Welding: How Did You Learn?

srtthis said:

so with the welders we have here

whats everyones thoughts on a gaslens?

Click to expand...

I almost never weld without one. Even when it's to large to fit in small places. The gas coverage is so good with the gas lens, you can stick the Tungsten out pretty far and still get good shielding.

Do it!

Also, purple Tungsten (E3) for everything. Love it! And you won't die of radiation poisoning!

srtthis said:

so with the welders we have here

whats everyones thoughts on a gaslens?

Click to expand...

I don't always heli-arc... But when I do, I use a gas lens. Makes all the difference in the world.

sen2two said:

I almost never weld without one. Even when it's to large to fit in small places. The gas coverage is so good with the gas lens, you can stick the Tungsten out pretty far and still get good shielding.

Do it!

Also, purple Tungsten (E3) for everything. Love it! And you won't die of radiation poisoning!

Click to expand...

ive been using blue

My Lincoln came with purple electrodes, but I've been using blue for aluminum and red for steel. I'll have to play with the purple stuff.

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Mig is the easiest for a novice. Years back in the 70's, I took a course at City college in San Francisco. We didn't have mig. We had gas/ acetalyne, arc, and the toughest was tig for aluminum. Problem was we had 1 teacher for 20 plus students. The biggest thing like mentioned earlier, clean your work well first. Learn the right heat settings for thickness of metal. Then develop a good technique. A u shaped weld is what your aiming for. The problem I had was they looked beautiful but wouldn't pass a tensile tester. It takes a lot of practice like any job to get good, and even more to get great. Buy a quality welder and scrap metal, and get dirty.


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I don't claim to be a welder but let me see how I learned to weld.

15 years ago I showed up to a job site to do roofing on a metal building.

Go up to the boss " I'm the new guy your buddy said you had work for me"

Boss " No work for you today.....gets a phone call during our exchange....welder just called at sick.....can you weld?

Me "Never have I done it before, sorry"

Boss " Your smart right? Figure it out and I pay you an 5 dollars an hour"

Me "I wasn't a fan of starving, so I learned"

Get some scrap metal or small sheets from Lowes or HD and start welding, play with the heat and feed speed and just get the feel of it. I'm no pro but I can tell you from experience that you can lay down a pretty bead only to find out it didn't hold, penetration is the key. You will learn to hear it as much as see it. You will be better off to start in making sure you get the penetration good even on thin metal where you might blow a hole every once and a while, it's ok, they fill in. A grinder will fix the looks of an ugly weld but a pretty weld that doesn't hold is disastrous. At least you have a good welder to start with. Now go burn some wire !!!

I've been welding for a very long time. I've had many different welders over the last 30 years. Everything from a 110v Lincoln to my Dynasty 350. I personally like Lanthanated gold or blue for aluminum and steel. Gas lens for everything. Cleaning is paramount!
Although aluminum seems to be the most difficult to learn, steel is the most difficult to master. Aluminum heat range is very obvious once you get started. The initial startup seems more difficult than steel since it's less forgiving. Steel will let you weld outside the optimum heat range and thus cooking the part is very common. Especially with 4130.


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Start them young!


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So I did a thing yesterday, I was at harbor freight picking up some stuff and they had some stuff upfront that was on sale, after 3pm they announced everything in the front of the store that was marked "as is" was now 50% off the discounted price. Long story short I picked this up for $37. With that in mind I know they aren't the greatest but I figured I could learn on this.

http://www.harborfreight.com/90-amp-ac-120-volt-flux-cored-welder-61849.html

In the past 6 months I finished welding in torque boxes, floor pans and new quarters on my '73 convertible and a Fat Man Mustang II front suspension on a '55 Chevy pickup, all with a 110V Miller 140 AutoSet. AutoSet can be your best friend. It came with a thickness gauge so you can dial in the thickness, hit AutoSet and go. The duty cycle on this unit is head and shoulders above an old Daytona MIG I have. Chances are, if you are even a novice welder, you won't outrun its capabilities for the type of work discussed on these pages.

A couple of things as a beginner or novice:
- Cleanliness. make sure the area being welded is clean and the tip and cone are as well. goes for your grounding clamp as well.
- Don't buy cheap wire
- Be mindful of dissimilar sized metals. You can burn lots of holes trying to weld thinner metals to thicker ones.
- Go slowly. Don't rush trying to lay down a 3" bead on sheetmetal. If you don't burn holes in it, there is a good chance it will warp from the heat.
- In spite of what I said about auto set, sometimes you have to twist the thickness dial due to the composition of the steel.
-Accept you will screw up. A lot...
- Use similar sourced metal whenever possible. If I am patching a Ford fender, I will cut a patch from a similar age, manuafacturer and thickness panel. I learned this by trying to weld 22 gauge modern sheetmetal onto my 1940 Ford. The old soft steel on the '40 basically turned to pudding.
- Stay away from any metal made in China. My personal opinion, based on experience buying some of those repop panels.

The Miller 140 shown above is a high value and forgiving machine. .

for the married folk...

dont let your wife know you can weld. or if she already knows. keep her off pintrist

if you have failed at both of the above welcome to the club

I attended welding training course last year and got certification in Tig welding and AWS welding. Welding is one of my passion, so I took a lot of effort to do this course. I was working as a Nuclear Engineer and I was in need of money. So I was not able to leave my job. So I somehow managed time to complete this course.