Practice Welding not going well!

[Shaggy33]

Months after buying my Clarke 151 I am finally finding some time to start mastering the art of Mig Welding!
So far it's not going well even though I am trying get a set up that I had hoped would maximise my chances of getting it right, sadly this is not the case so far.
My set up is as follows;
Clarke 151 Gas/no gas welder
Upgraded Earth clamp
Better Wire!
Disposable Co2/Argon gas bottle
I tried some welds with no gas/standard wire (previously documented on here) and in addition to dodgy welds had loads of splatter.
I then bought the new wire, fitted it (following the guide on here, hope I got the tension right but not sure), and also plugged in the gas bottle!
I then set the welder to recommended settings in the manual for 1.5-2mm steel as I am practicing with similar thickness material.
Below are the results and I can't seem to do any better even though I have tried all sorts of techniques. I also notice that the end of the welding torch is really fouled up, is this normal given that I have only done about 1 metre of welds!
Any help or tips appreciated.

 

[BrokenBiker]

what is your gas flow set to? should be around 10lpm. also, if you can try and get some slightly thicker metal to practice on, and just play with the settings, and work your way through all of them, and you'll soon find ones that work.

as for the tip fouling up, could be the arc length or torch angle, gas flow too low, or your gas i being blown away, the black sooty deposits on the last pic suggest there is a problem with the sheilding either being lost, or not flowing enough

 

[Lawnmowerboy]

There isn't any gas getting through, it's most likely either the bottle is empty or you have it off

they only last about 6 minutes of welding with the disposables

there will be a lot of spatter if there isn't any gas.

And you need special flux cored wire for no gas not just normal wire.

 

[BrokenBiker]

also have to reverse the polarity for no gas, i.e. torch is -ive and earth clamp is +ive

a good quality flux core wire will give very little spatter

also important to note, there are 2 types of flux core wires, one desinged to be used with sheilding gas (dual sheild) and one designed to be used without sheilding gas (self shielding). you need the latter for gasless

 

[Shaggy33]

Thanks guys, i'll try to answer the questions set;
No idea what the gas flow is because the reg is simply an on&off tap (bought it from the shop on here with the gas bottle)
The upgraded wire (also purchased from here) is the correct wire for the gas welding (when doing the gasless welding I used the wire that came with the welder, assuming this was gasless wire).
Reversed the earth clamp and torch for gasless welding
I will try and get some thicker metal and practise with that.

 

[cracker666]

The best advice I can give is look at getting a bigger bottle. for that youll need a new regulator, 4mm converter pipe etc.
The best thing I did. it all cost and it depends on how much you intend to weld as too which way to go.

Then itll be cheaper overall, and youll know when your out of gas.
I went the Adams gas route and got a 9ltr bottle.

 

[the snooper]

its also worth noting that you will only get around 10 minutes solid welding time from a diposible bottle

 

[Wozzaaah]

As said, you have little or no gas.
Regarding polarity, if you're using solid wire and gas the torch should be pos and the return (earth) neg.

 

[pedrobedro]

I used a friend's Clarke with disposables a while ago and you needed to turn the gas fully open to get anything out of it. One thing he did was always turn it back off even between welds. The CO2 cylinders hold more than the mixed gas as well.