92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

I just wanted to get some people's opinions and feedback on my welding. I've mostly been doing sheet metal welding for body patches on my Camaro, and I think they've turned out good. I'd like to start fabricating some pieces for the car from thicker stock, like a STB, subframe connectors, etc, but I'm not sure my welding skills are up to the task.

Last night I laid down the first 2 welds on the welding cart I've been wanting to build since I got the welder. These 2 pics show both sides of one joint, i'll add the pics of the second joint in the next post.

I have been learning this on my own through practice and Google, but I've never been able to find a good pic of what the back side of a good butt weld should look like. I'm using a 110v MIG welder with .035" Lincoln Electric wire, and these are on 1/8" thick steel. The welder says it can do up to 3/16" steel. I beveled both sides of the joint slightly before welding. It looks like I probably got enough heat in the metal, but I'm not sure the penetration is what it should be. Any help/guidance/feedback is appreciated.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Pics of the second weld joint.

midias

Does not look like you are getting full penetration. Maybe a bit more heat.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

That's what I was thinking. As I said, I've never seen what the back side of a butt weld should look like. I assume it should look like the top of the weld, only smaller. But still look like one continuous piece of metal.

I had the voltage **** up the whole way on those welds, although I thought I moved through them kinda fast. If I slow down my movement across the seam it should put more heat into it, right?

midias

You can also weld both sides

Read
http://www.twi.co.uk/technical-knowl...gn-part-3-092/

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

In this case, yes I can weld both sides. However, it's not always possible to do that so I want to make sure I can get a good weld on parts that I can see the back side so that I will know if I've got a good weld on parts where the back side is not accessible.

Thanks for the link, that's the kind of pics I've been looking for.

redneckjoe

i dont think it looks too bad. a lil more heat, move a lil slower, keep you beads closer together. you got it. its all in practice.
heres a site that might help?
http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/

i personally like welding and consider it an art form, lol.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

That weld looks great! I'm not looking for that kind of perfection, as most of my welds will never be seen as I'm looking to do mostly chassis/suspension pieces or they will be ground flush for paint/powdercoat.

I'll check that link out more when I get home from work. Looks like its got lots of useful stuff on there. Already found a couple ideas to try just from a quick browse-through.

I'm really liking welding, and finding myself wishing I had gotten into it sooner.

1BADRZ28

iTrader: (2)

I would bevel the ends you are but welding together with a small gap between the pieces you are joining.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

When you say "bevel the ends", do you mean to grind the bevel through the entire thickness of the metal? I did bevel the ends of the pieces in those pics, but I only went about halfway through them with the bevel.

On the gap, the width depends on the thickness of the metal right? I usually have some sort of gap between pieces, just because I can never cut straight. But its not much of a gap, and the width varies with the contours of the cut. And there is no gap in some places of course.

406TPI

iTrader: (1)

Judging by those pics you need to slow down your wire feed a touch, but not bad. Your penetration is fine.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Just wanted to say "Thank You!" for that link!!. I followed the suggestion of cutting down the shroud so the tip sticks out a little past instead of being recessed down inside and its like a totally different welder! I actually burned through the 1/8" steel while welding one of the corners on the cart frame tonight. My welder never was able to do that before, even if I was intentionally trying to do it.

I did have to make some adjustments to my technique after cutting it as I got the tip stuck to the metal a couple times before I got used to it.

oil pan 4

iTrader: (1)

Is that bed frame you are welding together there?

redneckjoe

your welcome. glad it helped. its a pretty cool site. you'll be a pro in no time.

fasteddi

iTrader: (2)

For a mig its hard to get some really good penetration on thicker metal but you seem to be making some pretty decent ones. Are you using the gas on the mig or just influx wire? Don't be scared to turn up the amps more. As long as your not burning holes. which you wont in that type of metal, then your going to get good penetration.

If your looking into welding some metal that will have to handle some force then I would try a beveled joint. Basically grind down a 35-40 degree angle edge on the metal that will be jointed together. Then what you can do is set a gap in there. The gap should be just a hair more then the width of wire your are using. What your looking to do is literly fill the gap from the bottom up. You have the option to just weld each side on the butt weld(double V butt weld) but if theres a time when you cant do both sides, having a good gap will allow you to literly jam that wire into the gap so that you can weld the metal from the inside out. Make a root pass, then you can lay down your hot pass or final pass after you clean up the slag off the welds. The more surface area you can weld on the passes the better exspecially when its the vertical metal.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Part of it is. The piece with the paint on it is an old bed frame. The other pieces are just regular angle steel from Lowes.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

I'm using gas with regular mig wire. I've used the flux core wire before, but don't really like it on anything except exhaust pipe. It worked really well for the pipe on my truck. Most of my welding is done in my garage which is under the house and open to the basement and I don't want the fumes from the flux in my house with the kids.

I did bevel the ends a bit, but only about halfway through the pieces.

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Bedframe is pretty finicky to weld. It's higher carbon than carbon steel making it prone to cracking and other problems. Stay away from it for structural parts.

The biggest problems I'm seeing are signs of porosity/weld contamination (you need to clean/prep/fit your joints better), you need to work on keeping your travel speed and feed ange more even (that kind of weld and welder your gun angle should never go more than 15* off perpendicular in the line of the weld and less than that to the sides) and it looks like getting your head in there so you can see what is happening in the weld puddle would help (it looks like sometimes you hit the center of yor bevel and sometimes your hitting solid base metal on the side). Try setting everything up and the run through the motions or running the bead without doing it- make sure that you can traverse the whole thing steadily w/o having to stop/reset and that you can do the whole thing while guiding it w 2 hands (preferably with at least one resting on something) and can see the tip of the filler wire the whole time. Most welds will not setup that perfectly but the better they do the better they'll be and that will give you a feel for how things feel when they're right and wrong so eventually you'll be able to run as nice a weld in an awkward position or in a blind spot.

That said. I'd say not bad if you clean things up and get rid if the bed frame. Besides the changes that I suggest it looks like you can use a little more heat or a slightly bigger gap/bevel mostly to get the bead to lay down flatter but what you have is workable for that kind of application.

oil pan 4

iTrader: (1)

Bed frame is good steel, it has a higer carbon content and is all around harder than mild steel you pick up at lowes.
I find cheap bed frames on CL or FB yard sale for my projects, its cheaper than buying the steel from the store and its stronger.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

83 Crossfire TA - The pieces were ground to clean metal on the top and along what would be the inner edge of the joint. Should I have ground down the underside as well to prevent contamination?

Are you saying I should stay more on top of the seam to be welded as opposed to going as far to each side of it? And that would help penetration as well I assume?

As for the bed frame, this is the only piece I had, it was in a box of crap steel I picked up for free. Seeing as its just part of the framework the welder will sit on, it won't really see any stresses other then the weight of the welder itself.

I've always had trouble keeping the arc visible, that's one of the things that cutting down the shroud helped with. I feel like I can actually see what I'm doing now. I think another big part of my problem is that the wire is always "hot". Fixing that is the next thing I won't to do to the welder that I think will help me a lot.

redneckjoe

if your just learning to weld,...try forcing yourself to weld right and left handed. it will pay off later. trust me,...especially around pipe/tubing.

anobii

A weld doesn't have to look good to be a good strong weld. The "row of nickels" is purely cosmetic and something you pick up over time. If your starting out, focus on penetration, heat control, and overall strength. Technique come with experience.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

I'm not worried about pretty welds. Any ugly welds that will be seen by others I can always grind smooth and paint or powdercoat over. I just want to make sure I'm doing it right, I understand what I'm doing, and the welds are strong enough to hold up.

Mathius

Two things:

As other's said, poor penetration. Did you gap the pieces or just butt them together? A proper butt weld should either be gaped or beveled. The thinner the material, the better to just gap it than try to waste your time beveling already thin metal. On thick enough material you should see a "key hole" effect when running longer beads where you know you're filling in your weld to the other side.

The other thing is, as 83 Crossfire TA said, bed frames are often a crap shoot as to steel content and you're welding 1/8" material. While I applaud your efforts to learn how to weld, I just want you to understand that the welding you're doing on those bed frames is not going to do much to prepare you to weld on your car. Most of what you're welding will be 20 gauge or thinner, where you're at best going to be doing some short stitch welds, but more likely going to be tack welding more than anything else.

I would get some thinner materials and practice plug welds, tack welds, and running small stitch welds then come back and practice filling them in.

Oh... one more thing... your comment about pretty welds... Welds don't have to be "pretty" but even a beautiful weld still has to have proper penetration and no undercut, or it doesn't matter if you grind it smooth, you're still going to have holes or weak points.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

The pieces in the pics above were beveled about halfway through the thickness of the steel and butted together with no gap.

As for the bed frame, it was just a scrap piece I had hat happened to be the right size for this project(welding cart). Anything I do for my Camaro will be done with regular mild steel.

I can already do tack welds, plug welds, and stitch welds. Those were the first types I learned since I had to do a lot of body work on the car when I first got it. And as you pointed out, they will be the most common types of welds done on a car. I want to move up to thicker material now so I can start fabbing suspension pieces and subframes for the car.

I realize "ugly" welds still need to be sound with good penetration. My point was just that I want to learn to put down good welds for now and that I'll work at making them pretty afterwards.

As for the contamination and porosity, do those come from sources other than not cleaning the materials thoroughly? Like if the welding tip is dirty or I'm moving the gun to fast for example?

Primetime91

iTrader: (15)

Porosity either comes from hydrocarbons, in other words welding over anything that's not the base metal, or from lack of shielding gas and the weld reacts with the atmosphere.

If your nozzle, tip or diffuser get spatter on them and clog up, having too much "push" angle, or having too much distance from the nozzle to the weld can all cause porosity from poor gas coverage. Having the right flow rate is important too, too high or low will cause problems.