Thread: Lesson 1: Not even a grinder and paint could make me a welder

Hello All,

This YouTube clip shows the same welder as mine, an actual pre-Mark II, 182 Viper. Accessed 3rd March, 2024 from, Unimig Viper 182 | How to feed the wire on - YouTube

I am still trying to work out the difference between my welder and the later Mark II version? All the components seem the same on face value.


The first minutes of the clip are taken up by the bloke walking his dog next to a freeway. Anyway, unlike the Unimig company videos, this one shows the taking off of the gas shroud. I must have tightened mine too tight when I first assembled the welder months ago. This caused the little spring that secures the shroud to the Benzel Style Tip Holder to deform. Lesson learnt. This clip also clearly shows the direction of rotation to take the shroud off. None of the other videos show this step. Because I had over tightened the shroud it took me a while to work out the correct direction of rotation. I should have watched this video before attempting to weld. Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing!

Oh, I have sent an email to one of the local Men's Sheds to inquire about whether they can give some assistance with my welding skills. As an ex-TAFE Teacher I aware that before I left in the 1990s there used to be Adult Community Education or 'ACE' courses offered at TAFE. Courses offered right here in Bundaberg. These taught things like how to MIG weld, make stained glass or leadlight, or learn how to machine sew, or gardening - things like hydroponics. The ACE courses used to work on the philosophy of feed a person a fish and they have one meal. Teach a person how to fish and they can feed their family for their whole life. All for reasonable prices when the word 'community' meant something. Australia lost so much with the demise of the ACE courses.

I just went online and TAFE do offer a Basic MIG welding course - in Brisbane or on the Sunshine Coast - on campus mode. For the cost of $355, starting in April 2024. Wednesday nights for 10 weeks. Add travel and overnight accommodation ... starts to be a pretty costly exercise. Accessed 4th March 2024 from, Basic MIG Welding | TAFE Queensland Campus: closest to me is Nambour and hours 5.00 pm - 8.00 pm.

Fingers crossed Men's Sheds comes through.

Kind regards
Lionel

Teach a guy to fish and he’ll sit in a boat drinking all day

Hello All,

I thought I would check the settings described on the inside face of the door panel on my welder. I remember going to look at the panel and I could not recall any particular settings for 0.6 mm diameter wire. This is the diameter recommended by some gurus for sheet metal panel work. On closer inspection I found out the reason why no settings sprung to mind. The table inside the door had all the settings mentioned for 0.8 mm and 0.9 mm for (Steel) 1 mm, 2 mm, 3 mm, 4 mm and 6 mm. The factory provide all 0.6 mm consumables including gas wire, rollers, tips. However, the settings table does not include 0.6 mm. All it would have taken was just another line of text, not much effort required, one would think. I checked the Operator's Manual and it is a similar story. 0.6 mm is Nigel no friends. I have contacted the company to find out if they have any data on the settings for 0.6 mm.

Burn Back Settings: I could not find anything other than a mention of how the welder features a burn back rating that is adjusted via a dial located inside the cabinet. No information is provided about different burn back ratings for the different diameters or types of wire - as in gas wire or flux/gasless wire. More trial and error, I suppose.

Kind regards
Lionel