Opinions on my thin metal welds?

[derskine]

Recently got my gas bottle and regulator so switched over from gasless and the gas is much easier to use, much easier on thin metal too.
I've been using the thin metal technique, to butt weld sheet, I think the metal is 0.8mm or 1mm.

The one on the right looks the best in terms of bead structure but it did blow through thats why theres a lump on it, that was with pretty fast pulsing so I might try to perfect that.

 

[evad1980]

Well in comparison to mine, much better! I'm no welder and in the same position as yourself.. I am using a gasless machine and the welds look like splattered bird pooh!!

I'm also on the hunt for a new machine, it will be gas also! What machine did you recently get?

 

[derskine]

I found it was very hard to get the tacks to melt into each other with gasless using this technique, the weld pool seems more free flowing with gas if that makes any sense.
I'm actually using a SIP migmate with a few mods, it does the job just fine, which is a surprise

 

[evad1980]

Ok cool... Yes that makes sense.. I'm still a bit undecided on which machine to get, still gathering info from here...

But I am looking forward to being able to do some nice welds! I brought the last one on a bit of a whim with no research and learned the hard way... Buy it cheap, buy it twice!!

I'm thinking a fairly decent Clarke machine, one that has the option of going down to 20A or so as most of the metal I'm welding is very thin body work, and gas of course..

 

[derskine]

I wish I had bought a clarke, the SIP is sometimes a pain to set up but it does work fine and once set up buzzes along until the wire runs out (and requires setting up again) its mainly just getting the wire rollers correctly positioned (they have a little play).
My next welder will be a clarke for sure but at the moment this is fine (I'm also welding thin bodywork mainly) and the power goes low enough on this for 0.8mm steel but high enough for 6mm steel+

 

[zardoz]

Practice practice practice. You must weld as many feet of metal as you can. Learning to control the pool will come.

Remember to try different wire speeds as well. Make a note of how this affects the weld.

 

[philpullan]

looks to me like your doing short runs rather than lots of small tacks as it where, when you do short runs like this on thin sheet the metal get very hot quickly just around the weld site and starts to burn through.

look at this video for advice on sheet metal techniques

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4q1TExpmfY

phil.