New to welding and the forum

[Rich H]

Morning all!

New guy here, just started to weld yesterday with a SIP MigMate 105 turbo borrowed from a friend.

I'm learning to weld as I made the mistake of putting a wire brush against a rust bubble on my Porsche 924 and it turns out a Previous owner ecided that body solder and filler would do for a wheel arch!

So I have cut the rotten plate away and have a gaping hole in my car!

The progress so far:

Can you tell where I swapped the gas bottle over to Argoshield?

Argoshield this side --------------------------------------------------------- CO2 this end (Started here)

Argon welds

Penetration:

This is on 0.8mm plate and 0.6mm wire

A lot of the later welds are on vertical plate too... I'm quite proud of it really

Sadly I ran out of gas (2 bottles!) before I could do any more butt welds. The 2 I did are a bit rubbish.

I think the gas it set too high as it didn't last long, new bottle later andI'll try some butt joints!

Rich

 

[fingers99]

I hope you're talking disposable bottles! (In which case gas consumption is probably about right.)

I could have built a Cinquecento with that much steel!

 

[Rich H]

Yes disposables at the moment. Might have to explore the other options if this becomes a habit!

 

[sagaciousgentleman]

Little advice

Yo, I was thinking maybe if you do a "whip and pause motion," it would help

train your eye to watch the puddle. Hold your hand steady in one spot whip

your wrist out maybe quarter inch to half inch and whip your wrist back on

top of the puddle you just stretched. Now you don't have to whip it all super

fast, but it does need to be quick. Kinda get a picture in your head that

you're an artist painting.

You'll get it. It looks like you already got, but need some consistancy.


Never leave your puddle!

 

[Rich H]

I think I follow, I'll have a go.

Trying to butt weld at the mo, I have already learned the importance of decent prep! Blown a lot of holes in badly gapped plates!

Cheers
Rich