First welds, using gasless too lol

[derskine]

Got a welder a couple of weeks ago, it's a sip migmate 150 turbo, tried to weld a couple of days ago and the wire feed was being a total pain, fitted a steel liner, steel brace for rollers and also had a problem with the spool nut tightening, fixed that using some loctite. Seems to be fine now

I had been using a disposable bottle of gas when I was having the wire feed issues but used it all before I could actually do any welding

I had a reel of gasless so thought I'd give that a bash because I'm skint lol.

Looking for advice and opinions, I think I got the power settings okay, also did a butt weld but don't think it turned out so well lol.

 

[Country Joe]

Not bad at all!
The one to the left of the butt weld seems the best, with regards to even travel speed etc.
The one on the other side of the butt weld looks quite evenly laid down, too - albeit with a slightly slower travel speed, giving a slightly heavier bead, and even more penetration.
The others look to have too high a travel speed in places, but at this stage, that's expected.
The more beads you lay, the tidier they'll become!
Others will have more to say....
All the Best,
CJ

 

[derskine]

Not bad at all!
The one to the left of the butt weld seems the best, with regards to even travel speed etc.
The one on the other side of the butt weld looks quite evenly laid down, too - albeit with a slightly slower travel speed, giving a slightly heavier bead, and even more penetration.
The others look to have too high a travel speed in places, but at this stage, that's expected.
The more beads you lay, the tidier they'll become!
Others will have more to say....
All the Best,
CJ

Thanks for the reply
I was having a bit of trouble knowing how fast to move the torch and at first moved it way too fast.
I was doing a sort of loop de loop kind of thing, quite hard to see what I was doing because of the flux smoke though, I figure if I can learn gasless first I can probably do gas
I will focus more on getting the torch movement speed right if my power settings/wire feed are okay
Probably do some overlap welds before I go anywhere near butt welds too

 

[derskine]

So today I cut slits all the way up a new exhaust pipe off cut and tried welding the slits back up.

Some were better than others but I think with practice I will be okay, got a basic technique now

Heres the last one I did,

Any comments on this? It penetrated a fair bit so maybe need to speed the torch up a bit. I was using a flat zig zag rather than curved zig zag

 

[Lawnmowerboy]

You don't need to zig zag at all. Just a straight line.

 

[Country Joe]

I was doing a sort of loop de loop kind of thing, ..............

I figure if I can learn gasless first I can probably do gas
I will focus more on getting the torch movement speed right if my power settings/wire feed are okay
Probably do some overlap welds before I go anywhere near butt welds too

So today I cut slits all the way up a new exhaust pipe off cut and tried welding the slits back up................

Any comments on this? It penetrated a fair bit so maybe need to speed the torch up a bit. I was using a flat zig zag rather than curved zig zag

I'd be a bit careful using exhaust tubing, as it will most likely have some kind of coating to prevent rust (galvanisey-zintec type coating, or "aluminised" etc) which makes for some nasty fumes, and don't help the weld, either! I realise you've given it a bit of a going over to clean it up, but it doesn't give you the easiest starting point!

As for the looping and zig zags etc, they're just another thing to worry about right now, Id just concentrate on a nice straight bead with an even width, decent penetration & "nice" profile. This'll happen seemingly on it's own, as you get the arc length, torch angle, travel speed etc, tuned in - and it becomes repeatable and consistent.

I expect you're trying to "spread the heat around" a bit with the extra movements, but it's probably better to pulse the trigger on & off (AKA "The Thin Metal Technique" - (as christened on this very Forum!)) in order to control the heat input when doing such thin sections that would otherwise burn through. Shorter bursts, with a few moments to cool, in-between bursts is generally the way to go, when trying to run a weld for a couple of inches creates burn-through, or excessive warpage/distortion.

And yes, lap welds would be the ones to master before the butt-welds, as you have twice the thickness, so less chance of burning through!

Seems as if I've made it sound like all this takes ages, but it doesn't, it's reasonably quick!

Getting decent results in gas-less mode with a SIP Migmate, isn't always though of as the easiest job - but might well suggest you'll find it even easier with a "nicer" gas shielded setup!

All the Best,
CJ

 

[derskine]

Hi again CJ,

The exhaust is aluminised which I think is a damn sight better than welding galv steel?
I'll find something else, got plenty of scrap metal lying around!

This was up hill vertically and I've been told thats pretty hard as the heat all goes to the top! I did a few fillet welds which turned out okay but havent done a lot of lap welds, that'll be on my agenda tomorrow!

Will also ditch the zig zag on metal like this

I will try shorter bursts when I next try butt welds!

Aside from my initial wire feed issue the SIP has performed just fine!