Practiced Welding...PICS...Give Advice!

[Blackl03]

Ok I practiced some today...remember this is my first time...I welded some beads and then I also welded the peices of 16 guage aluminized pipe together, and took a couple pics of the inside of the pipe to show penitration...How do they look??? This is on an 85amp FCAW on Hi-heat and 2 on the wire speed...

I also had a fan on HI to my side blowing the fumes away...I did no prep to the pipe...it is aluminized pipe that had been in my garage for probably a year...

 

[Blackl03]

The wire was .035...I know thats the wrong size but I swore it said .030 and then i looked at it tonighta nd it says .035... SO I will get some .030 and see how she works then...would the too large of wire cause the results seen? thanks!

 

[malcolm]

The welds appear to have eroded away and there's a lot of spatter. I wonder if the fan is blowing the shielding gas away and the weld is corroding. Try a vapor mask for the fumes instead of a fan.

The penetration looks OK though so you aren't far off.

 

[Masked Marauder]

The wire speed may also have been a little too slow, the welds look "dry" normally not enough gas or too little wire.

 

[Blackl03]

its a flux core so i will try a mask and no fan next time...I also used the wrong wire...I used .035 instead of .030..I will post more pics tonight. thanks guys!

 

[Blackl03]

I changed the wire and cleaned the metal off and ground a little...took me awile to get it to stop shorting out...I found out that with low heat...the wire speed had to be on the lowest possible setting and you had to go slow...but they turned out better then before I think...I also switched to .030 wire...

So do they look better...each weld is probably 1/8" wide, and aslo about 1/16th inch tall (as you can probably see from the first pic)...and the penitration didnt go through the back it just turned the inside of the pipe where the bead was like a little darker with a blue halo around it...

 

[Blackl03]

Here are some others with the heat on Hi and the wire speed set at 4-5...

Do these look better then any of the other ones?

 

[malcolm]

Looking better. I guess the fan was blowing away the shielding gasses created by the flux cored wire on the first attempts at the top of the page.

The welds set on high look better from the photos. Penetration should be the guide here. Photo below shows too little, close enough, and too much penetration. Trick is to not be able to tell where the join was while not having a whole lot of weld build up on the reverse of the join.

There are various tricks such as using an auto darkening mask and holding the torch in both hands that might improve the neatness of the welds, but I'd guess the ones on high would work perfectly well.

 

[Blackl03]

sweet! Thanks I went and bought some sheet today (16 auge) and will practice on there some and post up more pics tonight. thanks agian!

 

[weldequip]

Get yourself some Anti-Spatter Spray aswell; spray it on the job & it stops those unsightly beads sticking.

 

[Blackl03]

Alrighty, here is a couple pics from practice today on some 16 gauge Sheet metal..I cleaned it before I first started..These are all On Hi setting with wire at 4...thats where I got the best "bacon frying sound" there are also a couple pics of the penitration...I will mark them. Do they look better then previously? thanks

First on is penitration pic...

I forgot to get the anti-splatter spray...