New Member first welds- Opinions please?

[type25fan]

Hey Guys. Just joined today. I have visited and read plenty of threads to get the confidence up to buy a welder. Welding is somehting I always wanted to learn and felt it held me back in playing with projects.

I tried a friend's mig about 6 months ago and it was hard to use (is always hot so once you touch metal have fun).

I had a buddy help me on the last welding project I did. While he was welding I was paying more attention to the sound of his machine and the differences in how he moved when the welder seemed to hit bad metal or whatever.

I am mostly interested in welding auto sheet metal as my hobby is restoring old cars usually with plenty of rust.
I bought a Hobart Handler 140 as my first welder. Yesterday I played around running beads on an old fender I had and decided Today I would do some practice by building a welding cart to house it and the tank.
I have .023 wire and Gas for sheetmetal but decided to use the flux .030 wire to save the gas for now while building the cart. I went through the sample roll that came with the machine already and bought another roll of .030 to finish it.
Here are a couple of pics of the Cart going together. I built one frame with 45 degree angles to practice but welds and the other frame overlapping.
I also have a pic of me filling some holes on an old decklid. Those are with Gas and .023. Any feedback or pointers? I did not realize the pics were so poor until I cut them down.

 

[Engineer1964]

Hi type25fan, Welcome to the forums, I love your new Hobart, They are great sets and i use a Hobart Beta 400 for work and its a great set.

Your welding looks good, you have it a tad too high as the penatration is burning right through and making blobs on the surface, ( on the car part Picture) Turn the setting now a bit and you'll see that you've got decent penatration by the heat marks without melting right through. Should save on excessive sanding and grinding

 

[shenion]

Welcome from Stone Mountain

Those welds look fine. Hard to say on the panel welds, a view of the back would show how well the penetration is.

A bit of spatter on the gasless wire is normal. The Lincoln wire is supposedly the best but the Hobart seems to come close. STay away from Chinese wire (Harbor Freight.)

The tutorials here are good. The wire speed video is great to get the sound.

That is a small bottle (40CF?). I started with a smaller one and upgraded it when I had it filled. I went from a 80CF to a 120CF. Cost me something like $18. With all the gas suppliers merging, changing names, closing shops, opening new one, I wanted less of a hassle refilling it.

 

[type25fan]

Thanks Scott and Gerry. I am using Lincoln wire, have a spool of Harbor Freight I bought as a back up, guess I can throw it away. I got really good penetration on the cart. I did not do so good on the underside welds as the angle was unfamiliar for me to do anything with the pool, so they look terrible.
I will turn back the Sheet metal welds. I also let it stay on there a little long as a few other ones were not near that tall. I do love grinding though!

I will check on a bigger bottle, this one was 24 to refill so I certainly woudl rather have the big bottle.

Thanks for the advise so far, very much appreciated.

Phillip,

 

[Engineer1964]

if your using cheap wire, best you get a wire cleaner which clips on just before the pinch rollers. helps to keep the wire and liner clean

 

[type25fan]

Thanks. I am Using Lincoln wire. I will not use the HF spool.That is a neat part though.
Also on the sheet metal I used some brass tubing on the backside on a few to see how that worked.

 

[shenion]

You can try the HF spool, you might get lucky.

That is a nice cart. I made one similar. I added 2 hooks on the side for the torch lead. I loop it in a figure-8. Mine is a separate feeder so the bottle is by the power supply.

A shelf for wire, tips, shrouds, gauntlets tools, etc is nice. A place to hang all the C-clamps and vice-grip type clamps is nice. A place to hang the helmet is good too.