I've been trying to find a good video to help me learn to weld better. This is the second video I've bought, and I thought I'd share my impressions on it as well. This video is being sold on the web and at Northern Tool stores. It is produced by Wall Mountain Company
The short review is that I highly recommend this video.
Now for the longer review. My background: I took a high school welding course 26 years ago. It was about half gas welding and half arc welding in the flat position. Last year I bought a welder and since then have burned about 5 pounds of rod. So I consider myself to be a rank beginner.
What I was hoping for was something to show me proper technique to produce quality welds in the various positions, which is exactly what this video provides.
The production quality of the DVD is very high. Perhaps half the total time in the video is very clear close-ups of welds being made. The weld pool is shown as clearly as I think it is technically possible to do. There are also a lot of sequences showing rod position and motion for different positions and joints without welding taking place. In addition, there are good quality graphics used to help explain points and graphics superimposed on weld video to point out things to look out for while welding. The DVD has a good menu system to allow you to quickly get to a particular topic.
Information in this video is very concentrated. The narration is well written, explains things very well, is to-the-point, and doesn't contain any fluff. After watching a minute of explanation and demonstration of how to do a particular joint in a particular position, I feel like I need to stop the video and go practice for three hours before going on. It's like trying to drink from a fire hose.
What I especially like is a discussion and demonstration of how weld current, rod position, arc length and travel speed affect the weld. I think this knowledge gives me a fighting chance of understanding how to get the kind of weld I want. Fast freeze and filler rods are also explained. The video then goes on to show how to make butt joint, lap joint, tee joint and corner joint welds, each joint in each of the different positions and usually with the technique for both fast freeze and filler rods, and shows the techniques for multiple pass welds on each joint. Joint prep is also covered, as well as hints throughout for keeping your weld high quality. Like I said, it's like drinking from a fire hose.
All the welds shown look like textbook examples. I come away from watching this video with a lot of confidence that Steve knows exactly what he's doing.
This is Wall Mountain's second arc welding video and you really need to have some welding experience to benefit from it. I haven't seen their first arc welding video, but if it's the same quality as this one, I'm sure a beginner would do very well with it.
I can't really think of anywhere that this video misses. There is some material on tacking and distortion. I'd like to see more on these issues, but there's only so much you can cram into one video.
So, on the whole, this video did exactly what I wanted, and I highly recommend it.
Tim
(Usual disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any way with Wall Mountain Company.)