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Need some advice. Is it a good or bad?
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Yes.Professional Auto Mechanic since 1974
My own shop since 1981
Cya Frank -
need some opinions bout my weld..
Cut strips and break it. What process and position? Travel looks to be fast.
KevinComment
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A T-joint vertical wit 3/32 7018 rods @ 80 amps.Comment
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need some opinions bout my weld..
Spend more time on the edges, let them fill, less time in the middle.
KevinComment
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I turn the pics in the position they were welded in, I like 85A for this. Many are sick of this same pic but yo9u can see the fist pass vert in it. No weave at all.Comment
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Need to work on fillin in on the restarts IMO
When you drag back, let it sit a little longer and you'll get a more even transition.Comment
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For the weld pictured below, if you really want an accurate critical opinion you'll have to provide a better pic than this. It looks like you were in a dark test booth and pulled out your phone from your pocket to take the pic.
The pic isn't very clear but it looks like you started out fine. The first half inch or so has a nice profile and is fairly consistent. Then you had a stop/start which was also not too bad but from there it looks like you started to weave wider, then narrower and take progressivley larger 'steps'. It also looks like you began to slow down as you swept through the middle and did not pause as long at the edges as you did when you first started. Consistency equals pretty. That's the first rule of welding. It doesn't have to be perfect to look pretty but it should be consistent. Big steps or little steps won't matter as long as they're all they same.
I like to have a song in my head while I weld. I'm a guitarist so music comes naturally to me but I find if I have a song playing in my head it helps me to keep a steady rhythm in my weave. I also try to breath through my stomach instead of my chest. If my belly goes in and out while I breathe it prevents my shoulders from rising and falling as I breathe. Then my arms are not affected by the moving of my shoulders. I don't even think about it now. I just do those things naturally out of habit. Also when doing a vert you should try not to weave straight across. Rather try to arc your path slightly higher across the middle and then come back down at the side for your pause. Not a lot higher. Maybe a 16th or so. Go a little higher to about an 8th when burning stainless and whip across the middle just a little faster. This upside-down U-weave is even more important if your vert is slanted slightly towards the overhead, like say ... a 20 to 45 degree overhead vert. Anything more than 45 degrees and I weld it like a regular overhead.
This one below looks a little better. It's not perfect, the profile has some variations but the width is more consistent so it looks prettier. The only suggestion I have is to leave your chipping hammer in the tool box. The dings in the weld hurt the weld's appearance. See pic below.
In this pic (below) you see a standard weldor's file. A 12" half round bass-tard. (spelling to avoid the forum censors)
I take one of these over to the bench vise and clamp it very, very lightly such that the tang is pointed up and there's about 4 or 5 inches of length below the top of the vise jaws. I grasp the file with a gloved hand and jerk it towards me snapping the file at the top of the vise jaw. I now have two pieces of a broken file. One has about 7 or 8 inches of file length (plus the tang) and the other is about 4 or 5 inches long. The short piece I take to a bench grinder and clean up the broken end so it's not sharp anymore. If I am working with a fitter or a team of fitters doing tacking on heavy steel, I'll hold the short piece in my left hand with the round side against my fingers and the flat side exposed in my palm. Between tacks I'll use the flat side of this short piece of file to gently rotate the burned rod end on the file and carve a new factory bevel on the end of my rod stub so I get a nice 'brand-new-rod' shape on the end of the rod which gives me a smooth arc strike with no sticking or stray arc strikes.
The larger piece of the file, I also take to the bench grinder but I do this job much more carefully when I have some free time. What I do is grind a bevel on the broken end so it looks like a wood chisel. (the flat side has the sharpened edge) I dip it in water every 5 or 10 seconds or so of grinding to avoid losing the temper and hardness in the file. It's a slow and tedious process because of all the water dipping but when you're done if you didn't wreck the temper you'll have the perfect slag removal tool. It's WAY better than a chipping hammer. WAY better. You just gently drag that sharpened chisel edge (corner) along the sides of your weld, not down the middle, along the edges of the weld. You don't bang it or hammer it. You just gently drag the very sharp edge along the edge of the weld and the slag just falls off all by itself. It is so much faster than chipping and it doesn't leave any dints in the cap of your weld. Plus, the sharpened chisel edge of the file is the perfect spatter removal tool as well. Just rub that flat chiselled edge back and forth over your spatter and it falls off easy as pie. Now the only reason to even use the wire brush is to remove the smoke cuz that's all that's left.Last edited by Matrix; 09-30-2012, 01:49 AM.Comment
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Great advice about the file. Thanks for sharing.Miller syncrowave 200 runner with coolmate 4
and wp2025 weldcraft torch
Miller 125c plasma cutterComment
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The only suggestion I have is to leave your chipping hammer in the tool box. The dings in the weld hurt the weld's appearance. See pic below.
Amen on that, and if you have those dings on lower passes, if they get X Rayed, they will look like some sort of defect......great advice on the file......More Spark Today PleasesigpicComment
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Anyone figure they are going to xray that rusty old plate? haComment
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About the last weld pic I can remember was by drpipe. Here we got some newbies that take a couple pics and one old fart part timer such as myself happend to have half a dozen shots on a file, most of which I hadnt intended on taking pic at the time and none from all the golden arms on this board. We do have a picture of someone elses file though.Last edited by Sberry; 10-01-2012, 07:13 AM.Comment
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You need to gain more skill in welding the edges. Subsequently bring refinement in the process. Comment
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that plate is actually part of NASA's new launch facility here at the Cape for the new space program....Originally posted by Sberry View PostMore Spark Today PleasesigpicComment
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