First day welding

[DanWt]

Hi everyone,

new member here from the convict colony,

I'm taking a bit of training in welding (have never welded before in my life) just to learn a few new skills for the most part and have some backup qualifications incase I ever need a career change

Had my first training day this week and started out on the stick welder, using 6011 (might have been 6013?) and 7018 electrodes

I did some pad welds with the 601x and then a 3 pass fillet weld and finished on the stick with a vertical up cap over the fillet weld using the 7018 electrode

they let me take home the plate that I pad welded which was pretty cool





They said I did pretty well and I had a good time doing it, but anyway more to the relevant point, after the stick welding I jumped on the Mig

the excercise was to do the same 3 pass fillet weld + a vertical up over the top (same as with the stick), i found the mig a bit harder to get a nice looking weld

something I noticed was it didnt sound quite right (lots of pops/flashes instead of a consistent sizzle) no matter how close or far away I held the nozzle

I also found it pretty hard to actually see where the wire was with the big nozzle blocking my view so I ended up with a pretty big angle on the gun. a few times during welding I felt the wire push into the metal pretty hard and once or twice it got stuck, both holding the torch a bit further out and right in close

My question is as follows, with regard to the sound i'm assuming the arc length was wrong, is that controlled by settings on the machine?

The fillet welds I did were OK with the mig, one side looked nice and smooth but the vertical up was very lumpy and big and in general the mig welds were much bigger/lumpier than the stick welds which I had pretty smooth and flat by the time I did the 2nd fillet weld

thanks for any help in advance and of course i should be asking my instructor all this but i'm not in for a week and very eager to know! they said next time in i'll be on the stick again and hopefully do the 3G butt weld test on the stick

 

[DanWt]

I just found the tutorial section on the mig.co.uk site, very helpful and didn't show up in any of my google searches

judging by that tutorial section it seems the wire speed might have been too fast, as i did on occasion feel the gun being pushed away from the metal as the wire was forced into it and there was some spatter

cheers
Dan

 

[Ed.]

Hi everyone,


I also found it pretty hard to actually see where the wire was with the big nozzle blocking my view so I ended up with a pretty big angle on the gun. a few times during welding I felt the wire push into the metal pretty hard and once or twice it got stuck, both holding the torch a bit further out and right in close

Hi DanWt, Usually when the wire pushes into the metal and tries to push away, it means that the wire feed (which mainly controls the amps) is set with a too fast a wire speed at that given voltage, so you can either reduce the wire speed a bit or increase the volts which will make the weld arc "hotter" enabling the wire to melt more readily and stop that wire hitting the base metal and pushing away, that way, the wire melts before hitting the base metal, increasing the voltage at that given wire speed will also increase the bead width, it should flatten the bead height, smooth it out and may burn through in thinner metal. Dropping the wire speed reduces the amperage but also makes less wire available to be melted and again should stop that wire pushing away.

With MIG it is a balancing act to find the "sweet spots" which will give you a nice bead with good penetration for the given weld process, MIG has globular, short circuit and spray transfer, (also pulse if you have an advanced machine) these all depend on type of wire and thickness, shield gasses, metal thickness, weld position, type of and brand of MIG, etc, etc, These setting will also vary from machine to machine, If you are starting out then carry a little writing pad with you and when you find one of those "sweet spots" write down the wire and voltage settings and what the materials are, thicknesses, weld positions etc. machine model (if you go from one MIG to another) Eventually you will get a list of ranges so you can work out a ball park figure for a weld that you need to do. You will still have to get practice on the keeping the torch steady and speed of travel of the torch.

Also later you can get a piece of scrap metal and try out the ball park settings to the task at hand by fine tuning the setting by doing a small weld on the scrap and seeing how it looks before committing to the item to be welded.

Best way to improve your welding is to get a job doing production jig welding, because when you try out a weld and your not 100% happy with it or you think you can improve it then usually you can have another 100 or so tries to vary it and get it right. may get a bit boring but improves your welding significantly.

By the way whereabout in Qld are you in?

Hope this helps.

 

[DanWt]

Thanks for the reply mate- I think I would have been better off doing a pad weld on the mig first, problem was the day was running out by the time i got on the mig so i had nowhere near as much time as i did on the stick.

I'll have a better play next i'm on the mig and take a notebook as you suggested. i reckon an increase in voltage might have done the trick as the welds looked like they could have done with some flattening out

Production jig welding hey, sounds like fun I'm a bit of a perfectionist at times

i'm down in Brissy mate

thanks for your help!

 

[Ed.]

Glad to help, I am about about 45 minutes by car north of Brizzie, where are you doing your training at?

 

[DanWt]

XLT at northgate, near the airport. i'm not doing a set course structure or traineeship, just getting relevant training to earn some tickets and get a starting point. They've got a nice setup there and good instructors I really enjoyed my first day

of course, its gonna get pricey but everything is these days, at least I can make money with the skills paid for eventually