Thread: Introducing Hedley

Looking good

Wow Garry, you're making great progress. I can see Hedley being back on the road before my vehicle makes it six feet out of the garage....

Hi all,

I am still in the early stages of practising my mig welding - I have a long way to go before getting anywhere near Hedley's chassis!

I would appreciate any comments from the experienced welders here about these images. What have I been doing wrong?

Thanks so much to Ozdunc for pointing me in the direction of joining sections using a combination of backing plate, plug welds and a seam weld. This I have attempted to do here with limited success.

I am using 3 mm steel. I have drilled 10mm holes for the plugs. As you can see my weld puddles and beads are messy and there are pits and craters everywhere once everything is ground smooth. I polished every surface prior to welding and cleaned with Carby cleaner. I had the voltage set about in the middle and the wire speed a little slower than the middle. I had gas on 15. I was inside, so there was little moving air to mess with the gas.











As you can see in the last pic, every time I finish a weld, there is a lot of wire sticking out of the nozzle, even though I always start with only about 5mm protruding. Is this a clue to what I am doing wrong?



Feedback appreciated.

Congrats for giving it go. I should too.
I may head over to youtube and see if there's anything there..

EG: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGeXDJ2Okak"]Mig Welding Basics: Cursive Technique - YouTube[/ame]

Hi Garry
Practice Practice Practice, and if you can, use a gas mig, not a gasless. Some can be used as both (like the one I used) and I found it a lot easier with the gas. You can but small disposable bottles without having to have an account with those useless twits at BOC or Air Liquide. If it is a dual type you just have to swap the polarity of the electrodes to use the gas. Try a bit more heat to penetrate the steel and go slow but not too slow (Practice).
Cheers Ian

Your preparation is excellent Garry and is what needs to be done for any type of welding

Your weld-pool looks to be too cold to me, so turn the volts up high and increase your wire-speed as well. If it continually blows holes in your work, turn the voltage down one click and reduce the wire-speed a wee bit if you feel it stubbing into the work.

A good MIG weld should penetrate the full thickness of the metal and look flatter and smoother than yours.

So a good procedure is to always start with a high voltage; see how it goes; and only reduce the settings by small increments, if it blows a hole far too easily.

You shouldn't need a backing-plate on 3mm steel, unless you are trying to fill a largish hole. When you do a butt-weld, a gap as wide as the metal is thick aids penetration and is usually needed on metal over 1mm thick.

If your welder has a control that says burn-back, try adjusting it until the wire protrusion gets to where you want it.

I usually use 10 l/p/m of gas but 15 l/p/m should be fine.

Finally; if no matter how high you turn the voltage up you don't succeed on 3mm, it may be that your machine doesn't have enough oomph to do so - my SIP starts to struggle at 2mm sheet. I also had great success by changing my wire to 0.6mm after the 0.8mm supplied with it, seemed incapable of welding the thinner gauges,

Cheers Charlie

A good tip when filling holes in steel plate is to put a aluminum backing plate at the back of the hole. This will stop the metal from burning away from the hole . & yes gas is easyer to weld with than flux core .

I am not sure if the guy in the demo vid welded in that T shirt, but it's not a good idea. Migs put out a lot of heat and so they can burn your skin very quickly, not to mention the spatter that also burns, especially if it lobs in your bootor even in your ear. The leather apron, long leather gloves and a good set of overalls are a must.

Cheers, Mick.