Hi all, I'm still an amateur welder so not sure what rods to use. I'm trying to weld up 20mm tube, 3mm wall. Its for a new rear section on my motorbike. The bike is a 150cc single so there won't be any great stresses on the frame. I have a Weldmate 140 stick welder, and a little Maximig 100 mig. So far I've been using standard 6013's (quite thick rods though) but its hard work getting decent welds, they don't want to strike up. As for the mig, I can't afford or justify renting a bottle, so have been using the little throw away argon bottles. I don't have a regulator and every weld looks like there is either no gas or too much, all bubbly looking. Would I be better buying a regulator and using the mig? (weeker weld but easier) or get some different rods for the arc? cheers
- Thread starter john mac
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norlander
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Hi John, I'm just putting together a thread on disposable gas bottles as I have just tried some and it was pants the little regulator you have for the disposable bottle is probably the culprit, the one I have needs the knob screwing down tight (as the actress said to the Bishop) for any gas flow.
One one bottle it will flow no gas at all
, I put a fresh bottle on last night and checked the flow from the regulator which OKish.The welds were rubbish this morning-no gas cover-the gas was leaking from where the regulator screws onto the bottle and the bottle was basically MT 
.
However-help is at hand, my mate is bringing one of these over: http://www.weldequip.com/disposable-regulator.htm so I gonna try that and test for leaks when fitting a bottle
.
Re the rods I weld 3mm with a 12 (which is probably a 2.5 in euro speak?) re the strike up, make sure you have a good earth and strike up on scrap before doing the weld-if you have a spring type earth clamp, I sometimes drilled one of the levers and cleaned it up shiny then bolted a shiny bit of flat to it and clamped it next to the joint and struck up on the flat on the clamp.
Back to the mig, see my trial runs with gasless mig in learning mig welding-if your mig runs 0.9 gasless you might consider that.
So in summary -consider a regulator from weldequip for the disposables, or try the stick again, or try gasless.
Re the frame, bear in mind you can chuck lightweight singles into bends a lot hotter than bigger bikes and can stand them on their nose on the brakes and could hit bumps so don't underestimate the stresses on the frame.
Forgot to mention I'm getting one of these as well http://www.weldequip.com/gas-flow-tester.htm so I can test gas is coming thru and maybe adjust flow.
Don't know what the trick is for stopping the wire feeding when you press the trigger to check for gas though.
One one bottle it will flow no gas at all
, I put a fresh bottle on last night and checked the flow from the regulator which OKish.The welds were rubbish this morning-no gas cover-the gas was leaking from where the regulator screws onto the bottle and the bottle was basically MT .However-help is at hand, my mate is bringing one of these over: http://www.weldequip.com/disposable-regulator.htm so I gonna try that and test for leaks when fitting a bottle
.Re the rods I weld 3mm with a 12 (which is probably a 2.5 in euro speak?) re the strike up, make sure you have a good earth and strike up on scrap before doing the weld-if you have a spring type earth clamp, I sometimes drilled one of the levers and cleaned it up shiny then bolted a shiny bit of flat to it and clamped it next to the joint and struck up on the flat on the clamp.
Back to the mig, see my trial runs with gasless mig in learning mig welding-if your mig runs 0.9 gasless you might consider that.
So in summary -consider a regulator from weldequip for the disposables, or try the stick again, or try gasless.
Re the frame, bear in mind you can chuck lightweight singles into bends a lot hotter than bigger bikes and can stand them on their nose on the brakes and could hit bumps so don't underestimate the stresses on the frame.
Forgot to mention I'm getting one of these as well http://www.weldequip.com/gas-flow-tester.htm so I can test gas is coming thru and maybe adjust flow.
Don't know what the trick is for stopping the wire feeding when you press the trigger to check for gas though.
norlander
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Cheers norlander, I have a similar regulator on my mig, its not very accurate though and doesn't have a gauge to show gas flow. I'd be interested in a proper regulater like you use on a rented bottle. As for the stick, I'll look into beefing up the earth and striking up the rod on a scrap bit of metal and see if that helps. As for the bike I don't want to be riding it with dodgy welds so my wednesday night welding class tutor is a biker so he'll be able to tell if the frame is too weak. cheers again!
