Mig Virgin Here

[Ian B]

Hi all,

Just joined the forum.

My interest here is purely hobby - I've been making a mess of stick welds all my life, and now it's time to let the mig world benefit from my rare talents!

Most of my welding is on the heavier side of things - I just welded a pair of quick change ears to a bucket for my excavator; the ears were made of 35mm hardox plate. Luckily, I managed not to blow a hole through them.

Most of the time, I'm sticking bits of 4" channel together - that kind of stuff. It's unlikely that I'll be asking questions about welding tinfoil, but you never know.

I've only once had a mig torch in my hand - it was some kind of nasty underpowered machine and I must admit I hated it - hence me having stuck with stick all these years. I have an old Lincoln 350A ac welder and a pile of rods of dubious origins.

However, reading all the comments on mig vs stick, I'm now looking at moving over. I'll need some help...

Some pics of my various hobbies etc can be seen at http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/1003/IanBartlett/

Thanks,

Ian

 

[zardoz]

Welcome to the forum Ian. You look to have some loverly old machines there, the Myford lathe and the Invicta (is it ?) shaping machine all very much put me in jealous mode, are they yours ? As to welding, yes the Arc is a great thing for thick stuff, though others will use mig for everything, for its sheer versatility. Whatever your questions im sure they can be answered here.

ps: what on earth is this monster machine , that you have making "christmas balls" shown below ??

 

[scarecrow]

It is easy enough to blow holes 35mm plate if you have a M1 tank
welcome to the forum Ian. making oil rigs as a hobby is one hell of a hobby

 

[irondarren]

Mig is fine as long as you get a nice/good unit. With MMA/arc you can feel confident welding with a 4mm rod at around 170amps and know the 10mm plate you are welding will stay together. With mig you really need need 250amps to achieve the same weld. But mig is so much quicker and of course you can weld thin sheet

 

[zardoz]

Why are you drilling all those holes in those bars of gold ? is it to make them lighter to carry ?

 

[matt1978]

Probably the first "Virgin" on the forum.

Welcome.

 

[aametalmaster]

Welcome, Thats a pretty neat ball turner you use. I make balls up to 3" OD from steel and brass never tried wood...Bob

 

[Ian B]

Thanks guys,

Yes, the toys are all mine! It goes something like this:

"Mummy, mummy, what happens to machine tools and equipment when it's all old, shagged out and knackered?"

"Well darling, someone then comes along and sells it to Ian..."

It's all off fleabay and the like; that shaper (it's an 18" Elliott, same as the Invicta, different badge) came from Dutch railways - maybe 50 years old, has hardly seen a day's work in its life. I bought it for €140, the day before it was destined for the scrapyard. The vise was probably worth that much.

The little Myford's well travelled - I bought it used in the UK, shipped it to Oman, then Cairo, and now it's in Holland. It was recently joined by a Harrison M400; lurvely piece of kit, too bad the chucks are too heavy to lift.

The christmas ball turning was done as a present to SWMBO - I didn't have a ball turning attachment, so I used the stuff I had - worked fine. The wood's mostly African - ebony, padouk etc. Working here has its advantages (I'm offshore right now).

Good to hear I can use mig on thick stuff - I was starting to wonder. I found a table showing that a 300 amp mig can weld about 1/2" plate - is that correct? I'm limited by my power supply - 3 phase, 380V, 16A per phase - what's the heaviest plate that I can weld given that power supply?

Ian

 

[shenion]

You should be able to run a 250A MIG from that supply (transformer type). An inverter could probably do over 300.

250A will do 3/8" steel.

 

[Ian B]

Thanks Shenion,

I often weld thicker steel than this - the 1.5" bucket quick connects were an example. I guess my options are to:

1. Stick with stick for the heavy stuff, and use mig for the rest of the work up to 3/8" - 1/2".

2. Go for an even heavier mig - I have a 15Kw 3 phase PTO generator that I can hang on the back of a tractor for the times when I need the additional current.

In the second case, what size of machine would I be looking at to handle steel plate in the 1" to 1.5" range?

For my education, why could an inverter type deliver more current than a transformer from a given power supply? Efficiency? Frequency?

Thanks again,

Ian

 

[MrFluffy]

Cool, nice toolholder cab. Are they iso40/int40 nmtb40? Does that shelf/holder come as a stamped out kit or something or did you make it yourself?

Never thought to use the dividing head to ball turn things on the mill, will store that one away for a 2am get out of jail free trick

Hello btw

 

[Ian B]

Yep, the tools are a mix of INT40 (with the 5/8" BSW thread) and also BT40 which have an M16 thread. As I didn't want to keep swapping drawbars (the roof is too low), I made adaptors for the holders out of 5/8 BSW & M16 stud - the adaptors all have an M12 female thread, and the drawbar's also M12. Quick swaps between the 2 systems.

I ended up with a mix of sizes as I buy some stuff from Germany - they wouldn't know a BSW thread if they tripped over one. The taper & register is the same, so it's just a question of pulling them tight.

The tool rack was cobbled together out of bits of 19mm MDF that I had left over, followed by a couple of coats of glossy grey paint - works fine so far!