Blowing holes, Help please!!!

[66-V8]

I have a Clarke 151TE (recommended by the guy at MM - 'Best Seller' ) but as I attempted tacking a piece of panel (to butt-weld) I kept blowing holes!

The setting is on Min, the gas (Argoshield) on highish (it seems to be nothing up to 4, 5, 6, then a slight hiss at 7, 8, then a very slightly higher hiss at 8+) I've tried the wire speed at different settings but still useless.

Is the machine too powerful for thin sheet steel? It goes down to 30amp. I only want to weld body panelwork and sills, nothing thicker.

I wondered if a less powerful model would be better choice, eg the Pro90 which goes down to 25amp?

 

[malcolm]

151 is OK. Are you using 0.6mm wire? That is a lot better for thin sheet than 0.8mm wire.

You should find it's possible to adjust the amps A LOT on those things with the thinner wire and on the wire speed. Lower wire speed makes for less amps. I was playing with a 165TE at the weekend and found it was possible to reduce the wire speed from 4 to about 1.5. It ran OK at the higher speeds but was quite fierce.

 

[rusty69bus]

hi, sounds like you using the disposable bottle gas reg (some known to be bad)

 

[R Kraft]

Are you using .6mm wire ?
10-12 l on the gas flow.
Clean the seam of rust and paint, as well as you can.
And read this:http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/thin-metal.htm
And practice.
Robert

 

[migwig]

I recently bought the same welder, and have been happily playing with 1mm sheet with the 0.6mm wire which came wih the machine. I've just been working around the settings in the manual and getting no holes. Using BOC 9 litre bottle though - I don't know what difference this makes.

Hope this helps!

 

[malcolm]

It would blow holes if you were short of gas. Could be worth picking up a pea shooter to measure gas flow at the torch. Or post photos.

 

[66-V8]

Thanks for replies.

I suspect the gas reg might be at fault then cos as I mentioned before, there hardly seems any flow at fully open. I'll get it swapped and post images if problem is still there.

Cheers.

 

[chunkolini]

A good tip when starting out is to keep a note book and write everything down, I used to have a marker pen and write down the setting by the crap welds as I taught myself. It was a slow process, then suddenly it made sense. It can be a massive help to have a mate who can weld on hand to slap you when you are doing something wrong.

I found my old book recently, couldn't believe it; it was like alchemy, 'A2 min 2' 'A3 min-Max' etc etc with the sizes of the metal involved. Now I dont even need to think about what settings to use. The thing that did my head in after a while was that I could use settings that did not work early on and still get a good weld. A lot of it is speed of travel, torch angle,what you had for breakfast, and feeling comfortable/confident.

Never go for a less powerful machine, who knows what you wil be doing a year or two down the line, also the lesser machines tend to be more fernickety to set up.

Stick at it, it will get easier, Chunko'.

 

[weldingscotty803]

try doing little seams at a time. say 1 inch then leave an inch then another 1 inch seam etc etc

just stops you getting too much heat on the work