Welding - actual metal working content!

Clean, clean, clean, no rust, no grease, no heavy mill scale, good ground, make sure the rollers are set to the right tension, make sure your feed cable isn't bent at a 90. make sure the wire has no rust or dirt. Tip is clean, Listen to the feed, making sure it stays the same speed. Check all the basics first. The Hobart should run a good bead if everything is right. gary

I am currently learning to weld on my own with a cheap flux wire welder from harbor freight.

I was having no end of trouble getting a good consistent bead as well; I figured I was just taking a while to learn how to weld.

I used up most of the 1lb spool that came with it before I realized the feed mechanism was the issue. I adjusted the tension of the feed roller and spool spindle and immediately produced the best weld I had all week.

PS: I am looking for some good starter welding projects, anyone got any ideas? I have a drill press, chop saw, and angle grinder but no other machine tools ( lathe, mill, shaper, etc.)

Thanks all.

The only thing I haven't already done of the above is change the tip. But I do clean it often.

Clean clean clean! Yeppers.

The wire is shiny bright.

Careful to keep the feed hose from tight bends.

Keeping the "stinger" about he same length all the time.

Careful with the angle of attack.

Oh, it's probably not as bad as I made it sound previously.

Most of the beads are presentable.

Some are down right braggable! :)

And then one glops up for no obvious reason.

I am working outside in the drive. And the wind was pretty gusty today.

For JR:

Hmmmm...

I hadn't considered the duty cycle issue.

It never went into thermal shutdown, but I may have been pushing it a bit.

Most beads 1-1/2" long with not much time between. Just to move over and get in position again.

Well, we are scheduled for a few days of cold rainy weather. I'll pay more attention to that when I get back to it to finish up.

Thanks folks

Richard

Work bench, storage racks, and of course...the obligitory welding cart

Gunner

"Upon Roosevelt's death in 1945, H. L. Mencken predicted in his diary that Roosevelt would be remembered as a great president, "maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln," opining that Roosevelt "had every quality that morons esteem in their heroes.""

--If ya get reeeally bored here's a list with some stuff I've done with my welder scattered thru it:

I've never tried flux-core, only used a gas mixture. The wind and even the shape of an object being welded can be a killer. You might be able to add some temporary wind blockers to the weld area. That is what I do to get decent results running shield gas. It really depends on the shape of the work and how much time you want to spend on it. Thin pieces of aluminum angle work nice. Clamp them down on either side of the weld area to form a channel. The really thin stuff (aluminum) can be tweaked/bent to shape a bit better. Even some thick aluminum foil maybe enough to do the job for you. It doesn't have to be anything fancy.

Try paying a bit of attention to the puddle where it is cooling down. Sometimes you can see, get some ideas about what is going wrong by watching that area. A few more eyeballs and an extra brain or two to process all the input would help too ;-)

I welded up lots of nasty, oily, dirty, painted, rusty... stuff for my Dad in the past. No real problem getting a nice bead, but you'll get tons of splatter. The torch tip area has to be cleaned a lot too...

It's raining today with icicles hanging from the trees. NOT a normal condition for here.

The aft post on my trailer is 3" wide for the tail lights. these are made by butt welding two pieces of angle together. The right side is done, so I thought I'd stitch up the left one in the table in the shop.

I couldn't ask for any prettier bead with flux wire!

I think it was the wind.

So I'm sticking to that story!

Richard

Fascinating web site, Ed. You really need professional help!

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@r24g2000vbp.googlegroups.com:

Try posting this to the sci.engr.joining.welding NG - you'll get a lot of good ideas there, both for project ideas and tips/tricks.

You'll encounter some of the same folks there as here plus quite a few highly experienced weldors including at least one exceptional Welding Instructor.

On Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:03:44 -0800, the infamous Gunner Asch scrawled the following:

The Lincoln website has several books of welding plans for projects at ten bucks a pop (+ UPS), Stephen. (Arc Welded Projects volumes II, III, and IV.)

click on the 'Books/DVDs/...' menu item in the Quicklinks dropdown.

is the first link in a long list (368,000) when I Googled "free welding projects."

-- Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life. --Jesse Lee Bennett

Wind affects fluxcore much less than MIG mit gaz, though I suppose enough wind could be an issue.

I have no experience with the Hobart, do have some with the Lincoln SP125+. That little red box is quite fussy about wire. If the wire is at all dirty or corroded it gets some lurch in the feed which certainly can cause the problems you've described. Once I get the wire feeding consistently, then I "tune" heat, wire speed and rate of progress by sound and by puddle observation.

I've also noticed that the lil' red box welds clean bright metal a lot better than metal with millscale. Millscale didn't seem to matter with stick but it does seem to with the little wirefeed box.

Here's the best idea that I have: until you're good at this don't make anything that anyone's safety depends upon. E.g., roof staging, car trailer. A beginner's MIG welds can look really great & be absolutely worthless as far as holding stuff together. This is the classic MIG contradiction. There is pretty much unanimous opinion on this.

Drill press, chop saw, and angle grinder is a great combination for welding projects. That's all it took for my power wagon:

HTH & have fun, Bob

--Superchicken: "Fred I've got super vision" --Fred: "If you had supervision you wouldn't be doing this!" --Heh.

For those folks who didn't waste their yout in front of the teevee:

IIRC:

FRED: "You could use your Super-Vision, Super!" SUPERCHICKEN: "Nonsense, Fred. If I had any supervision, I wouldn't be walking around in my underwear."

Fourty-one years later, that line still makes me smile.

Variation:

Sing With Super! (Loads S L O W L Y)

--Winston

Super Chicken? I thought that was Don Tyson!!!