Advice, Guidance Or Judge Pleeeeease

[Stereophoney]

I've been experimenting today and i'm unsure which of the following tehcniques to use

In the pics i have shown that i was using the weave then spiral technique on power settings 1 and 2 with the penetration pic aswell ( oo er )

I'm using a clarke 105en mig with 0.6 mm wire, co2/argon mix, wire speed 5 to 6, the steel is 1mm sheet from my local car panel suppliers

Any guidance would be gratefully recieved as i'm only starting out

Thanks in advance Gaz

 

[malcolm]

Difficult to call. Ideally you'd go in a completely straight line, but when butt welding thin metal it's helpful to have some weave to prevent the arc from staying on one sheet and not melting the other. A bit of weave is also useful for controlling speed.

I'd say 2 was the neatest as it has the most even penetration. None are terrible. Try a butt weld!

 

[Stereophoney]

Yeah that was my next port of call, i did a few lap welds and they were ok

I was under the impression you should always incorperate some sort of weave or zig zag which was why i asked the question, the perils of being a novice

 

[gavuk]

As above ,need to join 2 bits of metal to get a real idea,also remember for car welding you would normally only weld around an 1" before cooling,to limit distortion....Perhaps the best trial before starting a car is to remove a patch from the sheet ,cut a replacement ,then weld it in ,try horizontal and vertical with no support ,it will show that backstepping ,welding opposites or the "thin metal technique" is the easiest methods of patching cars ....beads are the way to go with thicker material...

 

[Stereophoney]

I was tacking a few bits of scrap together before but didn't think to do a butt weld, i'll try that tomorrow if i can get away from the wifes chores