Welding practice

[davidlandy]

Tony

take a peek on this forum thread for some of the worst welding I have ever seen!

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=1040

the rest of the forum contains some good info

[SOA 93]

book a college course! best money you will spend

I'm doing a welding course at my local college (Warwickshire Colledge), should have been a 'Post beginners course', but they changed it at the last minute to City and Guilds level 2 welding, I'm doing TIG but others are doing Arc or Gas, strangely no ones doing Mig

Although you do get a qualification with this course it was £690, the post beginners was going to be £220 for 10 weeks.

Its this forum's fault I enrolled at college, bloody 'Welding Police'

I don't need a welding qualification, with hindsight my money would have been better spent towards a nice Tig welder.

Too much health and safety taught and not enough tech, colleges have changed since I went over 20 years ago

As Bush65 said it is interesting to do destructive testing on your welds, some of the guys on the course are welding all day at work and it was interesting to see their welds get criticised by the tutor when they were sawn through, welds looked ok on the outside, this was at the start of the course.

When I asked the tutor about a good book to get he told me to get 'Science and practice of welding' I think its been the welding standard fo many many years, the book has been split into 2 now so they can get twice as much money off you.

I've just bought a new ESAB 9-13 helmet for about £150 tried the tutors Speedglas, not certain what model it is, but it is new, sorry I can't see the huge difference everyone else see's, very happy with my ESAB huge difference between it and my auto helmet from Billing.

How about some of you guys doing a tutorial thread about tips on welding. Some of the stuff you know can seem very basic to you, however some of these little tips could make a huge difference to us hobby welders, like Dolly's 'tip dip' tip, I didn't know there was such a thing.

Maybe some good and bad weld pictures on different thickness material, that kind of thing.

I know this is LR forum not a welding forum but its also a very tech forum.

This http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/ is a good forum/site for a starter.

Andy

[simonr]

take a peek on this forum thread for some of the worst welding I have ever seen!

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=1040

That's so cool! I must ask that chap for some lessons!

Tony - your welding looks pretty OK. People seem to get very self righteous about welding, but, as the thread above shows - yours is certainly not in the lower quartile of quality welding.

Si

[white90]

Another Book thanks to Maurice

welding.pdf

[white90]

These are just test pieces welded vertically and horizontally.

some have had two passed and others stop/start.

not pretty but functional and no I can see whats is going on the job is far

easier.

[dollythelw]

Get some strip Tony and lay down some looooong beads, get a load of short ones in first to dial yourself in and then get longer, work on the hand to eye and it will come good - dont rush,

a bit more metal prep wouldnt hurt judging by the slag, and the settings off a wee bit but not important at this stage

good work fella - keep at it

[white90]

settings:

high of low or wire speed? suggestions at all?

have to source some more metal to practice on also try and get more comfortable as space is a bit tight at the moment.

[dollythelw]

the wires ok, travel speed is a little slow in places, voltage needs adjustment or possibly poor earth (remember an earth need to be nice and shiny too). a couple of the beads in the pics are sitting very proud - with plate that size you need to prep out the joint, most important at the mo is technique and that comes with mileage, practice practice practice, you can always lay down on heavy plate, then grind the weld out, prep it and go at it again and again and again, they used to make us do that at college

thinner plate on an open buttweld needs a spacing, play with spacings and tacking positions to allow the weld to "dog in" without distorting too heavily. something to play with later

scrap bin raids - they pay off. bit far for you to come and raid some offcuts from us unless you are passing one weekend? anywhere that runs a laser cutter is a good place to raid - there skips are full of interesting goodies and well worth bribing with whatever brand of ciggies/booze/folding they like

hope that helps a bit

[Bull Bar Cowboy]

Yes, travel was a little slow on some areas ………….. but TBH none of those joints are going to break in a hurry, so progress is coming on fast.

Like Jez says, once you have defined your own technique, getting extremely ‘pretty’ welds come with huge amounts of practice………… but pretty is not so important, what you need is a strong weld with good penetration ………..and it looks like you are 90% of the way to achieving that goal.

I often nip out to the workshop and glue bits of metal together just to keep me up to speed ………… it’s a good habit to get into.

HTH

Ian

[white90]

Cheers Jez/Ian

all advice is very welcomed

[Astro_Al]

Random thoughts:

Just to reiterate what Jez said - I'm not great (!), but nothing improved my welding as much as laying down metres of straight lines, playing with the settings and watching the weld pool.

The plates in the first pick - try chopping through it and seeing how much penetration you're getting in the joint (look in a fully welded bit, not near the end of a weld for now (or both...)). It does look a bit proud, I think you might be surprised how shallowly it is joined inside (maybe not, hard to tell).

Now you have a bonza helmet, try to see what's happening in the pool and deal with things like the second to last photo (hole between weld and lower (horizontal) piece of steel). You should try to spot it, and rectify on the fly. Covering it up with a second pass afterwards is useless-ish as you're not really getting much heat into it.

Regarding this photo - also notice how the HAZ is much further offset from the weld axis on the vertical bit than the horizontal bit of steel? It is also much more consistent on the vertical piece. I guess your torch wasn't around 45 degrees (central) between the 2 bits, but in fact your hand was angled so that you were shooting more directly at the vertical bit (got more heat into it). This kind of explains the previous point. Try to get plenty of heat into both sides of the joint.

But anyway - it all looks pretty good to me?!?

Keep it up! Cheers, Al.

[dollythelw]

easy tiger.... one step at a time

cross sections help to an extent so does failure testing but not yet IMO, unless you know what you are looking for its hard to asses what you see... (if that makes any sense at all )

[white90]

thanks Al

I'll cut the pieces and have a look/take pics for here

and get some more practice in as soon as I can

scrap bin raids planned too.

[Astro_Al]

thanks Al

and get some more practice in

Cool bananas.

I'll get back in my cage and STFU...

Al

[white90]

the practice quote was for me to practice BTW

[Astro_Al]

the practice quote was for me to practice BTW

No - I know, sorry it's the dumbass way I quoted bits of it that made it read otherwise... Duh...

Al

But hell - I need it too, trust me...

[white90]

Right I've been at it again

more pics:

the tube join I know is start stop as I was in an awkward position doing it.

the others are some long beads pushing and pulling

then something very thin to something far thicker

and a butt weld front and reverse of some 5mm plate leaving a gap to fill

the tube join would have been far better if I had had the piece clamped properly

[dollythelw]

good progress on the long beads are you running out of reach with your "steady" hand? theres a definate improvement though B) when thick-to-thinning play more on the thick plate, the thinner will burn in much faster (obviously) than the fatter plate. tip for tube is prep both ends, use a bit of angle and clamp the tube to it, tack at 120 degrees, remove the angle, grind the tacks back and then go for it

if you want to cut the weld and see whats going on you need to cut the section smooth, ideally cold cut it (hacksaw), file it and get a nice flat, smooth endview.

keep doing the mileage

[white90]

Cheers Jez

yes I am and as I was saying to Les I became aware of the other hand about to melt as it was too near the heat source

I keep holding my breath too , this can't be ideal but I'll have to think about that more.

thanks for the tube tips

I tacked it then welded over the tacks as you can probably see, I also blew a hole in the tube but managed to plug that (Maurices previous teachings remembered)

[dollythelw]

try humming or whistling - it'll force you to breath and chill out,

crab walk your steady hand, use the thumb to keep your welding hand happy and walk the remaining fingers along the plate (god this is hard to describe lol), dont worry the nerves that sense heat will happily die off eventually if its really hot your skin turns to a lubricant and pain is replaced by the appetising smell of bacon

prep the tube harder and you can run with no gap - it will help prevent a blow through, grinding the tacks back will keep the weld flush. take your time and relax it and it will come good

[Hybrid_From_Hell]

the practice quote was for me to practice BTW

Tony

One thing thats worth learning and it easy to do it to try to blow a hole.

Now, I know this sounds daft, but

In the pics where you have a lot of weld sitting on it "Blobby" stylee, this can be altered by 3 things

1. Turn up the current

2. Move the torch faster

3. reduce the wire speed.

What I often do when I am about to weld up something of a size that I have to change the settings for on the welder is to see how much current I can shove into it and not blow a hole !

SO,

Option 1 above - turn up the current keep your hand speed and wire the same (you might have to tickle up the wire speed possibly)

Option 2 as it says, but then you are having to learn to move the torch at a different speed, sometimes just upping the amps and the same speed does the trick here.

3. another possiblity, but then you may find the amps too high, hence option 1 !

Try it, sounds daft I know but you'll be suprised, hope it sort of makes sesne ?

HTH

Nige

[white90]

Cheers Nige/Jez

are any of the pics satisfactory?

I can try and use the methods I employed in them if they are if not

I'll keep trying so to speak

[Mo Murphy]

Good progress Tony ! Keep practicing.

Remember a ) to make sure that you are comfortable before starting the weld and b ) watch what is happening in the pool where the light is brightest, if you watch what is happening you can correct the weld as you progress (lots of beginners don't see their weld until they are finished and take off their mask )

Mo

[white90]

A few more attempts today, followed the advice watching the weld pool certainly helped keep on the materials, speeded up a bit and tried different settings.

a bit more cleaning to cut down spatter perhaps? or lower wire speed

(need some more scrap now or cutting discs)

[Hybrid_From_Hell]

A few more attempts today, followed the advice watching the weld pool certainly helped keep on the materials, speeded up a bit and tried different settings.

a bit more cleaning to cut down spatter perhaps? or lower wire speed

(need some more scrap now or cutting discs)

Now THOSE are decent welds, your doing very well to have improved so fast. Last 2 pics particularly good, except are you using a grinder rather than a flap wheel ?

Still not that clean a weld prep area, the roughness looks like a grinder, make sure you wipe after you have ground the steel, the grinder or flasp wheel dust is not going to help the weld.

Don't worry about cutting them for inspection, your welding is not to that sort of level, clean decent DIY welds like this are fine, the trick is to now repeat these whilst rammed into a LR, foot up to hold you in position, neck cricked over and something driopping in your ear as you start welding

100% improvment.

Did you find the "Blow a hole then back it off a bit" any help ?

On Piccy one I think (and this is difficult to explain) the movement of the torch is wrong hence the weld shape, try to move the torch higher on the tube and lower on the plate, but move the torch so the at all times the gap from tip to steel is the same, this will mean moving the torch in a ARC movement, weld from the top to the base and back up as you move the torch, try to aviod making the toch vary in gap from the steel, and maybe turn up the current a tad this weld although "Ok ish" is still "Sitting" rather than "Blended" in

Oh, and just keep practising !

Nige