriggers 1.5mm. It'll need about 6 inches vertical and 4 inches horizontal for each outrigger. The chassis is old and rusty it'll be cleaned up but it's pitted pretty badly in places.
I'm looking towards a thin low ampage rod that isn't going too blow out 1.5mm steel, E6013 1.6mm rod is going to suffer with slag inclusion vertical. I'd rather have a thicker rod that will cope with low amps than a thin rod and loads of slag.
My regular welding is all done in the horizontal plane, I don't weld a lot, I'll happily go and buy a few Kg's of better rods but the American forums seem to prefer E7014 and I can't seem to find those or fleetweld 47's from a UK supply.
Any help and links to product (And I don't mean to ESAB units!) would be welcome.
I've got a couple of hobby welders. And a friend has asked me to help him with some chassis work on a classic car. It's going to put me in a position I know I'll struggle in so I'd like a little advice about what rods to pick up.
The machine is a AT161 Clarke inverter. It's DC only, 10-160amps, 78 OCV. (don't laugh it was second hand and cheap). It can run DC+ Or DC-.
I also have a Little Mig but I can't stand it. It's OK in some aspects but I don't trust the strength of the welds. I often find they have only minor penetration when I have dissimilar metal thickness's. It's a clarke 110E set on 0.8 mild steel wire with CO2. This machine really struggles on thicker stuff as well. Even with the thicker wire and full amps it's got no penetration at 4-5mm.
Right so this classic car is an old Reliant Scimitar, The chassis is good thickness RSJ with outriggers that need replacing to act as fixing points for the fibreglass body. The body dumps all it weight onto the RSJ's these are just fixing points.
The chassis is about 4-5mm thick the outriggers 1.5mm. It'll need about 6 inches vertical and 4 inches horizontal for each outrigger. The chassis is old and rusty it'll be cleaned up but it's pitted pretty badly in places.
I'm looking towards a thin low ampage rod that isn't going too blow out 1.5mm steel, E6013 1.6mm rod is going to suffer with slag inclusion vertical. I'd rather have a thicker rod that will cope with low amps than a thin rod and loads of slag.
My regular welding is all done in the horizontal plane, I don't weld a lot, I'll happily go and buy a few Kg's of better rods but the American forums seem to prefer E7014 and I can't seem to find those or fleetweld 47's from a UK supply.
Any help and links to product (And I don't mean to ESAB units!) would be welcome.