A 'Stickies' limited experience of MIG...

[SiPMerlin150]

Hello, I'm mainly on the arc welders section as my first found skill was with stick welding. I'm familiar with MOT repair work from the garage I work within, Seam welds where needed/plug welds as needed etc. I've half done a job to a large rusty mercedes sprinter, rotten in a few places on the sills.

The mig is an old (10+) beasty lincoln compact 185 (old school!) and set on the minimum Voltage setting will readily blow through 1.6mm body steel.

I used a stitch welding technique to create a seam weld, alternating areas of welding to keep warpage and burn through limited...

Its not pretty, its half done also, plus i'll be going over areas that I find unsatisfactory tommorow.

Heres my work...dont laugh!

P.S. the snotty looking bits at the sill lip aren't mine and will be grinded off tommorow!

 

[backpurge]

For a start you have a good piece of kit there, those machines were built to last and will give many modern sets a run for their money.
Your welds look very built up with an excess of reinforcement, they also look cold and do not appear to be fusing correctly with the parent material.

What diameter wire are you using?

As you will have learnt stick welding it is all about practice, practice, practice then a lot more practice,, keep at it, have a mess around with the settings on some scrap first.

 

[Drains]

Aye, too much weld.
On thin materials there is a sweet spot of weld prep, voltage, travel speed, reinforcement and burn through (the same goes for thick materials too but thin is unforgiving). Hang around too long, you can burn through and put on too much weld. Go too fast and you don't get penetration through the joint. You can leave a small gap even on 1.6mm material but you need to travel fast. Get it right and you'll have a full pen joint with little reinforcement - ideally the reinforcement will be at the back of the joint (eg, penetration) so you can grind the front flush and still have a good weld.

It's worth practicing with thin mat'l and setting up a gap, then see if you can do as described above. It saves lots of work afterwards and gives proper strength.

 

[SiPMerlin150]

For a start you have a good piece of kit there, those machines were built to last and will give many modern sets a run for their money.
Your welds look very built up with an excess of reinforcement, they also look cold and do not appear to be fusing correctly with the parent material.

What diameter wire are you using?

As you will have learnt stick welding it is all about practice, practice, practice then a lot more practice,, keep at it, have a mess around with the settings on some scrap first.

Yeah I do like this mig welder very much I've had a look at the spec sheet, ive set it on voltage step 1 which is for 1.4mm- 1.8mm steel so i'd dare not to run it on 2 except for when tacking it all in place.

Wire is Lincoln electrics own brand, 0.8mm with BOC's argoshield light (size Y)
Even then those bottles don't last too long

The garage has had the welder for 10 or so years and last week the wire feed board went in it, A day at BOC and £70 later, we had a fully working mig and a shiny new earth clamp!

I would like to own a mig welder for myself but unless i'm spending £200+ its not going to be too worthwhile and second hand ebay models are too far away to collect or they are really crap beat up units that every ebayer jumps on... Its a large investment for just tinkering around with (for me that is)

 

[SiPMerlin150]

Heres the other side, first pic when I stopped for a brew (dinner time)!

and second picture a closeup of the not so great seam attempts (excuse the blobs again on the bottom lip as they are not mine, honest!

can that earth clamp be any shinier?

 

[Lawnmowerboy]

They don't look too bad, the individual tacks are a little too close together, do say a 1 second blast, then let it go just off red hot and point right into the very bottom nearest side of the last tack and repeat, the machine you are using may even have a spot weld timer.

 

[SiPMerlin150]

They don't look too bad, the individual tacks are a little too close together, do say a 1 second blast, then let it go just off red hot and point right into the very bottom nearest side of the last tack and repeat, the machine you are using may even have a spot weld timer.

I'm not sure if it does, theres the voltage selector, wire speed, power light and overheat tripper light...old school baby!!

Will try your method next time an old beater fails it mot on welding all part of an experience.

 

[penfold]

0.6mm wire would make life a lot easier when welding thin stuff.

 

[SiPMerlin150]

0.6mm wire would make life a lot easier when welding thin stuff.

That does make sense, thinner material, thinner wire/electrode.

 

[backpurge]

Personally can't see any point going to 0.6 wire, current transfer not as good, harder to feed, lot more expensive. If you take a bit of time setting machine up right and making sure your joint prep is correct you really shouldn't have any trouble with 0.8 filler.

Is there no one you can ask to show you how to go on

 

[SiPMerlin150]

Personally can't see any point going to 0.6 wire, current transfer not as good, harder to feed, lot more expensive. If you take a bit of time setting machine up right and making sure your joint prep is correct you really shouldn't have any trouble with 0.8 filler.

Is there no one you can ask to show you how to go on

I have to admit that because i've been a purely stick welder person, i thought mig was going to be rather choosey with power settings, wire feeds, etc, but that old lincoln , I haven't burnt no tips out, I switch it on, turn the bottle of argoshield on, set the power to 1, the wire speed to 4-1/2, squeeze the trigger and allow the argoshield to purge the air from the gas line and shroud, clip the wire flush to the shroud, and away i go!

In the garage, no one is really interested in welding at all, I'm the enthuiastic one...

They say 'Welding is easy, anyone can weld, all the work is in the preparation'

Yes, well I ought to take in my Buzzbox and see if they can do anymore than stick the rod to the work piece and make the buzzbox make angry sounding noises!

I'm the only one with a welding qualification in that place..

 

[Tino]

For a start you have a good piece of kit there, those machines were built to last and will give many modern sets a run for their money.

For me that is a modern set.

 

[jonnyBMX]

Personally can't see any point going to 0.6 wire, current transfer not as good, harder to feed, lot more expensive. If you take a bit of time setting machine up right and making sure your joint prep is correct you really shouldn't have any trouble with 0.8 filler.

Is there no one you can ask to show you how to go on

true... ive welded with both 0.6 and 0.8mm on cars had no problem with either, saying that his build up is too much so maybe using the thinner wire could help him on that.

maybe have a few practises on some scrap metal but dont look too bad tbh