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Try using something like a pneumatic angle grinder instead of a 4 1/2 grinder. They’re much less aggressive. Takes longer, but it sounds like you could use a little slowin down anyway. Probably one reason why body shops just tack weld stuff then use seam sealer to glue it back in place. And that 3m body panel adhesive is some pretty amazing stuff. I’m pretty sure you can glue oil to water with it.
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I actually have both a 4-1/2 grinder with several wheels and a straight and angle pneumatic with various carbide cutters. I was being too aggressive. Yesterday went better but I don't think I'll ever be a fan of butt welding sheet metal. Everyone's comments have helped a lot so thanks again.Comment
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I'm going to admit something stupid knowing I could take a bunch of flak. But here goes. I have had more success with my thin sheet metal but I'm sure I'll never jump at a chance to weld more. But many of my problems have been my own, as have been addressed above. And for the benefit of others who may be in a similar situation and learning from this string, I'll bare my backside again and admit I have found another self-caused problem - my tip size. Duh, the tip size must match the wire size!! And if it doesn't? This could explain one, maybe two, of my original problems - the stubbing? And the popping?
The electrical energy to weld is transferred into the wire at the point the wire makes contact with the tip? I'm asking but thinking this is correct. And if I'm using a 030 tip for 023 wire this energy transfer is sub-optimal. Stubbing and probably a bunch of other issues.
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Not ideal I’d say. Glad you got the quirks worked out though.Comment
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So something I should have done more of first off and that was to weld light gauge sheet metal is an 'ideal' setting. So today, with the proper 0.023 tip and the 0.023 wire, I experimented with some clean metal. I didn't go back and try the 0.030 tip for comparison nor did I try welding the actual floor pan of the car, but on my 'ideal' situation, the welding went much better. I didn't get hardly any popping and the arc ran and sounded like welding. I still got the soot?? Not sure where that came from as the metal clean. As another basic, I did verify my polarity setting (positive to the wire, negative to the ground) as someone at my local General Air suggested. He indicated the weld bead would stand proud off the surface with the polarity reversed rather than laying flat to the surface. Even though my polarity is correct my bead is still plump appearing. This may be due to the technique of just spotting, moving, spotting and moving. And then coming back and repeating as fill in the spaces between the first spots. When done I end up with a line of weld bumps that make a continuous weld. So I'm not sure if the bumped up appearance is just how welds appear with the technique. Or is there something else I need to look at.Comment
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Turn the wire speed up a skosh.
An excessive stick out will also contribute to a mounded up weld.
What’s the pressure or flow rate on the shielding gas?Comment
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My current wire feed rate is 30ipm. The gas flow rate is roughly 18-20cfh I don't have a pressure gauge on down-stream side of the regulator.Comment
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30 ipm? That can’t be right. It’ll be WAY higher than that.
The WFS is how you control the amperage. More speed, more punch. A lot of times it’s counter intuitive when our weld is piling up and looking like a rope laying on top of the metal, we think that the WFS is clearly too high, but it’s the opposite. You have to increase the speed to drive the weld metal in.
Thin sheet metal is tough to do well, so without being there, it’s hard for me to see what’s what, so generally speaking, you should turn up the WFS and then play with the voltage to dial it in.
Also maybe try bumping the gas up a little and see if that takes the nasty out.Comment
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We get this a lot. The dial is misleading. It's like a volume dial. The numbers don't mean anything in units. It's just 10-100 to give you something to index it with.Originally posted by dbsoccer51 View PostComment
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Good to know. Thanks. I'll try and bump UP the feed rate. I've found welding thin sheet metal is a humbling process.
It's much harder to make holes in 1/4" crs. Make no mistake, I can still create a mess but it just won't be from filled in holes.
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You are using .023 wire, right?Comment
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