alex_holden
Member
- Messages
- 33
Hi, I'm Alex from Burnley. I'm currently doing up a 1963 Morris Minor Traveller called Fenchurch, and am teaching myself to MIG weld in the process. I'm using my dad's Clarke 151TE MIG welder, and haven't had any professional instruction (my dad is even worse at it than I am). I've already patched up one of her sills and part of the central crossmember, and that got her through her first MOT for at least 15 years. I'm not proud of the quality of the work though, and I suspect I'll wind up redoing it properly with commercial repair sections if/when the patches rot. A guy on the Morris Minor Owner's Club forum pointed me over here when I commented on how much neater his welding looked than my own.
I've read all the articles on this site and many of the forum posts, and based on recommendations on here I bought a Parweld XR914H reactive helmet on eBay. The visibility is far better than with the old heavily-spattered dual-shade helmet I was using previously, and the neatness of my butt-welds has improved a lot with it. The next things I'm planning on trying to see if they improve matters are changing from CO2 to Argoshield gas, and from 0.6mm wire to 0.8mm wire.
My next project, apart from a bit of bodging on my dad's camper van's bodywork (don't ask), is to make a new heater for Fenchurch. I've bought a modern blower and matrix from a scrapyard, and want to make a casing for them from thin sheet steel. I've already given up on using 0.8mm sheet (Edit: I meant 0.5mm) as the lowest setting on the welder just instantly blows holes through it. I'm planning to try 1mm instead, which seems much easier to work with.
Here is a picture of Fenchurch after she passed her MOT last week:
I've read all the articles on this site and many of the forum posts, and based on recommendations on here I bought a Parweld XR914H reactive helmet on eBay. The visibility is far better than with the old heavily-spattered dual-shade helmet I was using previously, and the neatness of my butt-welds has improved a lot with it. The next things I'm planning on trying to see if they improve matters are changing from CO2 to Argoshield gas, and from 0.6mm wire to 0.8mm wire.
My next project, apart from a bit of bodging on my dad's camper van's bodywork (don't ask), is to make a new heater for Fenchurch. I've bought a modern blower and matrix from a scrapyard, and want to make a casing for them from thin sheet steel. I've already given up on using 0.8mm sheet (Edit: I meant 0.5mm) as the lowest setting on the welder just instantly blows holes through it. I'm planning to try 1mm instead, which seems much easier to work with.
Here is a picture of Fenchurch after she passed her MOT last week:
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