Defender 110, a Bedford cf and a utility truck walk into a bar...

[Stellaghost]

Hope all goes well with the op I would run a few more welds on a test piece before joining stuff to get the feel for the settings if you havnt welded for a few years hour doing champion maybe turn down or speed up your action to stop blowing holes try a couple of welds on 3 mm plate to give yourself an idea what's working best for penetration regards Stephen

Edited February 29, 2020 by Stellaghost
Predictive pain

[FridgeFreezer]

Looks like zero penetration - slow down, less wire.

[Ozzy50]

Remember that you are melting the two pieces together with the wire (so to speak ) so as you weld you should be able to watch the pool of weld that you are pushing along , a little zig zag or circular  motion can help ,  Also how clean is the lense in your mask ? You would be amazed at the difference a new clean lense makes to your welding , as in you can see what your doing !

[Badger110]

No penetration caused by impatience seems to be key

I felt the thicker material alot easier to weld onto, the weld looked ok but the other stuff was much thinner ( i said 2mm, it's actually more like 1mm )

My gas bottle regulator starting leaking so i stopped before i got much further, as well as i kept blowing the fuse in the plug at too high a setting.  I remedied this by fitting a 32amp commando socket next to the consumer unit in the garage and changing the plug on the welder...at least it wont blow anymore fuses!  The welder hasn't been used in years so i couldn;t expect it not to have a few funny five minutes

Tomorrow i'll be more methodical and change differernt setting s as i go along until i can get a feel for it with the thinner walled stuff.  

 

I'll also clean my mask as it's pretty grubby and maybe get some extra light on the situation...possibly a head torch?!

Saying that, I was looking at some 4mm angle section to build the frame from as i have a load in the woods.

it's good practice to deal with the thinner as well as the thicker, so i'll see how i get on.

 

As well as the welding today i managed to get the doors sprayed up and hinges/locks fitted and the roof laquered.  

The doors will be laquered at a later date when i get the 2nd row doors sprayed.

[FridgeFreezer]

Thicker is always easier - harder to blow holes in, doesn't distort as much, you can "get away" with a larger range of amperages although obviously for critical stuff you still need to get it right.

For thin stuff, Urchfab's bodywork welding video is still the best thing I've seen on the subject.

[deep]

A good tip when welding thin metal (like rotten exhausts or panel steel, ahem) is to weld a short length, lift off for a few seconds, then do another short run, etc..  That's because your weld is heating the material ahead, making it prone to blowing holes.  Frequent little cooling periods make a huge difference.

[FridgeFreezer]

4 hours ago, deep said:

A good tip when welding thin metal (like rotten exhausts or panel steel, ahem) is to weld a short length, lift off for a few seconds, then do another short run, etc..  That's because your weld is heating the material ahead, making it prone to blowing holes.  Frequent little cooling periods make a huge difference.

Often called stitching, it can be as little as one "tack" at a certain point, move a long way away to another section of the joint, put one tack there, repeat in a few different places, then come back to the 1st tack and add another - very slow and tedious join-the-dots style that will test your welder's gas solenoid reliability

[Badger110]

A little more work at the moment;

 

I found some angle in the woods as well as some 40mm box section.

It needs a good clean but it’s ok for this, still solid with surface rust.

Findjng the rhythm a little easier with the thicker stuff, circling the weld and dialling it back abit with the wire feed. Some of it still looks to bulky to me, ie like it’s sat on top and not actually penetrated

[Ozzy50]

Yeah that’s not penetrating very well , what amp is your welder ? What wire thickness are you using , what amp have you got the welder turned up to ?

[Badger110]

welder claims 150amp at 21.5 volts and I’ve got it maxed with 1mm wire

 

Switch’s on the right I assume does the ampage, dial on the left does wire speed.

 

ignoring the wobbly line, does this look better? Welded 2 pieces together

 

thanks for taking the time to advise 

[Badger110]

The one on the right was a slower weld, it looks better to me, thoughts?

 

Edit;

 

grinding down the weld shows it was better. The one on the left didn’t penetrate well, if hardly.

Right hand was slower...patience again

 

[Badger110]

Finally got the one side done 👍

I’m needing to replace these temporary struts that I made from wood so I could position the rams 

 

This is the one made with the box section;

 

there will be another one at the other end with box section spanning the two to create a box section perimeter to the hole cut out. 
 

I’ll also add a small bracket to take the bunk set up once I work it all out.

 

Thats it now for a few weeks as my wrist is being adjusted tomorrow with a scalpel by a nice surgeon 👍

 

Im going to order a regulator for the gas bottle and look at a co2/argon mix if that’ll help and I might start practicing with my left hand 

[Ozzy50]

Wire is too thick , u want 0.8 mm for the 4mm angle iron and even better 0.6 for the thinner material although you would get away with using 0.8 on both and even using 0.6 on both although my advice is 0.8 ,that’s what’s causing the lack of penetration .The wire is too thick and simply building on top of the joint rather than melting it , all three materials, the two pieces and the wire need to melt and create a pool that you push along . I use 0.8 mm wire on 1mm material right up to 10mm material ( with a good V ground into the pieces I’m joining ) although I should be using 1mm wire ideally above 8mm material but constantly changing is a pita . Change your wire to 0.8 , you can leave the 1mm tips in the gun (less heat build up in the tip and less seized wire  in the tips !) . You will have to readjust your wire speed and amps again (sorry) with the thinner wire . I’m guessing the 1 2 3 4 is amp adjustment so not a lot of adjustment there really , it’s a pretty basic mig set tbh (no offence) , my mig set was bought for me second hand by my dad 23 years ago (serious sentimental value) when he discovered I had learnt to weld at work , saved him a fortune on the farm !,is 200 amp and has nearly infinite adjustment on the Amps (I’m not trying to show off , honestly !) 

With the 0.8 wire :

to weld the thin material you would need between 60 and 100 amps, material quality makes a massive difference btw 

the thicker material anywhere up to 150 amps 

joining thick to thin materials obviously somewhere in between 

wire speed you will just need to adjust until it feels right , too fast you should feel the wire pushing the gun back and get an excess build up of weld in the bead 

too slow and your weld bead will be too small and your wire will keep burning back to the tip (this is where using a larger tip helps ) 

Also what gas are you using ? I use argoshield universal (due to different material thicknesses and only one welder) 

Thing is with welding you can either do it or not ,I’m not trying to be big headed or clever but it’s just a fact , I learnt my welding working on hire plant where we had to fix everything and I can weld the thinnest of materials with the mig (because we had to !) , I always said give me enough wire and enough time and I could build a bridge (I’m genuinely not trying to be big headed ) 

The penetration is the most important thing , worry about it being pretty once you’ve mastered making it right . 

Kero posting and I will keep trying to help . 

 

[Bowie69]

Echo the above from Ozzy.

Also, welding two bits of box together like that bring a LOAD of steel together that you have to heat up to get penetration -have a think about what the cross section looks like...

Better to have simple plate butt welds or T welds to practice on with single thicknesses of steel..

Last weld was definitely better, 0.8 wire will help a lot though, as clearly you are just adding MORE steel to heat up! 

 

[FridgeFreezer]

I'd vote 0.8mm wire too, your welder may very likely not be designed to feed wire slow enough for 1.0mm.

0.6mm is a PITA and will birds-nest up if there's a blockage, only really useful for very thin stuff but 0.8mm will do for 200A+

Grinding the welds back is less useful than cutting a cross-section to see the penetration, or just hitting it with a B.F. Hammer.

[Ozzy50]

1 hour ago, Badger110 said:

Finally got the one side done 👍

I’m needing to replace these temporary struts that I made from wood so I could position the rams 

 

This is the one made with the box section;

 

 

there will be another one at the other end with box section spanning the two to create a box section perimeter to the hole cut out. 
 

I’ll also add a small bracket to take the bunk set up once I work it all out.

 

Thats it now for a few weeks as my wrist is being adjusted tomorrow with a scalpel by a nice surgeon 👍

 

Im going to order a regulator for the gas bottle and look at a co2/argon mix if that’ll help and I might start practicing with my left hand 

You posted whilst I was writing my essay 😂

dint go co2/argon mix , go pure argon either light or universal (you will understand when you buy it ) 

out of interest what are you having done on your wrist ? I’m currently seeing the specialist about my left wrist as I have a huge ganglion (spellcheck ?) that needs cutting out , that’s what a lifetime (so far) of machinery driving does for you !

[Bowie69]

Ozzy, argoshield is CO2/argon mix, not straight argon.

[Badger110]

A thinner wire it is then

 

Now i have an idea what i'm working with and what the expectations of the material are, i can only move forward

I grinded down the weld @FridgeFreezer because the ram sits on top of it...i would've cut into it to look but it took me most of the day cleaning all the rust and cutting everything down so buggered if i was going to cut it up

 

My gas is a Co2 i ' borrowed ' from the club's cellar a few years ago and as i said, it doesn't have a regulator, just an on and off, so control over the gas will help.

Argoshield...any particular place to get it from?  I'll have a look for a 2nd hand bottle which will save me some pennies, but Is it worth getting a Argon gas with a mixing regulator as i have a Co2?

Thank you all once again, nice to have good advice to hand

[Bowie69]

Just look for rent-free welding gas near you, half the cost is getting the bottle to where you want it.

[Badger110]

2 hours ago, Ozzy50 said:

out of interest what are you having done on your wrist ? I’m currently seeing the specialist about my left wrist as I have a huge ganglion (spellcheck ?) that needs cutting out , that’s what a lifetime (so far) of machinery driving does for you !

Carpal tunnel syndrome, small local anesthetic surgery but takes a while to heal. I have it in both wrists but they will only do one at a time as I need the other to wipe my arse with.

 

Their words, not mine!

[Ozzy50]

1 hour ago, Bowie69 said:

Ozzy, argoshield is CO2/argon mix, not straight argon.

🤤DOH !

just checked the bottle and you are correct sir ! 
learnt summet every day 

Edited March 2, 2020 by Ozzy50

[deep]

20 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Often called stitching, it can be as little as one "tack" at a certain point, move a long way away to another section of the joint, put one tack there, repeat in a few different places, then come back to the 1st tack and add another - very slow and tedious join-the-dots style that will test your welder's gas solenoid reliability

Good point.  I tend to use cored wire for that sort of thing.  Not as neat but less hassle, other than regular use of a wire brush.  Also, for learning, it removes one variable, which isn't a bad thing. 

I'm not a great welder.  I mostly weld 2nd hand steel and my visor is from an arc welder and too dark.  I have a few other excuses stored away...

[smallfry]

Problem with straight CO2 is that its a "cold" gas. It cools the weld and bead more than Argoshield, so it can cause a higher bead and less penetration, especially on thinner materials and less amps. Compounded by the 1mm wire which needs more heat to melt it. Not so much a problem if you are using battleship plate with excessive amps, so don't be a tighta**e and use the proper stuff. Makes the world of difference ! Shame you are not nearer as you could have borrowed mine to try

Best I ever had was 75/25 % mix. Gave lovely smooth welds, but I don't think you can get it any more.

For car panel thickness, use 0.6 wire. You can use it on material up to 3mm, but can be a PITA if you set the wire drive rollers too tight. When you set the tension ……. with the gas off so not to waste it...… have the tension set to almost nothing, then pull the gun trigger. The drive motor will be turning, but should NOT be feeding any wire. Keep the trigger on, and gradually tighten the tension adjuster until the wire starts to feed, then add another 1/8th of a turn and no more. That's all you need. Much more than that will cause the wire to "birdsnest" easily.

Thicker wire is a bit more forgiving, but you should always aim for "just enough" wire drive.

As has been said 0.8mm wire would be better for what you are currently doing 

[FridgeFreezer]

A proper bottle of argon/CO2 mix will help - won't make you a better welder but will at least not be making things worse.

[Badger110]

I've found a local supplier of BOC mixed gas.

 

Can't do bugger all with it at the moment, but at least i know where to get it