HELP ME WELD PROPERLY!

[xabugax]

Followed guides on this site and practiced alot. But my skill is not very good. I have a SIP 100 Mig welder, I've messed around with power settings, wire speeds and gas flow but all without great success. Is welding really so hard or is it just me!! I seem to get alot of splatter (pigeon poo!), blowing through, wire burning back! Is this all really down to meor could it be a faulty welder? What checks on the welder can I do?

Advice and support will be gratefully be recieved!!!!

 

[malcolm]

Hi xabugax,

If the welder is welding then it probably isn't faulty, so we should probably look at technique here. It's not easy until everything suddenly comes together. Then things get much easier.

What thickness of metal are you welding? If you are having trouble try switching to 2mm thick steel. That'll make it harder to blow through so you'll be able to develop your technique before trying thinner metal.

Wire burning back would be too many amps or too slow wire speed.
Burning through would be too many amps, too slow movement of the torch, or for thin metal welding for too long without stopping.

What sort of noise does your welding make? You should be looking for a nice consistant crackle like an open wood fire at high speed. A high wire speed or too little amps would make the wire push away from the workpiece and would cause splatter and pigeon ****. A little splatter is normal with MIG, and you can normally brush that away.

The gas is less of a worry - as long as your welds aren't bubbling up (you have air bubbles in your weld) then the gas speed should be fine.

It'll be good to figure this one out - then I can update the welding tutorial page with the stuff I've missed out.

Malcolm

 

[beatle_bayly]

Xabugax,

Other things to consider (hope I'm not telling you how to suck eggs)

1. Is the POLARITY correct. Check the lead connections on the machine. On SIP welders you normally just swap them over (+-) when changing from gas to shielded wire.

2. Is the job CLEAN and dry ? Any galvanising, paint, oil or rust will make things more difficult.

3. Is the wire smooth in the handpiece ? Disconnect the feeder wheel pressure and push/pull the wire in/out of the tip. It should be fairly easy to do.

4. What dia wire are you using ? Sometimes people have rouble using 0.8mm wire through a 0.9mm tip (I actually prefer it this way !).

5. Is the earth lead in good nick ?

Try welding a continuous line onto a piece of 2mm sheet as Malcolm suggests. For now, don't try to weld sheets together, you just want to lay a consistent weld down. Weld flat (in-position), don't complicate matters by trying to weld on a vertical surface. Get comfortable.... and it's not cheating using your other hand to rest and guide the handpiece. I see a lot of people trying to weld using an unsupported one-handed technique. I've never been able to do it.

Select the highest or second highest amps setting and don't change it. Do a number of lines, each time keeping the speed consistent along the line, but changeing your setup/technique each time. For example, change the angle of the wire, try pulling the weld instead of pushing, move the tip closer (only by 2 or 3mm) or farther away, slow down, speed up. This will help narrow down the problem.

If you seem to get one setup which works well, try to REPEAT it and then you can fine tune by changing the machine settings. You fine tune to account for the MATERIAL and type of weld (butt, fillet etc). When you get the hang of it, you can then experiment with MANIPULATION of the weld

Trust me, I know it is extremely frustrating, but when you get it it's like the first time you cracked that golf shot without jarring your arms !!!!

 

[Justin_LaFleur]

helping you out

Kay I did the same thing as you man but i have some experince now
one peace of advice i can give you is the following... Evrrything you do has to be ezy and comfertable on your hands and not herting you in any way. now the way i fined ezest is im right handed so i hold the trigger with my left hand and my right hand is on the nozzle ( the tip of the welder) like a pencile. make shure you have gloves. then hold the wire close to your weld dont tuch the meattle let the wire come to the meattle or if that dosent work for you cuz your too shacky or sumthing use the meattle as a rest rest your hand on it or even drag the varry tip of the nozzle welll thats all i can think of right now i hope i can help you with that ohh and im sorry for the spelling

 

[marcuk]

practace makes perfect some peeps think any tom dick & harry can pic up a welder and blast away for 1 think alot of peeps on here will be better at welding car and stuff coz i aint had no practice but put me on clean metal am am sound and theres a tip for make sure your surface is clean! :P

 

[marcuk]

oh and do you push the weld or pull the weld as try these both some find it easyer a diff way i use to like pullin a weld but now i dont :wink:

 

[750jazz]

I know this post is a little old but I thought I would throw something I learned because I have the same welder. I had the same difficulties you have and the solution was pretty simple. With my sip 100 I have to keep the welder on the ground instead of on a bench. I also keep the wire feed from the machine to the gun very straight with only enough play to do the weld I have planned. if there is even a slight elbow the feed mucks up and I get popping and crappy welds. I find keeping it very straight and the feed keeps a constant speed and much easer to get a clean weld. I got really excitied when I layed a perfect 8 inch long weld right after I changed my set up. If I'm telling you something you know I apologise I'm very new and inexperienced at welding so these sorts of things are new to me.

Cheers
Jazz

 

[Justin_LaFleur]

 

[malcolm]

Hi Jazz, welcome to the forum.

I'm forever having wire feed problems. A couple of years ago I had exacxtly the same problem as you. I replaced the torch and cord on my welder a couple of years ago which helped enormously. I think the plastic wire guide on my old welder had been driven over too many times, or perhaps it had been worn through by rusty wire.

The wire drive wheels on my welder are horribe and keep going out of alignment, and just the other day my wire feed messed up due to the tip on the torch becoming mis-shapen.

I find it a constant battle to keep the wire feed in good condition, but when it's good I'm a welding god.