First time pics

[Jinx]

i recently bought myself a contimac basicline 150 with my brother in law. range 30-135 in 5 steps.







We tried it out today!

practice pieces of metal is 1.5mm (i think)
first attempts were on setting 1 (30A) and then setting 2 which went much better. Then wire feeds and i'm quite pleased with the first results for a newbie

left our first attempts - right our last ones




this would be buttwelds I dont have a 'during' pic. I just went ahead and tried to see what would be the easiest way of getting the excess metal off ( any tips? )

the left side of the weld is done by me. The right side by my broth in law


am i doing a proper job?

 

[Welderpaul]

am i doing a proper job?

What a shiny welder!

Clean the steel with a grinder first - Mig likes it nice and clean - not as forgiving as stick. Grinder also good for removing excess weld metal.

Too fast on the welds to the left (hense the birdy bab look!!) - speed looks ok on the right, although you would have been seconds away from blowing a big hole in the steel.
Lack of penetration on the butt weld, turn the juice up - if you ground that weld flush, it would probably fall apart!
Looking good tho!

 

[oddball90]

You need to clean all the rust from steel before you try to weld.Needs to be nice and shiny.

 

[Jinx]

The area with the first few welds were cleaned with a grinder. The rest with a manual wire brush (which seemed to only partially do the job)


should i have moved a little faster on the last welds? the weld should look about the same on both sides right? cause then it looks like they sagged through a bit too much.

 

[zardoz]

Have you any thicker plate, where you can practice doing runs without worrying about blowing through the other side. You can learn about that a little later, but for now, learning to lay a good run is more important. get the feel of the gun in your hand and practice with different voltages and wire speeds. Spend some hours doing runs, then lap welds as your first welds.

Tell us about the Contimac welder, who makes them and where are they made ?

 

[Jinx]

the 1.5mm plate is the only stuff i can work with at this moment. I dont have anything else lying around.

i'm going to stick to this plate as i'm going to need to weld 0.9mm plate for my car.


Contimac is a belgian company that makes industrial tools (they have compressors and lathes too i think). They have 3 different lines: basicline, professional & industrial. each have their own price class ofcourse

their site is www.contimac.be (only in dutch and french i'm affraid)

i need to get myself a proper facemask urgently. The one i have is handheld and its annoying to work with.