New to Welding - First Welds

[steviec_lj]

After studying the How-To section of the website for a couple of weeks, along with a few books, I finally took the plunge on Monday night, and purchased a DIY/Hobbyist Sealey/Siegen 130a MIG Welder from Epic Tools in Beccles, for £180 including VAT and Delivery. Which for a first welder, I didn't think was too bad.

Along with the MIG, it came with a crapy Handheld Mask (which I'll be replacing as soon as I can), a spool of 0.6mm Wire, a spool of 0.8mm Wire, 0.6mm & 0.8mm tips and a disposable Argon/CO2 bottle.

Today was the first time I've had a chance to play about with it, after setting it up, running the wire through and connecting the Argon/CO2 bottle up.

First attempts;

I did blow through a few times, but I was fiddling with the Power & Wire Speed settings all afternoon. 2 sheets of roughly 1.2mm steel, infact an old PC Case side, which I ground down and attempted an overlap weld.


Second attempts;

The welds don't seem to be penetrating all the way through both sheets, but if I turn the Power & Wire Speed settings up, it blows through.


I'll be out there tomorrow again, after I've been to buy a decent mask that I don't have to hold to my face, leaving both hands free to control the weld steady. Advice/comments are welcome.

 

[Iain Westland]

turn the power right down, start with the wire feed at half way. How does it sound and feel

pushing your hand and lots of sparking sounds, wire feed too high

wire seems to be burning but not getting to the metal

sound like zauzzzzzzzzzzzz, wires about the right speed.

dont worry, I had a car through the other day that somebody had welded a bit back, same quality but they had the audacity to charge! takes a bit to set a machine up, read the tutorial for it, big help. took me a week to get my latest welder where I like it.

iain

 

[Richiew]

Get some thicker steel. 2mm is good. It is more forgiving and will give you more time to make mistakes with regard to travel speed before blowing through.

You need more shielding gas. Turn the gas valve open to the max.

Thicker steel will allow you to slow down and get a better weld. Those welds look a bit "stringy" and I think you are moving a little fast. You are using the wrong medium to learn with by using a PC case.

I am sure your welds will get much better if you get some proper metal to practice with.

Well done for taking the plunge and having a go.

 

[steviec_lj]

Thanks for the feedback guys, much appreciated!

@ AutoCar - Yes, there were quite a lot of sparks flying around. Thank you for the advice, I shall take this on board for tomorrows training session. Unfortunately, the book I got with the welder is a little less than useless, I'll have a search around for more information on it though.

@ Richiew - I'm currently looking at getting a pub sized gas bottle, as the one I got with the welder is about 1 foot tall and 12cm in diameter, its mean't to last about an hour, so will be gone soon I think.

The PC Case was the first thing I managed to grab, as I have a load lying around ready for the scrap heap, so thought they might make good practice pieces, as its the same weight as the material I will be using to patch the floor pans of the car I'm restoring. However, I'll have a search around, as I've got about 1/2ton of metal ready for the heap and no doubt there will be some thicker stuff in there too.

I think tomorrow will include having a go at "tack" stitching the panels together before "seam" welding them up, to see if I can get the panels to hold together first.

Thanks again guys!

 

[KMpuggy]

I had the same problem not long ago. As i will mostly be welding thin car body type metal i went straight in for the kill and started on the thin stuff. After lots of fiddling with the wire settings and speed i was getting somewhere but still blowing holes. Moved upto some thicker metal and was suprised how easier that was and was making some half decent welds. Moved back down to the thin stuff and started to get the hang of it, stopped blowing holes. Welded 3 plates to the inside of my car last week and was quiet happy with what i done, now to move onto the outside. Oh and go for an auto darkening mask as that really helped me out, made life a lot easier. And yes a bigger gas bottle would be a better option, i went straight in for the big argon/co2 mix so ive had no experince with them little ones, but from what ive read there crap and a waste of money.

Good luck with it, you can only improve.

 

[Chickenjohn]

I'll agree with most of the comments above, except if you want to weld thin steel, then keep practising with the thin stuff!!

I agree, too fast, too many gaps, and therefore too stringy. Looks a bit like my first attempts to weld!

I can still remember my early days and as well as getting the settings of the welder just right, it looks like you are missing the seam, moving around too much, which means you are struggling seeing what you are doing when guiding the torch. What really helped for me was to purchase a reactive helmet. These are less than £50 now and means you can see where the torch is just before you pull the trigger. It is also OK to use both hands (gloved of course!) to guide the torch.

Also, fast movement and stringy welds are also a sign of a bit too much "fear" of the welding process. Practise a lot and you will get more comfortable with the welding process and start to relax and then suddenly it will all come together and your welds will look a lot better. Wearing decent welding gloves, leather steel toe boots, a decent head mask and a decent flame retardant set of overalls will keep the sparks off you, be safer and make you feel more relaxed and happy, which helps with better welding. (It did for me anyway!)

Another point is that to start with you don't need to run great big long seams. Try tacking two pieces of steel together, then run tacks (short "spot" welds without moving the torch) 1" apart, then 1/2" in between the 1" tacks. Then join two tacks with lots of overlapping short "pulsed" welds. This is easier than trying to run a long bead to begin with. Malcolm covers this technique in his tutorial. http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/thin-metal.htm This pulseing technique will enable you to weld thin material and minimise the chance of blowing through.

and it should look something like this (again from Malcolms tutorial. page)

I'll admit, I am not the best welder on this site, although I do make fairly neat, and more importantly, strong and MOT standard welds, but it was only six years ago that I taught myself to mig weld and can clearly remember what helped me. Hope my post is of some use to you as well!

 

[Iain Westland]

Fully agree, learn to weld on the thin stuff. Its not easy, but the satisfaction is immense.

Your gonna dump the disposables, but co2 I think is harder at low settings so see about the argoshield light alternatives.

Stick with 0.6mm wire on the thin stuff, it lowers the power a bit so makes it easier

and remember, whether its a seam or a tack, the welds a weld. Practice tacks first, try and watch for the pooling, its what you want.

Get some light on the job, makes life a lot easier

iain

 

[zardoz]

The thing you need most when learning, are long rows of uninterupted welds. Dont keep stopping to see how it looks, till you have too. Time spent under the mask staring at the weld pool is well spent, as you have to learn to tell whats going on with all that white hot molten metal. These short little welds of a few inches will not teach you much and you will consiquently take much longer to improve from beginer to beyond average.

 

[Iain Westland]

cant do more than a couple of inches at a time on car body work though. Getting up to speed for his target jobs will then satisfy quicker and hopefully encourage more adventurous welding ....

normal price £0.02, but for today only F.O.C

iain

 

[malcolm]

I'd also practice on slightly thicker stuff for what it's worth - it develops technique which can be adapted to the methods used on thinner stuff and should speed learning.

For the welds in the photos too fast torch travel would probably be the main issue. You'd want to get a weld pool going and move it along in a continuous weld.

More photos would probably be necessary to pick up anything else, but nearly everyone who has come here to learn has been moving the torch too fast, were not viewing the weld pool (helmet needs to be beside the weld not above the torch), too much angle on the torch, and torch too far from the work. Worth watching out for those as well as the points raised by others.

 

[KMpuggy]

From what chickenjohn said about the "pulse welding" thats what i had to do on my inner sills, and thats mainly what ive adapted to when practicing on the thin stuff. Ive tried sticking the welder on the low setting and doing a continuous weld on the thin stuff but it just blows through.

 

[gavuk]

Had a couple of mates round this week and they made all the mistakes Malc mentions ,too far away ,wrong torch angle,too fast,took them about an hour to get the hang of overlapping tacks on thicker material,only enough time for a taster , both thought it was easy before they started ....

 

[Chickenjohn]

cant do more than a couple of inches at a time on car body work though. Getting up to speed for his target jobs will then satisfy quicker and hopefully encourage more adventurous welding ....

normal price £0.02, but for today only F.O.C

iain

Yes, this is right- for 1mm of thinner, long weld runs are not appropriate, you either blow through or distort the panel- as the chap welding his Nissan 300ZX found on the other thread. Run a long bead and it distorts, short runs and pulse technique and you avoid the worst of the distortion.

 

[KMpuggy]

I used to get an old friend to do my welding for me years ago. From watching him it looked like a doddle, when it came round to me having ago i was all over the place. People have posted there first welds and that, im to embarrassed to show mine off. Go back to page one and the thread start they was like that. Im not knocking you, mine was the same, you gotta start somewhere and like i said you will improve.
I WILL get some pics up 2moro of some of the welds when i started and where i am now, a vast improvement, its been about a month since i started and ive had a few sessions about 6 hours total of welding.

Yes, this is right- for 1mm of thinner, long weld runs are not appropriate, you either blow through or distort the panel- as the chap welding his Nissan 300ZX found on the other thread. Run a long bead and it distorts, short runs and pulse technique and you avoid the worst of the distortion.

Yes when i done mine i tacked the plate about every inch while pressing on the plate with a screw driver, any gaps there then it wont hold and just blows holes in the top plate.

 

[Chickenjohn]

Had a couple of mates round this week and they made all the mistakes Malc mentions ,too far away ,wrong torch angle,too fast,took them about an hour to get the hang of overlapping tacks on thicker material,only enough time for a taster , both thought it was easy before they started ....

It is easy once you can weld though!!! Just takes a lot of practise and is about hand-eye-ear co-ordination as much as getting the technique right.