Hello all (again!)
Thanks for all the replies to previous queries, many are helping me to get over some previous problems, and also ways to improve what I've been doing.
I spent quite some time prepping up aluminium angle to weld to the base I'd made previously (fit up was a nightmare, I'll be very careful with triangular pieces in the future - difficult to represent on 2D CAD!)
Anyway, I then moved on to start welding one of the legs ot the base, but had a lot of issues. The base is 5mm strip (and I'd got away fairly lightly trying to weld it with a lot less current than recommended), and to it I'm welding 3mm thick 50X50mm angle. For some reason I decided to put a chamfer on the 3mm section where it met the 5, thinking I'd fill it with filler wire.
Looks like I underestimated the 5mm's ability to wick away the heat. It was both hard to get a decent pool going, and by the time I did it'd caused issues with the 3mm (I was trying to direct the heat onto the 5mm...)
So - any thoughts on better ways to make this weld work?
Sins I will confess to:
1) I'm using up to 140 amps on this - I can only go to 160 though.
2) My rods are 1.6mm - I was working on the basis I'd just feed them faster....
My next step, having bought a big canister for the blowtorch, is to add a lot of preheat to the back of the 5mm prior to welding, is this sensible?
Thanks
Francis.
Thanks for all the replies to previous queries, many are helping me to get over some previous problems, and also ways to improve what I've been doing.
I spent quite some time prepping up aluminium angle to weld to the base I'd made previously (fit up was a nightmare, I'll be very careful with triangular pieces in the future - difficult to represent on 2D CAD!)
Anyway, I then moved on to start welding one of the legs ot the base, but had a lot of issues. The base is 5mm strip (and I'd got away fairly lightly trying to weld it with a lot less current than recommended), and to it I'm welding 3mm thick 50X50mm angle. For some reason I decided to put a chamfer on the 3mm section where it met the 5, thinking I'd fill it with filler wire.
Looks like I underestimated the 5mm's ability to wick away the heat. It was both hard to get a decent pool going, and by the time I did it'd caused issues with the 3mm (I was trying to direct the heat onto the 5mm...)
So - any thoughts on better ways to make this weld work?
Sins I will confess to:
1) I'm using up to 140 amps on this - I can only go to 160 though.
2) My rods are 1.6mm - I was working on the basis I'd just feed them faster....
My next step, having bought a big canister for the blowtorch, is to add a lot of preheat to the back of the 5mm prior to welding, is this sensible?
Thanks
Francis.