bacon and penertration

[robin osborne]

cheers will do

 

[pedrobedro]

Do you take the shroud off when no gas is used ? You can get in closer and stick out should not make a lot of difference unless it really gets too much.

 

[norlander]

Do you take the shroud off when no gas is used ? You can get in closer and stick out should not make a lot of difference unless it really gets too much.

do you use anti spatter spray or tip gel when you do that? just wondering if spatter sticks on the torch and causes probs going back to shroud and gas?- I've never done it so don't know.I have one of these:

http://www.hd-outillage.com/kit-soudage-sans-gaz-mig-mag-pour-fil-fourre-p-2407.html should fit any euro type torch, the tip sticks right out and the torch head is covered, theres a picture of it on my torch in this thread if you scroll down.

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/gasless-14-years-on.47118/

Spatter seem to go out and down so I guess its not a big problem if you take the shroud off. You definitely get a better view of whats going on and can get in close as you say.

 

[Welding Bear]

I'm afraid I can't help with the issues you're having but I can say that if you check out my thread about butt joint penetration I get EXACTLY the same problem you do..... yours look a lot better than mine but the principles the same.... a nice looking weld on top, with gap and bevelled but still cant get it so that the underside looks welded i.e. no gap!

3mm I have found is on the max limit for my machine (Clarke 135te with gas) but as ive tried bevels and gaps with still no improvement im going to try and go a tad slower and I think I may turn my WFS down (more heat,less metal)

what I will say though is that I did 3 butt joints the other day and I hammered the living sh*t out of them..... only 1 failed at the weld. the rest bent the metal. so it cant be that bad

 

[robin osborne]

hi have made shroud to cove gas holes in nozzle but tip protrudes.
I just read that .035 wire I would need 1.6" of wire feed per amp so I messured my wire speed no2 =14" upto no 9 = 40" and read that about 30 amp of power for every 1 mm of metal so none of these figers work for me.
I then went throw every voltage setting trying varies wire speeds. in image v = volts nob 1-10 the other no. is wire speed nob.
I also got the misses to jot down amperage as it flicked up on the counter in real time.
to confuse me even more hear are some of the results
volts knob wire knob av amp
1 1 40
1 2 60
2 1 46
2 2 67
2 3 94
3 1 39
3 2 65
so if I need 30 amp per mm of metal disregarding amount of wire per amp as my welder dosent seem to have any were near another. for 3mm pice of metal say about 90 amp I can achieve this at almost all the voltages with different wire speeds. how dose a Lerner choose which one will be the right amount of penetration . I tried your 5 and 5 setting on 3mm Richard and the wire just popped and pushed the torch away. I think I ended up with v5 and wire 2 which was around 75 amp. still didn't get a nice fill even with root gap of around 1mm sorry no pic. the bits of box 20mm 1.5mm v3 wire 2 =65amp and 25mm 2mm v6 wire 5 =123 amp. will hopefull get some flat bar of varies thickness tomorrow may be easier to see what's going on than box.

 

[pedrobedro]

The title of the thread makes me feel hungry and horny, what's going on there ?

 

[robin osborne]

should have mentioned ime using .9mm wire. maybe that's why my wire speeds are slower than yourse?

 

[Richard07]

The wire speed also controls amps and with a thicker wire, yes it will be slower as the thicker wire puts more heat in, also why the read out is confusing. Only other things i can think is check your polarity, do you pull or push the torch?

 

[Kent]

its not good to get too wrapped up in remembering or recording numbers, go off what you actually see and what you actually hear during the process. Feeding into the very leading edge will always put more bite into things and vice versa if you feed further back, uphill / down travel direction, pull or push etc..
Start too high on power and too much on wire, then work backwards on those settings wire first then power. Look carefully at how torch angle, direction of travel, speed and weave also weld pool to wire correlate to create more or less but as for recording it all I shouldn't bother personally as one unnoticed factor change can effect you data until you gain consistency

 

[robin osborne]

pulling torch as I have read drag before slag and I have reversed polarity so neg torch. from what people are saying to look and listen would I be correct to say that if the welder was set up on say 1mm metal correctly and it sounded good that it would sound different on say 3mm metal. not the fact that wire ,voltage travel speed etc are correct, the actual thickness of the metal would alter the sound and weld look. I am worried that even a nice looking weld will not have penetration / strength

 

[Kent]

Then you are correct. Too much talk of bacon here! 1mm thick and your unlikely to be able to run a continuous bead on many joints / positions anyhow. What you need is some serious burn time so build up a few bead pads

 

[norlander]

I did not want to pitch in on this one as my Mig set is different to yours in the way the settings are put in; but also, because I only returned to MIG welding about 6months ago, I've been welding most days in that 6months so I've covered most situations.
I was going to say the same as Kent; I think you are getting too focused on what the process should sound like and on penetration. You can rarely look at the back of the job to judge penetration, I just concentrate on the fusion in the root (thats the line of the joint) and the toes which is where the edges of the weld bead meet the job being joined.
Just watch the pool at the end of the wire and the bit of the bead forming beteween the two workpieces, after a bit you recognise the materials fusing together.
Welding is hand and eye-not orchestral-one mans frying bacon is another mans egg frying.When I hear someone welding, it does not sound like frying bacon-it sounds like welding.
One mans settings on the same machine for the same job will often be different, just as 2 rock guitar players with the same instrument will have it tuned differently.
Just bang in welding time,you are probably knocking out acceptably sound welds already-put them in a vice and belt them with a hammer-unless you are welding pressure vessels, that test will do.
Flux core and running off a genny may present different results compared to running off a decent supply with proper gas set up.

 

[robin osborne]

cheers everyone. will just get on with welding and see what happens. we are going to try to get gas today so everything will change again. not planning ondoing anything structural until later on in year so hopefully will have it then. will post some more welds at some stage for advice and criticism. cheers Norlander has helped me picture what ime looking for and hopefully gas as opposed to flux I will be able to see more. happy new year

 

[norlander]

I just fell across this which may help some. Not everyone will agree in principle with youtube stuff, but you notice he whacks the test piece with a hammer and nothing lets go, ok its not a very technical test, but for what most of us do-its all we have-woodworkers give their joints a pulling about, and if you have glued something up-like repairing a broken cup you tweak it to see if its going to hold.
But anyway, he also give a quick idea of what to look at when welding.
You also hear the sound when he is welding at too high a setting. I repeat-not all will agree with youtube vids, but there is often a smidgin of useful info for some in them.
Really, though, its all down to practice and experience which should lead to confidence in your welding. So keep at it and happy welding.

 

[Welding Bear]

Just to add to what Norlander says (and I'm a newby worried about my penetration too haha

I actually never get the bacon sound! I get it so its not a sporadic spitting noise (low WFS) and not machine gunning (too much WFS). I simply get a crackling sorta sound irrespective of what I do with the machine.

I have gone past caring though! At the end of the day I can ensure the weld puddle starts, I can control it and I am now getting decent penetration thanks to the tips on here.

As said I'm not an expert and these guys are so I bow down to all of them. but I was obsessed with bacon. and now I'm not.

 

[Welding Bear]

ps, to add my welds are between good and ugly. don't care anymore.

as chucke says.... ''a welder and paint makes a welder what he aint''