Nick DV
"That's the only name they ever gave me."
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- "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."
...…………. I've just started to weld!!
Long story short. Joined the forum about 8 years ago with the intention of doing lots of 'welding things'. Well, with good intentions and all that, life just got in the way - work, family, illness - and nothing happened. Dipped in and out of the forum now and again as the interest was still there - still nothing happened.
Wind forward to the present and been on forum regularly for a few weeks or so, purchased a welder and all the bits and pieces, and at the weekend had about an hour to put everything together, dig out some bits of metal, fire up the mig and make my first few 'welds'
I did these on the deck in a sheltered part of my sideway so not comfortable and definitely not the best place, and I played around with the various settings on the mig. Anyway, questions for you are:
1) What am I doing wrong?
2) How can I tell the penetration is good in thicker steel? (The steel in the pic is just over 3mm and the areas on the back where the heat discolouration is, are very slightly 'lumpy')
2) I appreciate that I need to keep practicing, but how do I know how good a weld is? (I can't beat the cr4p out of everything I weld )
Will set up better this weekend, and spend a decent amount of time practicing on some clean steel of various thickness.
Appreciate any feedback
Nick
Long story short. Joined the forum about 8 years ago with the intention of doing lots of 'welding things'. Well, with good intentions and all that, life just got in the way - work, family, illness - and nothing happened. Dipped in and out of the forum now and again as the interest was still there - still nothing happened.
Wind forward to the present and been on forum regularly for a few weeks or so, purchased a welder and all the bits and pieces, and at the weekend had about an hour to put everything together, dig out some bits of metal, fire up the mig and make my first few 'welds'
I did these on the deck in a sheltered part of my sideway so not comfortable and definitely not the best place, and I played around with the various settings on the mig. Anyway, questions for you are:
1) What am I doing wrong?
2) How can I tell the penetration is good in thicker steel? (The steel in the pic is just over 3mm and the areas on the back where the heat discolouration is, are very slightly 'lumpy')
2) I appreciate that I need to keep practicing, but how do I know how good a weld is? (I can't beat the cr4p out of everything I weld )
Will set up better this weekend, and spend a decent amount of time practicing on some clean steel of various thickness.
Appreciate any feedback
Nick