CK5
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finnally ordered a welder: started floor repair. have a couple questions
- Thread starter metalneverdies
- Start date
Then you've never welded out of position. Its not always possible to pull
With flux core? The welds turn out like $hit everytime ive seen it. Im pretty sure its something to do with the flux that your supposed to pull. Yes it will do it, but im pretty sure it creates a bad weld.... Im just going of of what the welding instructor at school told me about it, he only just retired after 35 or so years in industry and as a teacher, but hes prolly wrong
K5 Jess
1/2 ton status
If he told you you cant push while stick welding...
Then yes your instructor with 35 years expirience is wrong.
If he told you you cant push while stick welding...
Then yes your instructor with 35 years expirience is wrong.
I more or less was giving an example of how you would drag. Like how normally you drag while stick welding. Didnt mean to say you cant
K5 Jess
1/2 ton status
Nice backpedal! 
all good man, i dont know everything about all processes. But Im damn good at the two processes I learned. 
all good man, i dont know everything about all processes. But Im damn good at the two processes I learned.
I dont know alot, but i know when i asked my teacher why my welder at home with flux core made $hitty welds compared to the ones in class, he told me to drag it at 45* and be half inch away from the material. All im saying is it tremendously helped my welds. Then I got c25 setup and everythings better lol
Held the gun out at a better distance. Think these look slightly better. Burnt through in one spot and sunk in a little too deep in another.
the biggest part no matter what why you do it is leaning how to read the puddle. being able to tell what parts of the puddle are metal and what parts are slag. Keep an eye on the different look of certain swirls and such. then stop, let it cool and chip/clean it. then see which parts were which. Once you figure that out you can weld with anything and push pull drag what ever. the metal part of the puddle has to connect it all and penetrate is what counts. with a gas shielded mig setup its ALL metal in the puddle.
Some people need a darker lens to differentiate the 2 parts of the puddle. I use a 12-13 for most all welding. Most everybody else I know uses a 10. hurts my eyes and I cant see the puddle right if I use a 10.
I found this guide to help
http://www.safety.duke.edu/ohs/Documents/WeldFilterLens.pdf
Some people need a darker lens to differentiate the 2 parts of the puddle. I use a 12-13 for most all welding. Most everybody else I know uses a 10. hurts my eyes and I cant see the puddle right if I use a 10.
I found this guide to help
http://www.safety.duke.edu/ohs/Documents/WeldFilterLens.pdf
OK, I see one problem. You are trying to Learn to weld, so quit trying to actually weld.
Grab a piece of thick steel, 1/4inch or thicker, grind off a spot down to shiny steel and hook the ground clamp on there good and tight so as to eliminate any ground problems.
Make sure the rest of the metal is fairly clean, then start running beads.
Don't worry about penetration or joining two pieces together, get the basics down first.
First get the bead right.
This involves learning what the puddle should look like, the proper holding angle and speed of travel, speed of the wire and how much heat.
Once you get a nice clean flatish bead, and can do it every time, then you can start worrying about penetration.
You can go down to about 1/4 inch, run a bead, and then cut it in half across the bead and look at the cross section to see how deep it penetrated.
You could do that with 1/2 inch, but it easier to cut the 1/4.
If the penetration looks good, grind off the edges of the cut at a bevel and then weld them back together.
Once you can get good reliable beads, and then join the thick stuff, then you can move to the thin stuff.
Flux core wire will deliver good strong welds. They just will not be as pretty, and if you push it too hard, you can get flux inclusions in the weld.
I keep several rolls of flux core around for use when I run out of gas and need something stuck right now.
And you will run out of gas at just the wrong time.......Especially if you forget to turn the bottle off when you are through welding.
I even rigged up an alarm for a friend of mine's shop. When he turns the welder off, a loud bell starts ringing, and can only be turned off by a momentary contact switch behind the valve of the gas bottles.
Since he has to reach past the valve to hit the button, he very seldom fails to turn off the gas.
I wanted to rig it so he had to turn off the valve to kill the bell, but never figured out a way.
The bottles were different each time he got a new one.
Grab a piece of thick steel, 1/4inch or thicker, grind off a spot down to shiny steel and hook the ground clamp on there good and tight so as to eliminate any ground problems.
Make sure the rest of the metal is fairly clean, then start running beads.
Don't worry about penetration or joining two pieces together, get the basics down first.
First get the bead right.
This involves learning what the puddle should look like, the proper holding angle and speed of travel, speed of the wire and how much heat.
Once you get a nice clean flatish bead, and can do it every time, then you can start worrying about penetration.
You can go down to about 1/4 inch, run a bead, and then cut it in half across the bead and look at the cross section to see how deep it penetrated.
You could do that with 1/2 inch, but it easier to cut the 1/4.
If the penetration looks good, grind off the edges of the cut at a bevel and then weld them back together.
Once you can get good reliable beads, and then join the thick stuff, then you can move to the thin stuff.
Flux core wire will deliver good strong welds. They just will not be as pretty, and if you push it too hard, you can get flux inclusions in the weld.
I keep several rolls of flux core around for use when I run out of gas and need something stuck right now.
And you will run out of gas at just the wrong time.......Especially if you forget to turn the bottle off when you are through welding.
I even rigged up an alarm for a friend of mine's shop. When he turns the welder off, a loud bell starts ringing, and can only be turned off by a momentary contact switch behind the valve of the gas bottles.
Since he has to reach past the valve to hit the button, he very seldom fails to turn off the gas.
I wanted to rig it so he had to turn off the valve to kill the bell, but never figured out a way.
The bottles were different each time he got a new one.
K5 Jess
1/2 ton status
Practiced some more. I still cant figure out what I'm doing wrong.
When I can actually see the weld bead they come out nicer. 9 times out 10 I am unable to see it. When there is a slight gap I just completely fail. I end up burning through and making the gao bigger or just make splatter.
Any advice?
When I can actually see the weld bead they come out nicer. 9 times out 10 I am unable to see it. When there is a slight gap I just completely fail. I end up burning through and making the gao bigger or just make splatter.
Any advice?
wage92
1/2 ton status
im definitely no welding expert, but i would play with your settings a little and watch the puddle more.
And what do you mean you cant see it?
And it looks like you are weaving back and forth with it...
And what do you mean you cant see it?
And it looks like you are weaving back and forth with it...
I cant see it of the time because of the smoke, I guess.
I tried out the weaving pattern because it is in the hobart manual as a method of movement. Should I avoid that pattern?
When should I turn up the current or the feed speed? I feel like when I adjust the setting past the recommended settings im just arbitrarily turning the knobs.
wage92
1/2 ton status
What shade is your helmet?
I have found the weaving pattern helpful when joining two peices but when i am just doing a flat weld like that i would just drag it, say you start at the left of your piece and you are going to make a bead to the right you would angle the gun with the tip pointing left and the top to the right and start the weld, get the puddle going and move it to the right in a fairly straight line without much weave or anything.
The welding manual usually gives you a recommended setting but i have found that you can fine tune it a little better by just playing around with it, like maybe stay at the same heat you are and increase the rate a little bit and so on. You arent gonna hurt the machine and thats pretty much how i learned. Like i said im no expert but im getting better by just practice. You arent gonna go out and make a beautiful bead right away you keep trying. And when you are angry enough to break something, take a break haha.
And listen to the guys in this thread, k5jess has given me tips before and he knows what hes doing
im sure he will chime in soon. Good luck to you sir!
I have found the weaving pattern helpful when joining two peices but when i am just doing a flat weld like that i would just drag it, say you start at the left of your piece and you are going to make a bead to the right you would angle the gun with the tip pointing left and the top to the right and start the weld, get the puddle going and move it to the right in a fairly straight line without much weave or anything.
The welding manual usually gives you a recommended setting but i have found that you can fine tune it a little better by just playing around with it, like maybe stay at the same heat you are and increase the rate a little bit and so on. You arent gonna hurt the machine and thats pretty much how i learned. Like i said im no expert but im getting better by just practice. You arent gonna go out and make a beautiful bead right away you keep trying. And when you are angry enough to break something, take a break haha.
And listen to the guys in this thread, k5jess has given me tips before and he knows what hes doing
im sure he will chime in soon. Good luck to you sir!
first, you need to take pictures much closer to the beads, hard to see what's going on.. it looks very spotty, like your moving too fast and too far away.... smoke should never be an issue visually.. keep the gun tip down in there 1/4" off, your face 18" away so you can see the bead.. and watch the puddle... I tend to be a "C" pattern guy on a lot of my stuff...
it definitely looks cold and too fast with the hand.. how thick is that steel? get something thick that you can't burn thru.. turn the machine way up, and get a big hot puddle going, it's the best way to learn.. not turned down low voltage cr*p....
should sound like bacon frying...
it definitely looks cold and too fast with the hand.. how thick is that steel? get something thick that you can't burn thru.. turn the machine way up, and get a big hot puddle going, it's the best way to learn.. not turned down low voltage cr*p....
should sound like bacon frying...
Is it normal for the wire to hit the steel and burn off / break off in a couple pieces before it actually forms a puddle and gets hot?
If I am burning through should I turn up orbdown the wire speed?
If I am burning through should I turn up orbdown the wire speed?
do what i said, get thicker steel..
is this fluxcore, or gas?
I'm on my phone, so I really can't see your pictures that well, but make sure the metal is clean. Don't use brake cleaner to clean it though.
this is pretty good advise, one thing I would say is to make sure you are comfortable, this means wearing proper clothing (so you don't worry about burning yourself). make sure your scrap is on a bench and is steady (not sheet metal moving around) (clamp your work down) and work on a bench where you can maybe stand straight up or sit on a stool. plant your non dominant elbow against the edge of the table, hold the gun in your dominant hand and steady your dominant hand with your other hand. make sure you lens is clean so your not fighting looking through a dirty lens, and make sure you can get your hood down close to your weld. forget learning to weld and teach yourself to look at different parts of your weld puddle, try to differentiate what you are looking at ( toe of the weld, filling undercut, heel of the weld, slag vs filler metal vs base metal.... and so on) after you get that down you can focus on consistant bead sizes) then joining metal, penetration and so forth. one more thing I have to add, on plain mild steel my flux core welds look like tig welds, flux core done right and used in the application can look very clean. also if you are using flux core, T-wire goes bad, make sure you get good wire, after I get done with my flux core wire if I don't plan to use it for a while, I take it out of the welder, put it in a brown paper bag and keep it in a dry place. I always tell anyone who inquires learning to weld to take a class, you will learn things from a welding class that you won't learn on your own, but the only way to learn to weld is simply by just doing it at school or not.
