Do we have a welding thread on here?

Eddyj · Aug 16, 2015

Finally got my spool gun out and tried some aluminum. Best weld of the day. Anyone have any advice for beginner aluminum welder? Miller 180 with spool gun.

Beerj · Aug 16, 2015

Eddyj said:
Finally got my spool gun out and tried some aluminum. Best weld of the day. Anyone have any advice for beginner aluminum welder? Miller 180 with spool gun.

I don't know the first thing about welding aluminum but it looks to me like you might stand to up your voltage and travel speed a hair.
"Paging Dr. Dooder"

tyleecw · Aug 16, 2015

More heat and travel faster. Needs to be clean as possible before welding.

Practice, Practice, Practice

ih8mud34 · Aug 16, 2015

I love tig welding. Get a foot pedal for the machine instead of lift arc. You can be much more consistent.

marczuk · Aug 16, 2015

My skids on the buggy.

fl-krawler · Aug 16, 2015

I wish I could tig as good as you Jason.. I do ok with the squirt gun though

stuftmunky2k · Aug 16, 2015

some vertical up mig

Skidkid · Aug 17, 2015

Re:

Jacobmc said:
It looks good..a little more practice with the stainless and it will look better..to me stainless tig welding is really easy anod clean..I don't know why so many people make their mig welds look like stacked dimes but I was never taught that way

Sent from my HTC6500LVW using Tapatalk

My mig welds have always looked like stacked dimes since I started mig in the late 80's and stick welded and gas welded the same since the 70's. Today I build stands for robotics and they insist the welds look like stacked dimes. Only time that that changes is when we weld 3/8" and 1/2" thick stands, they get spray mig welded and those welds look like caulking. In all the years I've been welding, I've never had a weld fail so there is that.

OP, your welds look good and just keep practicing and learning. Watch YouTube videos on welding too. Some are good and some vids are not but you can weed them out. Don't let people nit pick your welds apart, most of those people could not weld as good anyway.

wont work · Aug 17, 2015

Done lots of welding but Saturday was a first for me. 1/4 copper. Scratch start tig set on 200 amps with a miller big blue 400.

This was my first weld of the day and on copper.

Elliott · Aug 17, 2015

I hope this doesn't come out wrong like im knocking on anyones work here, because that's not how its meant at all. That being said, look at the picture at the top of this page, see how it has the burned gas look on the outside of the weld, this is what I fight, I have been trying to get a gas that would not do this. Right now Im back on some tri-mix, we just went thru 70lbs of wire with it doing a factory job and I seem to like it so far but have not tried it on a cage yet. I've seen a Jimmey Smith chassis a while back and the welds were clean as anyones, with no gas marks and no wire brush marks, and I sure would like to know how that is done.

94xjsport94 · Aug 17, 2015

I thought 90/10 would give the best results for what you're looking for. I don't know if that gas was dirty or what I did but it is sad that my welds are the thumbnail images for this thread on tapatalk lol. I've used tri gas at work while welding just regular mild steel and had good results as far as the look goes but the Lincoln Power Mig 300 or whatever needs to be thrown in the woods. It auto adjusts itself to how it thinks you're welding and never puts enough heat in your work. Looks like a caterpillar is laying on 1/8" metal.

Elliott · Aug 17, 2015

If its a pulse machine then you might need different gas, I know I use 95/10 on my 456 invision machine. Ive use almost every type on my smaller mig (210 miller)
For cages it seems like .025 wire always worked better than .035 wire for appearances, my welds are strong I just want to get rid of those gassy marks.

ih8mud34 · Aug 17, 2015

i use 95/5 gas and i like spray transfer like a MF'er on my 456 invision,. and hardly get any gas spots. i know surface prep goes a long way!

stuftmunky2k · Aug 17, 2015

wont work said:
Done lots of welding but Saturday was a first for me. 1/4 copper. Scratch start tig set on 200 amps with a miller big blue 400.

This was my first weld of the day and on copper.

The trick with copper is having amperage adjustability on the fly with a pedal or hand control. Copper sucks so much heat but once you get it there need to back the heat off to flow a good puddle. I run lift arc 80% of the time but on copper fittings and aluminum i like the adjustability. I just set my machine wide open and use the pedal. Get it to puddle fast then back off the amps and let it flow. Looks good tho especially for that thick of a piece. just noticed what machine you welded it with.. all i have to say is hell ya

wont work · Aug 17, 2015

stuftmunky2k said:
The trick with copper is having amperage adjustability on the fly with a pedal or hand control. Copper sucks so much heat but once you get it there need to back the heat off to flow a good puddle. I run lift arc 80% of the time but on copper fittings and aluminum i like the adjustability. I just set my machine wide open and use the pedal. Get it to puddle fast then back off the amps and let it flow. Looks good tho especially for that thick of a piece. just noticed what machine you welded it with.. all i have to say is hell ya

True but sometimes you just gotta use what you got. No way to adjust amps with my setup and was on a time crunch. I have a bobcat 250 i put in pickup sometimes and go weld but it didnt donas well running that high of amps so the big blue had to work and the customer was very happy considering it was taking their guys 50 hrs to do one building and burning the wall and me and a friend did 3 buildings in 9.5 hrs.

On the smoked weld look joint prep before the weld is your friend. Lots of variable that could make it do that such as some you have changed. Is your wire old?

Here is my mobile setup.

94xjsport94 · Aug 17, 2015

It wasn't as clean as it could have been. You can see other BB's and stuff in it too.

mcutler · Aug 17, 2015

Quick job I did adding a winch to a goose neck trailer, not much prep done.

Shock tab on a bro lite truck

New truss on my 60 front

matt

94xjsport94 · Aug 18, 2015

That truss looks insane. Very cool.

fl-krawler · Aug 18, 2015

Elliott said:
I hope this doesn't come out wrong like im knocking on anyones work here, because that's not how its meant at all. That being said, look at the picture at the top of this page, see how it has the burned gas look on the outside of the weld, this is what I fight, I have been trying to get a gas that would not do this. Right now Im back on some tri-mix, we just went thru 70lbs of wire with it doing a factory job and I seem to like it so far but have not tried it on a cage yet. I've seen a Jimmey Smith chassis a while back and the welds were clean as anyones, with no gas marks and no wire brush marks, and I sure would like to know how that is done.

I clean every tube with a flap wheel to knock mill scale off it before I weld. The black burned area in the HAZ is actually the burned residue left from the antispatter spray I was using at the time. On clean tube all you get is the blue HAZ