Just took up welding,
 

Well, in this passed week i tryed welding and have only about 3 hours in to it with no experience at all...
what do you guys think of my welds so far?
:)

:)

i think you need more pratice

for 3 hrs ede ur nuts thats great welding just dont push to fast or to slow and your good hey where is the paint scheme for my camaro. you told me you would do it like 6 months ago:rolleyes:

what are you using stick or mig

Oxy-Acetalene

looks nice now you just need to get a bit more time into it to help with your flow some day you will be able to get it to look real smooth and ton bumpy on the other side

For gas welding, that doesn't seem too bad visually. I'd encourage you to try a strength test on that piece, or better yet, if you have access to a saw that will cut that cleanly, see if you're getting the root of the weld filled in nicely. I don't see how you couldn't on that thin of a piece of material, but that's a general test.

I hate to say it, because I'm taking welding courses, and there's a lot of skill and practice involved, but on anything that thing, to just physically bond the metal together is not all that difficult. If you want to see how strong it really is though, that's another story. Try bending it in a vice and see if your weld holds up. One thing you do have to worry about, and you can see this on the edge of your piece, is burn through, but you seem to be doing ok on that mostly. The edges tend to be a bit more difficult because they don't have anywhere for the heat to escape usually and also because that's where the piece is generally tacked, so it gets hit from the side a lot with the torch. <shrug>

Mathius

I am curious why you are practicing with oxy.ac.? Unless you plan on doing alot of sheetmetal repair, I dont see much of a point to it. Any kind of fab. on a third gen. would usaully mean you need to use a MIG welder, unless of course you crashed your car and are replacing a quarter section.:confused:

Actually, I can see some positives with this. First off, if he gets efficient with it, it'll be good for a lot of home repairs, and it's very much like TIG welding, so it would give him a heads up on that if he wanted to advance.

Also, it's probably the cheapest way ever to be able to weld aluminum, which gives him capabilities for welding up all kinds of one-off pieces if he's ambitious enough, and patient enough with a cutoff wheel/da or hand polisher. The same could be said for stainless.

Also, _IF_ done the proper way, a regular cutting torch can cut 1" or more thick plate clean enough that you could get away with a light polish to finish it off. When was the last time you saw a piece of metal 1" thick on your car? Frame rails are only 3/16 or something, and we have unibodies, so there isn't any frame. Cutting could prove useful for a variety of rusty parts under the vehicle, or again, repairing or creating one-off pieces.

Granted, Oxy-Acetylene is still very dated, but that doesn't make it any less effective, and it's still probably the cheapest welding device out there. Those cheap $160 Harbor Freight Flux Core welders won't even run aluminum.

Mathius

OAW is great pratice for tig and cheaper too

Eh, today i just tryed over lapping, it was a bit more difficult but i got the hang of it real fast... next Friday all be MIG welding hopefully:)
as for strength testing iv done that to about every weld... i think bending them back and fourth 5 times with a pair of pliers is strong enough

I think typically, it's best to learn the lap first, then t-joint, then butt-weld. I don't really consider edge and corner to be extra joints myself, even though my book lists them. If you do them for penetration purposes, then it's bevelled and essentially becomes a v-groove which is a flat weld basically. If you don't, it's still a flat weld and has no strength. Just my opinion.

I would pick up a welding book from the library to see some of the things you need to look at visually for a bad weld. The strength test is obviously one good way, but things like undercut, porosity, etc. are things you will want to know. When you start welding on a new project, you need to look for these signs as you can't destroy your piece everytime to make sure it was a good weld ;)

Watch for undercut on your t-joints. This will look like a gouge running above the top of your weld. It can happen on the bottom too, but it's harder to do. Basically what happens is you cut into the plate, but don't hold the puddle in place long enough to fill it in. This is usually caused by moving too fast, but can also be effected by your weld temperature.

When you start on the MIG, make sure that your beads are burried into the plate on both sides of the weld. It's very common with the MIG for a new welder to lay down what is typically a good looking weld (in their own minds), but it will be "rolled" on the bottom and not actually melted into the plate. This is not a strong weld, even though it may look visually appealing to the non-welder. Usually this is caused by running too cold.

Mathius

Man!! Are you ready to take your CWI exam or have you already become a SCWI? Just kidding! Plasma cutting is best for thin metals, but using jigs, fixtures and guides for OXYFUEL cutting is very effective also. As for welding: FCAW, GMAW (which are types of "mig"), GTAW ("tig"), and OAW (oyyfuel) are the best ways to weld thin metals. Hey! try brazing. As for the testing of welds: Take a 3/16" or 1/4" thick piece of mild steel. Cut a couple of pieces 8"x6" and tack them on the ends (with the 8" sides together) as a T-joint. Use any process of welding or filler metal you want to and run a 3/16" or 1/4" fillet weld in a single pass about 6" long. You should stop-and-start at 3" to really test yourself. Then, saw a couple of inches off each end. Look at the ends for joint penetration. If you can see the root, then the "test failed". If not, put the test piece in a vice or jacking rig of some sort and do a "fillet weld break test". Press the part to break at the root, not against the face. Once the piece is broken, look at the weld. you shouldn't see the edges of the plates. Remember, penetration to the root, not necessarily beyond. (But, what do I know?). Hope this helps someone.

welcome to the club man your welds don't look half bad.

wish my welds looked that good after only 3 hours of practice.
:(

it's funny i'm a 16 year old kid and i can weld better then that when i was 14 thanx to ym awsomely gay school they had a meatles shop it's great i'm still taking it's it's been liek 3years of that class but hell thats some good welding nice job

How about quit skipping English class...:D

thats a good idea but english isn't my specilty i gusse

:doh:

Not bad for using OAW on a corner ;)

I'm actually doing about the same thing in my manufacturing class right now. Last week we used OAW to weld 2 pieces of 1" x 4" x 1/8" of mild steel and did a strength test against a solid 1" x 8" x 1/8" of the same steel and were graded based off of how close our welded pieces broke compared to the solid piece. The solid piece broke at 5400 lbs. My 2 attempts broke at 5300 and 5400, both off of the weld. I thought that was decent for a Comp Sci major after ~6hrs worth of practicing :D

Were starting SMAW welding this week :cool: