I tried the copper plate trick last night.
Some months ago I had got some copper plates from a friend of mine but I could not find them. So I took an off cut of 22mm pipe and hammered it flat.
The copper was clamped across one side of the joint between 2 sheets. The gap had been a little wide for straight forwards but welding. I am sure I would have ended up with big holes. Anyway I soon had the gap filled in.
There were also some plug welds to do. I had sprayed the flanges with U-pol weld through primer before drilling the plug holes. It was the first time that I had done that. So the metal round the plug hole was bare but the metal at the bottom had weld through on it.
The plugs did not go very well. You should strike the arc in the centre of the bottom of the hole and the spiral outwards to catch the edge of the hole. There was a reluctance to strike in the bottom of the hole. The plugs were much better once I scraped the paint in the bottom of the hole with the corner of a screw driver.
The welding was not helped by my wire getting in a mess. The wire reel is mounted horizontal in the mig. Sometimes it unravels itself a bit getting caught up under the reel and in a twisted tangle. I am wondering if I have lost part of the reel mounting. Should the reel have have friction drag on it so as to keep the wire taught between the reel and the rollers or should the reel spin freely? My reel spins freely and I have been having this problem for some time. I am sure I did not have the problem when I first bought the mig 20+ years ago, but when you only use these things occationally it is difficult to be certain.
Some months ago I had got some copper plates from a friend of mine but I could not find them. So I took an off cut of 22mm pipe and hammered it flat.
The copper was clamped across one side of the joint between 2 sheets. The gap had been a little wide for straight forwards but welding. I am sure I would have ended up with big holes. Anyway I soon had the gap filled in.
There were also some plug welds to do. I had sprayed the flanges with U-pol weld through primer before drilling the plug holes. It was the first time that I had done that. So the metal round the plug hole was bare but the metal at the bottom had weld through on it.
The plugs did not go very well. You should strike the arc in the centre of the bottom of the hole and the spiral outwards to catch the edge of the hole. There was a reluctance to strike in the bottom of the hole. The plugs were much better once I scraped the paint in the bottom of the hole with the corner of a screw driver.
The welding was not helped by my wire getting in a mess. The wire reel is mounted horizontal in the mig. Sometimes it unravels itself a bit getting caught up under the reel and in a twisted tangle. I am wondering if I have lost part of the reel mounting. Should the reel have have friction drag on it so as to keep the wire taught between the reel and the rollers or should the reel spin freely? My reel spins freely and I have been having this problem for some time. I am sure I did not have the problem when I first bought the mig 20+ years ago, but when you only use these things occationally it is difficult to be certain.