240kid

my dad brought home a mig welder from work a few days ago for me to learn how to weld. I want to be able to make my own IC piping and what not b/c it will be cheaper and cooler to have done it myself. any tips on getting the thing to work is apperciated. I'm clueless. at least im trying i guess. if i cant learn it i will just go out and buy some piping........

quadnie

Practice makes perfect. First hook up your shielding gas (either 100% CO2 or 75argon/25co2), make sure the pressure is good. Find clean metal. If you have to run sand paper on everything then do it, the metal has to be clean to make perfect welds with a light duty welder. Clean the grounding area, strap on the ground clamp.

Set your controls. The power selection should be hot enough to join the metal, but not burn thru.. this might be trial and error on a scap piece. The wire rate selector you will have to play with yourself, start slow and work your way up.

Next it's time to weld, join the two piece together with C-Clamps or a vice grips, asssuming all the areas are clean with them connecting and where you're welding you may begin. Hold the tip close to the metal at a 45% angle and try pulling it along. If the wire speed is right then it will come out nicely. You're looking for a JRRRGRRRHRRRRERRRRHERRRR sound like something is getting electricuted constantly, it's hard to convey a sound over the net, but you will see and hear what is best to make a phat puddle. If the wire starts to birdnest and come back on you then lower the speed and turn up the juice. You'll know when it's making contact. Once contact is made then just direct it in a pull order at 45% and watch it pool up.

It's not that hard once u get the hang of it. Remember to secure the ground clamp and wear protection and ----, nice auto darkening mask and thick *** gloves (will be hot).. ---- I think I'm going to go weld some ---- up right now. be back later.

-ryan

EDIT: I am retracting the statement where I said "sound of bacon cooking is bad" this is a subjective statement and every scenerio is different. You will catch on when you're in the mix - not to worry. I'm not trying to point anyone in the wrong direction hear.

Cpt_chood

if it's your first time welding the 75/25 mix is a little bit easier to learn on, but not to much diffenrence, and one more thing to consider is , don't set your gas flow rate to high cause, to high of a gas flow rate can cause turblance and cause you to have bad sheilding on the weld metal........quadnie you should charge peole for welding lessons.

quadnie

no ------- ----.. i'll probably never hear back from them.

I made me some bitchin welds today on some gates I was working on out in the field.. but every day of metal working takes it's toll.. the ------- angle grinder got a piece out of my leg, looks nasty.. not much I can do when you're squating down trying to shape a piece of plate steel and the ****** jumps out of my grip and goes straight for my inner thigh. Ruined a nice pair of jeans and the wheel got trashed on cement

Not to mention all the metal shavings that are imbedded in my leg right now.. I was stupid and didn't even think anything of it and kept up doing metal work for a couple more hours.

NOSCIVIC

quad what kind of quick change is that...i got the standard jackson master and its sweet but will never fit in that kick *** hoodlum body,,,,any way i know what you mean on that grinder ---- ------- hurts i was sharping my tungsten the other day on a bench and hell W rod broke causing my 2 fingers falling right in that rock took a hella chunk out see ya

durden

i miss welding class

i'm signing up for that ---- again! i'll be the only senior in there but oh well...my extra projects can be my charge pipes and exhaust :P

quadnie

It's the jackson ECQ journeyman. I don't have it in front of me here, but it takes like an AAA battery or two. It's a standard size auto-dark lense. I had the lense already for a helmet I had lost, but I had to send the lense off for warranty repair a while ago. So I was in the market for another helmet and I always liked the hoodlum styles. I called up hoodlum and they said their shields would only fit the super thin solar powered style lenses (the kind that feed energy off the welds). I told them what I have and the basic demension and thickness. The mother ******* laughed at me and said "well you could always duct tape it in there"

I love the masks but I hate customer support. I got some of my mad skillz going on and I dremel out the mask and used bondo for reinforcement and was able to get the thing to fit in flush. Then I bought a cheap set of torch googles and used the sliding piece for the lense protection. It's not final, I was waiting for me to throw together another batch of fiberglass to mold that bitch all the way together, but I made it work just fine (I use it all the time).

So with some patience, yours might work too.

-ryan

sohcrxsi

i like to use 98% argon and 2% o2. also pushing the weld seems to work better than pulling, for me.

quadnie

pushing takes more skill.. start simple. The choice of shielding gas is all u.. I only use what they give me.

hondan00b

hey there. ive been reading this site for about 2-3 weeks now, and have finally decided to post.

but anyways... are all of you guys using mig? im currently learning tig at one of the labs here on campus. if any of you know how to weld aluminum with a tig, perhaps you can tell me what im doing wrong.

the welder is a lincoln electric (cant remember the model).
for aluminum, ive been told to put it on a/c voltage, and on the 'tip cleaning' mode. theory being that this puts more heat through the tip than through the metal. from experimenting around, it would seem that higher amperage works better since the aluminum conducts heat away so quickly.

my problem is that it takes a while to get a puddle going, and once i do, it just starts getting bigger and bigger too quickly to control. i can back off the pedal a lot, but it still gets bigger. its like the peice is getting heat soaked or soemthing. any advise? the parts in question are reasonably large peices of 1/8" 6061.