first welds with my portamig - questions and pics

[jasongtr]

so i fired up the portamig 215 and this is what i have.

i know its not wise to start on thin stuff but its all i had, so i thought i would cut a line in the panel with my air saw and weld it back up.

my settings were

0.6mm wire
Coarse Volts 1, Fine volts 4
Wire speed - 5.5 (seemed a bit high maybe??? only going by the fact its thin so i thought it would be lower - any advice gratefully received)

panel cut

welded up

ground back

little play

any thoughts or advice, good or bad


its my first time with a MIG, so lots to learn

 

[shenion]

Looks good but it is hard to see in those small pictures.

Also, try and avoid photobucket. Makes pages load slow and causes problems later.

 

[jasongtr]

what host should i use for the site?

 

[mike os]

upload to the site... use the upload a file button bottom right

 

[jasongtr]

ah ok, thanks

 

[cumbriasteve]

They look very good for first welds on what can be a challenging thickness, you do appear to have some contamination ( the yellow) and slight loss of gas coverage in places ( the soot), nothing serious, perhaps just the torch angle or a breeze from somewhere.

 

[jasongtr]

could of been a breeze - i was in my unit but it is very windy today so might of blown through the unit i guess, they gas could of been turned up too maybe it was showing just under 10L/min on the reg.

 

[BrokenBiker]

looks good to me. Everytime i see a picture of welds on sheet from a portamig it makes me want one.

 

[BChild]

Intersting to see very similar results on the same type of metal work to mine

Cut another slit and flap it back

Go up to 5 and tweak the wire speed back a tiny smidge - use the thin metal technique pulse pause pulse pause - should get better penetration and a flatter weld so less grinding required.

Always amazes me just how wide the working range is on a portamig - my old SIP had a sweet spot about 2mm wide - the portamig is chuffing metres in comparison - you just adjust you technique to compensate if that makes any sense

0.6mm wire needs a lot more power in my experience

If I'm running 0.6 I use 3-5 and get same results as running 0.8 on 1-3

 

[jasongtr]

ill give it a try, all part of the learning curve, I'm also going to buy a car rollover spit, but one of the kit forms so i can weld that up too, if that comes out good i might even consider welding in my roll cage, but not until i know all my welds are decent looking and strong.

 

[Jan]

The usual advice on welds that look good is to test them to destruction. Weld up two pieces identical to the components you eventually want to nail together and then try and break the joint. If the parent metal breaks before the weld then the weld is good, but the heat may have weakened the parent. It's a juggling act between getting full penetration and maintaining the integrity of the metal either side of the weld. Only practice, practice, practice will see you making the best welds possible in future.

 

[jasongtr]

i smashed the above cut and join and it didn't give way, beginners luck no doubt, i plan on plenty of practice

 

[Jim Davey]

You won't break a weld on 1.0mm metal as it's so weak it will just bend. It's more important to do bend tests etc when you start tackling thicker sections, say 2.0mm and upwards, the sort of thicknesses you encounter in light fabrication or roll cages for instance.

 

[jasongtr]

I've since welded up a rollover spit and my mk2 golf hasn't fallen off it yet so its all good