First off I'd like to say hello to everyone, so hello!
I am completely new to welding of any sort and have never even so much as watched someone weld before now! I have been introduced to learning welding by pure necessity, My car is a 17 year old K11 Micra which I have been restoring as a project (like the car a lot and it's very very economical in every way, parts, insurance, fuel, tax, easy to fix, no finance etc) but the little K11 has some rot at the sills like most of them, and also needs the rear spring perch welded as it's crumbling away. I'm very good at mechanics, I can fix most things on an older car and figure out anything I don't know by myself but really need to add welding to my skill sets.
So I decided instead of paying whatever it costs every year to have welding done (presumably hundreds a time) I would invest a hundred quid in a little used Snap-mig/Cebora 130. I'm using it with flux core wire due to living very high up/sever winds and gas just being inpractical for me/no space to store. Reading the reviews it seems this welder is very good for the money - mine came with a spare 2nd one! So I grabbed it up and purchased auto mask, slag hammer, tips bla bla and set to rebuilding the old machine.
The earth was corroded and frayed to heck at the clamp and also inside, so I completely rebuilt the earth cutting out the bad ends and cleaned up the clamp. I also cleaned the contacts and greased the wire feed gearing and fitted a new sleeve liner.
So while the machine seems to really appreciate this revamp, it really does NOT appreciate my terrible attempts at welding. So far I've spent around a few hours practicing (and used up nearly a whole £7 0.227kg role of SIP flux core wire :/ ) and I haven't even been able to lay down anything near a half decent bead, in fact most of it's just splatter to be honest. I've set the roller tension right based on Youtube videos I've seen, yes, I'm learning via Youtube lol... but I self taught car mechanics this way 8 years ago so why not! I've adjusted the wire speed up and down and it's either too sputtery and slow or too fast and buts the metal... I just can't get the damn speed right! I'm struggling with the cursive C technique with travel speed and angle and either blow through the metal or leave nothing but spatter... managed to get a couple small raised bad beads but that's it. I also can't figure out if I'm better on 1/min 1/max or 2/min for amp settings... 2 min blows through sometimes, so it seems 1/min or 1/max is best but can't decide. Another thing I'm struggling with is electrode to material distance, hard to maintain it.
I'm practicing on an old exhaust that I brushed clean with a grinder cup as I don't have any scrap metal other than that lying about really, need to pick up some scrap crap but all I have for now is that...
Have uploaded a photo of the "welds" and hopefully you guys can see where I might be going wrong... most of these were attempted using wire speed around a quarter to half-way.
My car is pretty much off the road right now and will be until I can get proficient enough to do the sill patch and the spring perch... the spring perch IS structural so I won't be attempting that until I'm half decent or I'll pay the welder in my street to do that part. Included pics of the sill to give an idea of what a complete noob like me is hoping to accomplish as quickly as my skill growth rate will allow.
Any help really appreciated guys!
I am completely new to welding of any sort and have never even so much as watched someone weld before now! I have been introduced to learning welding by pure necessity, My car is a 17 year old K11 Micra which I have been restoring as a project (like the car a lot and it's very very economical in every way, parts, insurance, fuel, tax, easy to fix, no finance etc) but the little K11 has some rot at the sills like most of them, and also needs the rear spring perch welded as it's crumbling away. I'm very good at mechanics, I can fix most things on an older car and figure out anything I don't know by myself but really need to add welding to my skill sets.
So I decided instead of paying whatever it costs every year to have welding done (presumably hundreds a time) I would invest a hundred quid in a little used Snap-mig/Cebora 130. I'm using it with flux core wire due to living very high up/sever winds and gas just being inpractical for me/no space to store. Reading the reviews it seems this welder is very good for the money - mine came with a spare 2nd one! So I grabbed it up and purchased auto mask, slag hammer, tips bla bla and set to rebuilding the old machine.
The earth was corroded and frayed to heck at the clamp and also inside, so I completely rebuilt the earth cutting out the bad ends and cleaned up the clamp. I also cleaned the contacts and greased the wire feed gearing and fitted a new sleeve liner.
So while the machine seems to really appreciate this revamp, it really does NOT appreciate my terrible attempts at welding. So far I've spent around a few hours practicing (and used up nearly a whole £7 0.227kg role of SIP flux core wire :/ ) and I haven't even been able to lay down anything near a half decent bead, in fact most of it's just splatter to be honest. I've set the roller tension right based on Youtube videos I've seen, yes, I'm learning via Youtube lol... but I self taught car mechanics this way 8 years ago so why not! I've adjusted the wire speed up and down and it's either too sputtery and slow or too fast and buts the metal... I just can't get the damn speed right! I'm struggling with the cursive C technique with travel speed and angle and either blow through the metal or leave nothing but spatter... managed to get a couple small raised bad beads but that's it. I also can't figure out if I'm better on 1/min 1/max or 2/min for amp settings... 2 min blows through sometimes, so it seems 1/min or 1/max is best but can't decide. Another thing I'm struggling with is electrode to material distance, hard to maintain it.
I'm practicing on an old exhaust that I brushed clean with a grinder cup as I don't have any scrap metal other than that lying about really, need to pick up some scrap crap but all I have for now is that...
Have uploaded a photo of the "welds" and hopefully you guys can see where I might be going wrong... most of these were attempted using wire speed around a quarter to half-way.
My car is pretty much off the road right now and will be until I can get proficient enough to do the sill patch and the spring perch... the spring perch IS structural so I won't be attempting that until I'm half decent or I'll pay the welder in my street to do that part. Included pics of the sill to give an idea of what a complete noob like me is hoping to accomplish as quickly as my skill growth rate will allow.
Any help really appreciated guys!