# Todays welds



## Charley Davidson (Mar 20, 2013)

Made some welding horses at work today.    Settings were 28.2 volts, wire feed 670, gas 90/10


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## Ray C (Mar 20, 2013)

I've only MIG'd once, not enough to get an idea if I like it or not.  How's it working for you?


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## Charley Davidson (Mar 20, 2013)

Love it, need more practice and guidance


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## xalky (Mar 21, 2013)

Hey Charley; For tips on settings use the Miller App thats listed in the sticky at the top of this welding section. I've found the settings to be better than anything I've come up with on my own, and I've been mig welding for 25yrs part time. You can tweak from there. There's also an online version that you can use on your computer.

I've found Mig to be the easiest to learn and the most productive process ever invented. It's quick and easy compared to tig. The trickiest part is getting the settings right, but with that app, it takes all the guess work out of it. Also Jodi over at weldingtipsandtricks.com has a slew of videos on mig welding that are very informative. http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/Mig-welding-tips.html

Getting a good ground is also key to getting nice consistent welds. Theres a little trick about using fine stranded copper wire to sandwich between the ground clamp and the work piece to get a superior ground to just the ground clamp alone. It works great and now i have a couple of those stranded wire pieces hanging around that i use all the time. It makes a world of difference, because you get hundreds of grounding points rather than the one or two that you get with a clamp alone.


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## brasssmanget (Mar 21, 2013)

Those look pretty good to me. Admittedly, I'm a very novice welder and know very little at this point. I watched many of the clips mentioned above recently, and it looks easy in those. I guess a lot of practice is in order here! Nice work.


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## arvidj (Mar 21, 2013)

Charley Davidson said:


> Made some welding horses at work today.    Settings were 28.2 volts, wire feed 670, gas 90/10



At that voltage and 90/10 gas I am assuming it was spray transfer. If that assumption is correct I would have expected them to look more like the first and fifth photo ... without ripples or very little ripple ... than the others.

Unless you were purposely going for the "MIG like TIG, stack of dimes" look )

Not that any of them look bad. They all look like they will get the job done. Just an observation.


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## Ulma Doctor (Apr 20, 2013)

nice squirtin' it gets even better the more you squirt!:welding:
you can roll out a lot of weld in a short amount of time.


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## Gary Max (Apr 20, 2013)

Wish my welds looked that good Charley-------- just haven't put in enough hours welding yet.


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## LEEQ (Apr 20, 2013)

Looks pretty nice. Just an opinion, though. If my weld was looking like that I would slow down just a half a touch. If I started seeing undercutting I would back off the heat a little then. Sometimes when I weld something unfamiliar I set up a test. When I like the look and feel of the weld I will take a hydraulic press/jack to it and see how it holds under the extreme force. It should bend more than break/tear. You get to see penetration that way too when you finally kill it. The easiest welding I have ever done was on 480v mig. It was set up with flux core wire AND mix gas. The slag peeled up like a catapillar when things were right. It would make a tink tink tink a little behind the weld as you went along. That sound meant A OK. It also had no ripples to the weld wether or not you moved the tip. (half moons or whatever) Happy welding! It brings me peace


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## Tony Wells (Apr 20, 2013)

Not bad, Charley. Sometimes, whenever you get curious, weld up a tee section and then saw it across the section and mill then grind the surface flat, then lap and polish the surface and you will get some idea of the penetration you're getting. You'll be able to see the difference between the weld bead and the base metal. With those settings, I'd expect you did fine on penetration there.


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## jpfabricator (Apr 20, 2013)

Gary Max said:


> Wish my welds looked that good Charley-------- just haven't put in enough hours welding yet.



The easiest way to make nice welds is to get a good hood. If you cant see your welds you cant weld. Pick up a variety of diffrent shade filters, and a box of clear lenses. Try experimenting with the diffrent shades and see what you come up with. I worked for a pipeline welder who had diffrent hoods and lenses for diffrent jobs.


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## Charley Davidson (Apr 20, 2013)

I can't see period!!!!!! Blind as a bat but have found keeping my lens clean really helps and my reading glasses work better than cheaters. My most difficult weld is a but weld, just can't see the joint so welding fast is definitely out in that area. 

I purposely made those welds with the stack of dimes look if you just go straight it is a very smooth weld.

On another note, they just fired a guy for welding down hill


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## GK1918 (Apr 21, 2013)

Charley Davidson said:


> I can't see period!!!!!! Blind as a bat but have found keeping my lens clean really helps and my reading glasses work better than cheaters. My most difficult weld is a but weld, just can't see the joint !
> 
> 
> Friday a job came in from the plant we do all their shop work  Its a big big alum intercooler, I think,
> ...


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## Tim655 (Apr 22, 2013)

The secret is practice, practice and then practice more


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## November X-ray (Apr 22, 2013)

Charley Davidson said:


> On another note, they just fired a guy for welding down hill



I have to ask, why was that? Of course there should be a written procedure detailing the weld parameters, but most pipelines are welded "downhill"!


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## Charley Davidson (Apr 22, 2013)

November X-ray said:


> I have to ask, why was that? Of course there should be a written procedure detailing the weld parameters, but most pipelines are welded "downhill"!




Not allowed in structual steel work unless it.s stick plus he had been told not to and did it anyway


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## November X-ray (Apr 22, 2013)

Must be working in AWS D1.1 code, and yep, once your told not to do it and you continue to do it, you should get run off!!!


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## Charley Davidson (Apr 22, 2013)

he wasn't know it all that had been there for over a year the longest person there and it done several things he was told not to do and did them anyhow.


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## November X-ray (Apr 22, 2013)

Charley Davidson said:


> he wasn't know it all that had been there for over a year the longest person there and it done several things he was told not to do and did them anyhow.



Hmmm, then I think about myself and how we are told not to eat to much but I still do, or not to drive to fast but I still do, etc, etc. Old habits are hard to break and sometimes it takes drastic measures to help you break the bad habits! Now I wonder what's for dinner!


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## burnrider (Apr 30, 2013)

jpfabricator said:


> The easiest way to make nice welds is to get a good hood. If you cant see your welds you cant weld. Pick up a variety of diffrent shade filters, and a box of clear lenses. Try experimenting with the diffrent shades and see what you come up with. I worked for a pipeline welder who had diffrent hoods and lenses for diffrent jobs.



Great point- You can have 30 years of experience wiped out with a pair of lousy glasses or a dirty lens.


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## sniggler (May 2, 2013)

Charley Davidson said:


> Not allowed in structual steel work unless it.s stick plus he had been told not to and did it anyway



I do structural steel D1.1 building code and D1.5 bridge code D 1.8 earthquake. Pretty much all our stick welding is all done with lo-hydrogyn electrodes 7018, 8018 & 9018. We do use a lot of wire feeders with flux core, and dual shield wire with Co2 gas. It is all run up-hill as a rule. Pipe and tube in structural welding are run up-hill by tradition rather than by code. For heavy wall rectangular tube the code says it can be welded any direction the welder is qualified for. I only know this because i was welding on a job where we had a large amount of diagonal bracing which was 1/2 inch wall 8"x8" attached slotted top and bottom so the slot swallowed 5/8 or 3/4 plate the weld spec was a 3/8 but the was very often a gap of up to 3/8 so with a gap you have to add the width of the gap to the final fillet 3/8 gap = 3/4 fillet. Anyway we were using flux core wire 5/64 lincoln Innershield® _NR_®-_212. _I  look up the wire parameters just to see what lincoln recomended. 

NR-212 is an extremely versatile wire. Weld in any position, on a wide range of materials including coated steel. Not recommended for vertical up. 

I found I could fill gaps of up to 1/4"running down hill very quickly so I just went with it turning the voltage and the speed way up making mutli-pass welds that had nice uniform cosmetics. So one inspecter says to the super I think he's running down hill. Big stink he wants to lay me off maybe but i was giving him more production than anyone of the other 25 welders. The company had to bring out the code and show the inspector that tube can be welded in any direction for which the welder is qualified, i kept my trap shut and brought in lincoln's paperwork quoted above i knew there was no way the company would show that to the inspectors because it would flip the whole thing. all the other welders were welding up. So i had to weld up no big deal i fill the gaps going down and finished the welds off going up I was the last welder on the job nothing trumps production.

Ironically nr 212 is the same wire lincoln sells in tiny spools for the little 110 wire feeders

Bob


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## jgedde (May 2, 2013)

jpfabricator said:


> The easiest way to make nice welds is to get a good hood. If you cant see your welds you cant weld. Pick up a variety of diffrent shade filters, and a box of clear lenses. Try experimenting with the diffrent shades and see what you come up with. I worked for a pipeline welder who had diffrent hoods and lenses for diffrent jobs.



That statement is about as true as it gets!  

Case in point: For may years I had a cheapo auto-darkening welding helmet.  It worked, but was too dark and had a pitiful response time.  So bad, I'd be flashed whenever I started the arc.

I recently got a Kimberly-Clarke helmet with lightning fast response time and adjustable shade...  My welds improved literally instantaneously!

Task lighting is also very important.  Don't rely on the arc to illuminate your work.  

John


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## oldgoaly (May 2, 2013)

Charlie they look good from here! your speed (your gun movement) looks perfect! only thing I'd like to see is the penetration, that it is hot enough to melt the base metal not just sitting on top of the metal. A journeyman tinner told me welders, are always the minimum on the ground clamp when new, if you upgrade you ground clamp your welds will be better now this was 30 years ago, and all the welders that I have had only the Tigs haven't been upgraded, they are pretty stout already.  I regret not asking why but when they told you stuff ya had better listen and do it! Cleaning the ground clamp from time to time makes for better welds. Do you notice the ground clamp getting warm even though your not welding near it? that is probably a sign the  ground clamp maybe causing you some trouble.


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## sniggler (May 2, 2013)

Charlie,

To me it looks like too much voltage for the wire speed there is some skip  where the weld washes into the base metal. The amperage adjustment on a constant voltage power machine is the wire speed more speed = more amps to sweet spot for mig with bare wire is probably at the high end of short circuit. It seems like your puddle is too elongated (either too high travel speed or to much voltage) you can round the puddle up a bit by push back into it a little as you go. Its nice if some one can adjust the speed for you as you weld, you keep a constant travel speed and stick out start a bit low on the speed and turn it up until it is crackling along just right.

Bob



This is a weld from my previous post about downhill welds you can see the progression of welding down to fill the gap and up to cap.


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## sniggler (May 2, 2013)

Welding helmets: I have used several auto helmets the best I had was a miller elite they all broke, one fell in a puddle below a column i was welding another got smashed into an angle an cracked the lens it still worked but not right. I used the cheap 23$ Chinese auto lenses from ebay and they worked fine although the color was a bit odd. I concluded that for field use the company issue fibermetal standard welding hood with the flip up lens for chipping and grinding is the most durable. It goes without saying that the lenses should be clean and the cover lenses need to be replaced once they get scuffed up. You don't need a 300 dollar hood to weld.

I have a miller elite with the hepa filter air pack but the safety guys on my last job said no go because it need to be attached to a hard hat speedglas makes one with a hard hat. I try to where a respirator for all heavy welding. The air helmet was great because the air has a defogging effect, when you put a rubber respirator under a welding hood with safety glasses on you get instant fog on the glasses. 

Grounding: We use c-clamp type bronze ground clamps, when ever thing aren't going check the ground first grind the spot you ground to the ground cable should be up to job current you're putting through it. Loose connections get hot and take the temper out of their springs. Welding cable getting hot means its damaged or under sized. 

Bob


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