satin coat sucks

[HotKarl420]

dear god please... anyone know of any and i mean any other way to get a spatter free bead welding 12 or 16 Ga satin coat???? laps tee's and corners are the typical joints that need to be welded.
i have been advised to just "grind" off the top layer of coating but in reality that is just not possible in some of the applications that are needed.

[aametalmaster]

For those of us that don't know what satin coat is...Bob

Galvanneal / LZC / Satin coat /Wipe coat

After the galvanizing process and while the zinc is still in liquid form, the steel is annealed by passing the material through a furnace. Once the material is annealed, the coating becomes an iron-zinc alloy rather than a free zinc coating as in Galvanized material. This process provides a smoother matt finish, which improves adhesion for painted applications. Many Galvanneal products are painted after fabrication. Galvanneal material offers more corrosion resistance then cold rolled material, and improved spot-weldability over Galvanized material. The baked zinc coating on Galvanneal material is harder than Galvanized material, which makes it extremely scratchresistant. Agway uses ZF75 Coating weight to insure a long life of the product. The cost of Galvanneal material is less then Galvanized material.

Galvanneal material conforms to the general requirements of ASTM A-653/653M

[gnforge]

satin coat sucks

Thanks Bob I had no clue

[Meltedmetal]

Physical barrier over the areas where you don't want spatter? Spot weld?

[aametalmaster]

Some pics of the parts would be nice. I have an idea but not going to say something until i know for sure what you are working on...Bob

['Stang]

dear god please... anyone know of any and i mean any other way to get a spatter free bead welding 12 or 16 Ga satin coat???? laps tee's and corners are the typical joints that need to be welded.
i have been advised to just "grind" off the top layer of coating but in reality that is just not possible in some of the applications that are needed.

If you are welding galvanized-you are going to get spatter! Mask the surrounding
areas and deal with it. It is the nature of the beast. I hate galvanized!! I had to tig some galvanized some time back. Constantly had to grind my tungsten from all the spatter.

[JSFAB]

Thanks for the explanation, Bob. I have some of this lying around, but I was told it was sandblasted galvanized. From your description, it is exactly what I have. It has been lying around for 15 or 20 years, and not a speck of rust.

To the OP: Try using 100% CO2. While this will normally spatter more on plain mild steel, it will spatter less and give you better welds on anything with zinc in it, versus 75/25.

Also, if you can clean the parts afterwards, consider using anti-spatter spray on the parts before welding.

Keep the nozzle clean. Dirty nozzles create turbulence in the gas flow, which adds to spatter.

Do post pics of what you are working on, sounds like Bob has a few ideas.

[aametalmaster]

I was a union sheet metal worker a few times and we used all of the exotic coated steels. And the boss wanted the welded area to look good too. Most of the time it was a real pain to get a good weld and make it look nice and being real thin metal didn't help either. But we did run CO2 and .025 wire...Bob

[Portable Welder]

aametalmaster, Thanks for technical info.

[USMCPOP]

Some technical info on galvanneal:

http://galvinfo.com/ginotes/GalvInfoNote_1_3.pdf