What do you think? seems to be fairly strong but obviusly not pretty.

Biggest problem i ave is not being able to see through the welding helmet until the arc starts and by then the tip was in the wrong place

 

Eeeeep... lol Welding sheet metal with an arc welder is hard enough anyways though :P Try holding the electrode with your left hand so it doesnt move when you flip your lid down with your head.

 

I was using a MIG welder

 

Oh... lol Well, hold the gun with your left hand then :P

 

use both hands to control the gun, and jerk your head to get the mask to fall over your face then start.

it looks a hell of a lot better than my first try...

 

Hey thanks,

I seem to be able to get the tip in the right starting place now but then it goes all wrong when i pull the trigger. I seem to be able to lay pretty good beads when just welding right onto the flat sheet but when i am trying to join two peices i just cant seem to get the tip in the right position, i always seem to miss the seem

 

Get better lighting.

 

start with some 1/8 inch plate it will be easier to learn with.lossen the adjusters on the sides of the helmet will make it flip down easier when u move ur head, so u dont move the mig gun away from were u wanna be

 

I have all the same problems as you. It's way easier with a torch because you can see stuff with the light of the flame.

Anyway if you see a deal on those electric, auto dimming masks, BUY IT.

 

i was in metal shop my freshman year in high school. my first tig welds looked like that. keep practicing, you'll get better. also looks like you had the tip too far away from the metal(splatter) get it closer and weave the bead together.

 

The metal i am practising on is 22ga.. is the sheet metal on my camaro thicker or thinner than this?

I have been practising a lot htis afternoon, still can't quite get it spot on, i have been getting a lot of blow through when trying to butt weld, my lap welds have been slightly better but very ugly...

 

i took a welding class and entered a tech challange two years ago at Northwestern Technical College and out of 60 people i came in first, but my first weld, well lets just say third degree burns on my leg didnt feel good! when you weld, its usually not flat on flat fabric, take a grinder and angle your peices, make a V sorta, put them together and lay a "bead" in the V.

Doesnt it seem that welding has the seem effect as trying to **** in a toilet when your hammered??

 

When welding sheet metal with a mig, you need to take it easy on the heat. A technique that works very well for me is kinda like stitching. Weld a quarter inch,, then wait for the glowing red metal to almost go out and weld another quarter inch. This will keep you from blowing through or warping the metal, once you get the hang of it. Also it does not take much of a welder to create a good weld using this technique, since you are running it in short bursts.

 

yeah practicing will really help. first time i tried welding i couldn't understand why it looked like such crap, then i noticed i hadn't turned the gas on. gas makes things so much smoother. if you can leave a good bead without gas you'll have no problem with the gas. lol and those auto dimming masks are amazing too! just real expensive

 

If you plan on doing a lot of welding, get an auto-dim mask. Yes, they are expensive, but worth it! My welds at work, with the auto-dim helmet, are better than my home welds. At least, the start points. They are amazing to use.

Remember, don't weld in a straight line. Weave back and forth, in small arcs. Stitching. Very slight overlap. Not a straight line.

22 gauge is too thin to learn on. Get some 1/8" to 3/16", learn, then go thinner as you learn. 1/4" would require a strong MIG, sometimes double passes. MIG on such thin sheetmetal, is hard to prevent blow-through.

 

Instead of running a straight bead on the thin stuff >20ga. I usually "touch and go" around the panel. Tack the top, tack the bottom, tack one side, tack the other, rinse and repeat. If I were doing a lap or butt weld I would tack each side, then the middle, then split the distance between and repeat.

This technique really helps to keep the heat affected zone to a minimum size, and blow through wont occur quite as quickly.

 

Thanks for the advice guys, i was really struggling with getting the weld started so doing tiny little blasts wasnt getting me much experience with what i am looking for (weld puddle, my aim) etc.. I'm off to Vegas tonight but will do some more practicing when i get back

Are the cheapo auto darkening helmets on Ebay any good? They are solar powered which bothers me but would be ok if they recharge via the welding arc.. Is that true or do they need dirct sunlight?

Cheers,
Richard.

 

Looks like my first weld. lol. I was welding up my exhaust pipes, so I didn't really care that the welds were ugly. If you're going to get into a lot of welding you might want to invest in an autodarkening lense for your welding helmat. they're expensive, but worth it. I think I paid almost $300 for mine. I've never used a solar one, but I've also never heard anything bad about them. mine runs on a 9 volt battery.

 

i do it the same way!! works great!

 

Ooh, this is my kind of thread! Technical, and learning. ahh...

The ones that recharge from light - not sunlight, WELDING LIGHT. Got a lot more energy in that bright stuff eh? Weld a bit and it's recharged.

I have a $50 auto-dimming one from harbor freight. And i've yet to try it out (keep popping the breaker in my garage...)
I'd get one of those. Or like mentioned, hold the gun with both hands, resting your wrist on the piece to be welded, to steady your hands. Make sure everything is in the right place, then shake your head to drop the helmet and pull the trigger. If the plate is thick enough this will work, but if it's ultra thin and you're learning (as you've probably experience by the time you're reading this), by the time the welding helmet has fallen over your eyes, your eyes readjust to the lighting and focus on the distance of the work, you've already blown through Gotta be moving before you can even see it... Or get the auto-dimming helmet

For that thin thin stuff, buy a piece of copper sheet. Use your vicegrips to clamp it on, so that it's behind the metal. That'll act as a heat sink, as well as keep the metal from blowing through. Makes it virtually fool proof. You can't "accidentally" weld the copper to the steel.

Your weld - at some places it looks ok. You want to make sure it's not "round". It should melt into the piece a bit more, it looks kinda tall in places. Needs more heat, or slower wire speed.

Also, people told me "you can't weld dissimilar metals, ie, AL to Steel". I trusted them, but I wanted to know to what extent. Ie, will it weld but it won't stick very well, or...? So I had to try. It's a fun experiment that you have to try for yourself before you really believe it. It's like water off a ducks back, kinda cool. Except the water is melting steel, and the duck is the AL piece

 

MIG will never look as good as TIG IMO.

 

Thanks man, this was the kind of advice i was looking for. I will try slowing the wire speed to start with :-)

Cheers,
Richard.