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Critique my welds

wage92

wage92

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Okay finally got gas for my 110v mig welder and i did some tubing weld practicing. I think ive got it down pretty good, as you can see in the pictures, the one side is a complete wreck and i know that, it was from the first day and i was just getting the machine set and all. The second bead that looks better is from just now, and id like everyones opinion on what i can do to make it better? It looks pretty good and there are a couple of parts that arent as nice as i would have liked, but i was only running it with 15cu ft/hr of gas, and ive heard its better to run closer to 20 :dunno: so that may clear up some of the problems. Well let me know what ya think! And yes i wish the pictures came out better...

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I'm certainly not even in the ranking for welding, hit Rene' or Eric, for some pro advice, but your second attempt is much better, I think if your indoors and no air movement 15 is fine, outdoors or the chance for blowing the gas away, crank it up some more. Make sure you can see what your welding...clean helmet lenses, proper view of the weld, and watch the puddle as well as your joint. And the joint you have, it looks like you may have gotten off the joint a little, even though it is not visible, I'm guessing that it was an evenly prepared joint and followed a predictable line, that maybe the bead don't follow as well?

SBD is right, practice is a great teacher!
 
Yea practice is definitely helping me, but i need tons more of it. I know its a structurally strong weld i dont doubt that, i just want it to look as good as possible.
 
The final tests on welding, is to weld two plates and try to get it to break by bending, then saw across the weld, grind the cut smooth and inspect the "inside" of the weld.

Obviously you don't do that to a finished part, but you can tell how your welds measure up that way.

You can spot voids, inclusions, and determine penetration.

I have seen some really pretty welds that turned out to be either just on the surface, on in the case of the axle tube on my Ford 9 inch, almost entirely on one side.

Good penetration, but it was all on the housing, and only a couple of small spots actually stuck to the tube.
That was from the factory.

I found out when my axle tube started sliding out of the housing........
 
Looks like plenty of heat on one tube but not enough on the other.

This is a problem with welding tube its hard to get the heat to evenly flow into both tubes.

That said, that weld looks fine. The best thing to do is cut up some more tubes and keep practicing. I weld completely different than my buddy but our welds come out pretty comparable.

Don't be shooting for Tig type welds here this is mig welding. Once you paint it NO ONE at all will look at those welds and go hmmmmm those could be a bit more even.
 
Ya, dont judge your welds solely upon how they look. :waytogo: try pre heating some of your practice material. And note the differences between pre heat and no preheat. :pimp:
 
okay, ive seen guys preheat aluminum for tig and it definitely works better than doing it cold. I will try that when i practice again.
 
We were not allowed to preheat for none of our stick welding tests. It would have been nice, but I passed first time without doing so, so it was all good. I was suprised how nervous I actually was. It was not like regular welding school daily routeen. It got all serious lol. Could not leave the test welding booth. Plates were preprepped by instructor so you couldn't cheat in any way shape or form. In fact we couldn't touch the plates untill the instructor said ok, start your weld test, and he did that for each weld cert. Did you have a timed test Jess? If I remember correctly, we had a time out limit. Thats where the stress came in. But I made it with time to spare thank god.
 
rdn2blazer said:
We were not allowed to preheat for none of our stick welding tests. It would have been nice, but I passed first time without doing so, so it was all good. I was suprised how nervous I actually was. It was not like regular welding school daily routeen. It got all serious lol. Could not leave the test welding booth. Plates were preprepped by instructor so you couldn't cheat in any way shape or form. In fact we couldn't touch the plates untill the instructor said ok, start your weld test, and he did that for each weld cert. Did you have a timed test Jess? If I remember correctly, we had a time out limit. Thats where the stress came in. But I made it with time to spare thank god.
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Ya. They were timed but thats not what made me nervous. It was the money i was spending on the test and how I was SOL if i failed.
 
I would not preheat on unless your going to preheat every single tube that you weld.

Its only 1/8" tube. Just learn to circle back on your weld some when you hit where you started
 
do you guys do these in like one weld? i was breaking it up into 4 parts...should i try to go all the way around without stopping? obviously thats preferred but is it practiced?
 
wage92 said:
do you guys do these in like one weld? i was breaking it up into 4 parts...should i try to go all the way around without stopping? obviously thats preferred but is it practiced?
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Depends some times there is no way you can do it all the way around. Sometimes there is.

If I can't do it all in one, I break it up as little as possible. Sometimes that means 2 sometimes 3. But rarely will I do it in 4
 
With a 110v machine you'll need to watch the duty cycle if you run continuous welds...just something to keep in mind.
 
Ideally you should make one clean pass. That being said, you cant always complete a weld in one pass for a multitude of reasons. However, you should AWAYS be welding UPHILL. From bottom to top. There are times when downhill is appropriate but your not at that level.
Gas Metal Arc Welding Handbook by William H. Minnick Is a great read and will give you insight to what your doing. Do the tests at the end of every chapter. They arent that bad and I found them very helpful. I wasnt required to do the test but wanted to. :waytogo:
 
One pass all the way around is not always the best way to do it. Some materials don't like alot of heat introduced and one way to keep that in check is to break up the weld. Breaking it in to sections can also help prevent distortion of the tube or plate or whatever it is you are welding.

One thing about welding, there is no one rule that always applies. Not even this one.
 
okay thanks for the input kert, i assume when its actually in the truck it will be next to impossible to go all the way around anyway. But it helps me to be learning some of the theory behind welding, because it seems with tubing you encounter just about every position and situation.
 
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