first welding project

[pondy]

have been using my welder for around a year but nothing serious, welding a few little bits together etc etc.

welding a new base in for one of my compressors as the old one had been rigged up by the previous owner. did have a problem with finishing welds a little tail thing would form but after help from other members this is fixed.

a few times the weld would go bad and would get full of little air holes then go back to normal, any ideas? welder was flat out but un sure if this is good, or any penertration, is 3mm.

sam

 

[grim_d]

What size wire? if 0.6mm I would expect to not have full penetration with a butt on 3mm. with 0.6mm wire I struggle to fully penetrate 2mm even on with 185A and max wire speed.

You could weld the seam on the other side if you are worried about strength, Stitch weld it though if it's on the back, save your gas! I built a small tool bogey for my first project and seam welded all the way around it, wasted loads of gas!

Not sure about the holes? Porosity maybe from contamination or intermittent gas supply?

 

[pondy]

its 0.8mm wire

 

[NTwoO]

I see the welder has no euro torch. The gas hose in the torch is separate, so to see. Does it maybe kink during the welding?

 

[Sparkey]

I see the welder has no euro torch. The gas hose in the torch is separate, so to see. Does it maybe kink during the welding?

Hard to say...he's also welding outside so, a small breeze is enough to blow his shielding gas away!
On how much lpm do you have the gas set, Sam?
Also be sure to keep the shroud free from spatter, if it builds up it could block the gasflow too! (and it looks nasty if all the muck falls out in the middle of a weld!)

ps: maybe you should try not to weave either...or i'm not sure about what you do, but there's a lot of motion in the weld...it looks like you're going back and forth, isn't it?

I must say, you have a steady hand tho! very good!

 

[NTwoO]

Too troo

@pondy, maybe you also want to wind down that extension lead if it is for the welder (or the compressor)

 

[pondy]

Cheers for the help guys. I cleaned the nozzle before I used it so prob the wind as it was only bad for a second or so. Am weaving from side to side, self taught so this is what I have always done,
What should the gas be set to?

 

[Sparkey]

Cheers for the help guys. I cleaned the nozzle before I used it so prob the wind as it was only bad for a second or so. Am weaving from side to side, self taught so this is what I have always done,
What should the gas be set to?

Goodmorning!
Well, normally if you weld inside it will be set around 10 lpm, but you're not so i would say around 15 lpm (liter per minute) or you could set up some kind of wind break to shield off the area where you are welding?

ps: just try it out if you want, try to make a straight stringer bead, it will look better without the raggedy edges you have on your welds now...It might even improve the penetration because your aren't sweeping the weld pool around then!

 

[NTwoO]

Did you stop welding when you had the pit forming? I see the HAZ on the back side matches these areas.

 

[pondy]

i have always had it set at 20lpm, but never known what it should be so i will turn it down slightly and save on gas, this was a one off welding outside, due to the size i didnt want my garage to be full of smoke and fumes.

will try and stop the weaving and see how it goes.

i stopped after the pitting started, started welding again and it was fine? you can see on the picture its black around this area?

 

[NTwoO]

On the welded side I can see it goes black. On the reverse the HAZ shows that you stopped there. Seeing the length of the runs, is there maybe a restriction somewhere that could explain the almost periodic interruption of the flow?

 

[Sparkey]

HAZ Heat Affected Zone, right?

I really think it's coincidence that it matches Ntwoo, it's quite normal actually...if you hear/ see/ feel it goes wrong, you stop welding right? At least that's what i do!

 

[NTwoO]

HAZ Heat Affected Zone, right?

Yup.

I really think it's coincidence that it matches Ntwoo, it's quite normal actually...if you hear/ see/ feel it goes wrong, you stop welding right? At least that's what i do!

The curious thing though, is the similarity in length of the runs b4 things go pear shaped. It could be coincidence, but it could also be a clue. Guess its worth while to do a few runs indoors to get wind out of the equation.

 

[Ed.]

You could also be exceeding the duty cycle of the machine which wont be much on that sized machine since you are using the 0.8mm wire. Also you appear to be welding too hot, drop the voltage down a tad.