So this welding malarky is tricky!

[dave8300]

Who knew

Had a go this afternoon, first impressions...

The wire seems to come out way too fast, when I had finished each weld, there was a good inch sticking proud of the end. Even with the feed speed turned down I couldn't keep up with it. Hopefully it's me

My helmet. It's an old Ebay jobby auto darkening one. A couple of times though the arc still seemed a tad bright, so I stopped. Not sure if its just a crap one or I'm being a bit sensitive I guess I'll find out in a couple of hours if my eyes start itching Either way, for peace of mind I want to get a new one. Any recommendations for somewhere in Birmingham/Dudley area that I could go to tomorrow?

The other thing was, it was pretty hard to see what was going on. Not helped by the fact I'm using a gasless fluxed core mig unit.

Anyway, some pics:



Ones on the right were my first lines on its low setting. The big fat one to the left is when I turned the unit up to high.



Having a go at welding my bar. This was hard to see where to run the weld. Kept going too high. I didn't think they looked like much, but gave them a good bash with a hammer and they are stuck on there good.



And again.



A go at the plug welds. I kept missing the hole Also, I don't think I was getting good penetration in the underside. the plate didn't stand up to much before it separated.

So, any pointers?

 

[BrokenBiker]

is this a pre-flight practice before you weld pins into your cabinet?

if so i would strongly suggest a lot more practice...

there doesnt seem to be any consistency with the welds at all. you are trying to run well before you can even crawl at the moment...attaching thick round stock to thin sheet is difficult, even more so when you have yet to master a straight bead

when you say at times the arc seemed bright that would suggest to me that you are holding too long an arc at those times...it will get a lot brighter when its too long, and dimmer when its too short, you want to get it so its consistent and you want about half inch stick out really...

the spatter on the welds also suggests torch angle isnt very good (from my experience bad torch angles gets loads of spatter)

what size mig are you running? to get any decent penetration into the steel bars is going to take quite a few amps which is something i didnt think of during your other post when i suggested plug welding them

 

[dave8300]

Don't worry, not planning to go anywhere near welding the cabinet yet

I wasn't going to bother trying to weld the bar yet, but it was there, and I fancied a go.

It's a 100 amp unit. I put the spatter down to it being a gasless unit, but would prefer it if it was me being bad at it.

 

[gordon stephenson]

The long wire sticking out of the torch after welding might be caused by pulling the gun away from the weld before releasing the trigger. Keep the gun in position until after you release the trigger.

 

[BrokenBiker]

i hope its not a sealey mightymig? if it is...walk away from that job and find another way to do it...100 amp gasless will not get a grip into 10mm round bar with a plug weld...i know this from experience as i have a mightymig100 sat in the garden that i have repaired 4 times now and it blew up again friday when i was using it to quickly tack a few bits of box section together before stick welding them...it was only 3mm steel and i had to max it out to get the tacks to hold enough that the box section didnt fall off straight away

the spatter will be mostly down to the gasless but it does look a bit excessive

 

[gaz1]

1st and second pic the one that looks a bit fat you can see by the colour at the side of it that its got good heat compared to the rest the very first pic you got a goodish bead of weld this is the point you need to be looking at

the rest look poor due to you trying to rush at it and also settings are too low no penetration then you have something that looks like a ball of weld the big fat one 1st pick is much smoother

as goes for auto darkening helmet which one have you got and does it have settings inside of the helmet like 9-13 some users cant use below 10 and gasless is brighter than normal mig welding

 

[dave8300]

I think it could be, I'll have to check tomorrow. If it is... I have 2 back up plans, one of which is getting my mate to do it who welds for a living. That's the easy way out though.

 

[BrokenBiker]

I think it could be, I'll have to check tomorrow. If it is... I have 2 back up plans, one of which is getting my mate to do it who welds for a living. That's the easy way out though.

might be the best bet though considering what you want these pins to hold...if one snaps then your nice shiney LBP is going to hit the deck...100 amps isnt enough for this application im afraid...

 

[dave8300]

What would be sufficient? It might be a case of putting this on the back burner incase I get a bigger mig, and I can carry on with the smaller stuff I've got to do.

 

[BrokenBiker]

i reckon you could probably get away with it with a 150-160amp mig but the 100 amp unit will barely scratch the surface of those bars...

realistically 100amp gasless migs are only good for 2-3mm...say for instance you get full penetration on 2mm, then jump over to 10mm thick steel, the extra mass of the 10mm will suck all the heat of the weld and you will be lucky to get 0.5mm penetration into the 10mm...

i have a post on here somewhere about multi pass mig welds that explains all that in much greater and better detail