No Penitration?

[SUZUKI ROCKS]

Did my first practice welds today and think i must be doing somthing wrong becouse i cant seem to get ant penitration through the steel! The steel is 1mm thick and im using a clarke 130en machine set up for gas welding with 0.6 mm wire.

First i tryed the settings sugested in the manual for 0.8-1.0mm steel (switch A = 2, switch B = MIN) but with a slower wire speed, 4, manual sugests 5-6. Gas set to 4.

As you can see(if i figure out how to put photos on) With this setting the welder made a regular poping sound, not a crackling and the welds seem to be like seperate dots, not a continuous bead. Then i increased the wire speed and the sound and feel improved but still no penitation!

I played around with power settings and wire/gas speed and although i got diffrend weld/sounds/feel still no proper penitration. Then set the macine up for 1.0 - 2.0 mm (A=1 b=max, Wire speed = 6). This setting felt good but burnt holes in the steel but without proper/desired weld penitration!

So guys, what am i doing wrong? There is suposed to be weld penitration right? Or is the top weld enough to join 2 bits of metal together?

This is soooo much harder then i thoght and i take my hat(helmet) of to you guys

Please help.

Thank you

 

[peterd51]

Hi,

do you have to swap polarity on the torch and earth if you swap between no gas and gas welding?

The brown stain indicates lack of gas shielding so you'll need to turn up the gas a bit. I used to set it so I could hear it when the torch was near my ear (power off, or you'll get the wire 'in' your ear).

If it's a disposable bottle then it'll need to be turned up all the way and then it's still a bit borderline.

Regards
Peter

 

[weldingscotty803]

not enough gas for starters, whats your regulator set on. you want between 10-15lpm ish.
second, try and move slowly , holding the tip of the gun approx 5-6 mm away from the sheet.
draw a line on the metal with french chalk or something similar and follow that line. make it 50mm or 2 inch long and count how long it takes to get to .
try and have the torch at the correct angle. tilted back 70 or so degrees, but verticle to the workpiece if you know what i mean.

 

[weldingscotty803]

Hi,

do you have to swap polarity on the torch and earth if you swap between no gas and gas welding?

Regards
Peter

yes you do.

 

[SUZUKI ROCKS]

Yes, swaped polarity.

So gas should be set to max (6).

Prety sure i tried that but will give it another go and try to slow down a bit aswell.

Thank you

 

[weldingscotty803]

gas set to 6?
on what.
you usuing disposable bottles?

 

[SUZUKI ROCKS]

Yes, disposable. The regulator has 0 to 6 on it. Setting that to 6 should give me max gas right? More gas is what you recomend for penetration right?

 

[peterd51]

Hi,

yes, the disposable bottle regulator isn't very good at all.

If you hold the torch near your ear and wind the regulator open you'll probably get to 4 before you hear the first hint of a 'hiss'. Basically those regulators are either on or off, there's not much in-between.

You may also find that they leak when turned off, so I always unscrewed the regulator off the bottle if I wasn't going to be welding within a few minutes.

Also as disposable bottles only hold a few minutes worth of gas anyway it's better to move on to larger bottles as soon as you can afford it. More cost efficient, better regulators, flow meters, etc...

Regards
Peter

 

[SUZUKI ROCKS]

Thanks Peter.

So it sounds like the dissposables are useless

I knew they wernt cost effective but thats ok cos i havent got alot to do. But not getting penitration becouse they wont give out enough gas is ridiculous

Oh well. Will go down and have another go anyway. Wish me luck

 

[SUZUKI ROCKS]

A little progress!

Turned the gas to max, slowed down and got the torch closer to the metal and i got a little penitration! Also made alot of holes though

Theres still alot of brown marks and penitration isnt great so i think im gonna have to go for a refilable bottle. What kind of regulator do i need for the 130en? And will that type of regulator give me more control over gas flow and deliver more gas? Dont want to get one only to discover i have the same problem. Maybe im just crap at welding

Also tryed the gasless set up. That stuff stinks. Was really messy and felt more like a blow torch! Did give a lower weld on top and a litle more penitration but was really easy to blow holes though.

Think i wanna persevier with gas welding instead.

Thanks guys

 

[peterd51]

Hi,

send a PM to Weldequip on here. His prices are generally less than machine mart (for instance), excellent quality gear and excellent service.

I bought a fairly standard two-guage regulator that's good for Co2 and Argon (higher pressure). Some of the guys here prefer a 'pea-shooter' type of flow guage where a small ball floats up a tube depending on flow rate...they're maybe a bit more expensive but probably look a bit nicer!

You'll probably also need a connecting pipe to go from the regulator to the small plastic gas pipe on the Welder. I'm not that familar with the 130, but Weldequip will give you great advice.

Regards
Peter

 

[SUZUKI ROCKS]

PM sent.

Thanks mate