mrsbruce
Member
- Messages
- 1,973
- Location
- Livingston, Scotland
To explain, I’m a complete newbie to welding, but have wanted to do welding for years now. As it happens my husband’s man cave contains a Clarke 151EN mig welder, and a cheap Chinese plasma cutter.
Due to his ill health both have been seriously under used. This is where my big chance has come in, and just this week I blew the dust off them and gave it a go.
I got the hang of the plasma quite quickly ie, I can now cut metal, but no finness yet, but it cuts.
The mig welder, well......
I only have flux wire, and although I know gas is the way to go, I have just bought 2 more rolls of no gas wire, so am learning with that. The plan is that I will get the gas thing sorted at a later date.
The welds I have made are terrible at the moment (so bad I shall leave it to your imagination), but in my defense, I’ve only welded for about 2 hours total. The other 4 hours being sorting out the wire, the wire feed tension, another bird’s nest of wire, and cleaning the surface rust from everything from lying for so long.
I have bought some more 0.8mm tips, shrouds, and a new wire feed cable. Interestingly, I ordered some other 0.8mm tips using the code out of the manual, but now comparing to the original tip I took off the machine, the new tips are longer.
I want to work on my 1989 camper bodywork, and the odd simple 2-3mm metal thickness projects. So in preparation, I have been reading everything on your wonderful forum, and watching every youtube vid ever made.
Well, that’s me then.....
Due to his ill health both have been seriously under used. This is where my big chance has come in, and just this week I blew the dust off them and gave it a go.
I got the hang of the plasma quite quickly ie, I can now cut metal, but no finness yet, but it cuts.
The mig welder, well......
I only have flux wire, and although I know gas is the way to go, I have just bought 2 more rolls of no gas wire, so am learning with that. The plan is that I will get the gas thing sorted at a later date.
The welds I have made are terrible at the moment (so bad I shall leave it to your imagination), but in my defense, I’ve only welded for about 2 hours total. The other 4 hours being sorting out the wire, the wire feed tension, another bird’s nest of wire, and cleaning the surface rust from everything from lying for so long.
I have bought some more 0.8mm tips, shrouds, and a new wire feed cable. Interestingly, I ordered some other 0.8mm tips using the code out of the manual, but now comparing to the original tip I took off the machine, the new tips are longer.
I want to work on my 1989 camper bodywork, and the odd simple 2-3mm metal thickness projects. So in preparation, I have been reading everything on your wonderful forum, and watching every youtube vid ever made.
Well, that’s me then.....