Dr.Al
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- Messages
- 2,103
- Location
- Gloucestershire, UK
Hello everyone,
At 5pm today, my first ever welder was delivered. I decided to go with an Arc welder as a few people had told me that, while Mig is easier, learning Mig first could get one into bad habits. That may be codswallop, but it seemed a perfectly good reason to pick Arc first. Anyway, today my shiny new Parweld XTS 163 arrived (along with the Tig torch, but that's gone in a drawer for use one day in the future). I've also got a leather apron, some ridiculously long gloves, safety glasses and an auto-darkening welding helmet.
I set everything up and spent a couple of hours having a go, so I thought I'd post a couple of photos in the hope that the experienced folk here can offer some advice on what I need to change / practice. I'm using ESAB OK46.30 E6013 3.2 mm electrodes with 110 A dialled in on the XTS (and the electrode connected to the positive terminal). For practice, I'm using a bit of 20 mm thick mild steel that I had leftover from a project on the milling machine, grinding the welds off after each attempt.
Here's a photo of the result of electrode #3 (#1 and #2 were used up just trying to get an arc to start without sticking, a problem I haven't completely resolved), working from top to bottom and right to left:
Here's a photo of the result of electrodes #4 and #5 (#4 on the right, working from top to bottom and right to left; #5 on the left working from top to bottom and left to right, with what's was left used to make the blob in the middle: mostly just to use up the end of the electrode).
Here's a photo of the setup I'm using. The "table" is a piece of 18 mm OSB wrapped in 0.9 mm thick mild steel and sitting on a couple of (tall - I'm 6'6" and want to save my back) trestles. The frame round the back is to protect the surroundings and keep the wind off - it's made out of random bits of wood I had lying around with a fibreglass welding curtain wrapped around it. I don't have anywhere I can realistically weld indoors, but hopefully this makes it relatively safe. My garden is quite sheltered so the wind never gets very strong.
The big lump of wood on the table is a temporary insulating rest to put the electrode on: I'll make something better as soon as I get a chance.
Thanks for any and all advice!
Al
At 5pm today, my first ever welder was delivered. I decided to go with an Arc welder as a few people had told me that, while Mig is easier, learning Mig first could get one into bad habits. That may be codswallop, but it seemed a perfectly good reason to pick Arc first. Anyway, today my shiny new Parweld XTS 163 arrived (along with the Tig torch, but that's gone in a drawer for use one day in the future). I've also got a leather apron, some ridiculously long gloves, safety glasses and an auto-darkening welding helmet.
I set everything up and spent a couple of hours having a go, so I thought I'd post a couple of photos in the hope that the experienced folk here can offer some advice on what I need to change / practice. I'm using ESAB OK46.30 E6013 3.2 mm electrodes with 110 A dialled in on the XTS (and the electrode connected to the positive terminal). For practice, I'm using a bit of 20 mm thick mild steel that I had leftover from a project on the milling machine, grinding the welds off after each attempt.
Here's a photo of the result of electrode #3 (#1 and #2 were used up just trying to get an arc to start without sticking, a problem I haven't completely resolved), working from top to bottom and right to left:
Here's a photo of the result of electrodes #4 and #5 (#4 on the right, working from top to bottom and right to left; #5 on the left working from top to bottom and left to right, with what's was left used to make the blob in the middle: mostly just to use up the end of the electrode).
Here's a photo of the setup I'm using. The "table" is a piece of 18 mm OSB wrapped in 0.9 mm thick mild steel and sitting on a couple of (tall - I'm 6'6" and want to save my back) trestles. The frame round the back is to protect the surroundings and keep the wind off - it's made out of random bits of wood I had lying around with a fibreglass welding curtain wrapped around it. I don't have anywhere I can realistically weld indoors, but hopefully this makes it relatively safe. My garden is quite sheltered so the wind never gets very strong.
The big lump of wood on the table is a temporary insulating rest to put the electrode on: I'll make something better as soon as I get a chance.
Thanks for any and all advice!
Al