Ok Those welds are crap. LOL sorry man but here is what you need to do IMO Where your gusset hooks into the flat stock you see how your weld is sitting completly on the gusset? thats no good you need to have eqaul ammounts of weld on both pieces. Since this is kinda a Lasy T type weld This is what I would do but again everyone welds differnt. I say more heat and more manipulation. Turn welder to next setting.


Start on the lower flat stock and hit the trigger Wait untill you see a bit of a puddle forming. then you wanna kinda twist your wrist like you would a motorcycle throttle. and make sure the beed follows along. Once your weld puddle has reatched the hight on your gusset that would be equal to the puddle on your flat stock reverse the wrist twist and continue to work across.

T Welds are typically the hardest for beginers. Since this is out of the car you could make it real easy on your self and set the cross member up so that where you want your weld sits kinda like \/

hope I didnt confuse you to much its hard learning a manual labor type task by reading doing good though and practice practice practice!

Peace

 

yeah i really should be practicing. I saw the metal heating up on the other side of an exhaust pipe i was doing and I wasnt sure if that was proper penetration or over-doing it. I know its best to have it "just right" But besides warping on thinner sheet metal, what is the downfall to having it too hot? I guess what Im asking is...is it better to have it too hot than too cold?

 

Oh also on free scrap metal if you got to manufactoring plants you can sometimes dumpster dive and come out with all sorts of scrap. Also Look up metal supply in your yellow pages sure there will be someplace cheaper then tractor supply.

 

To hot burn a hole and more heat distortion.

To cold no penetration = not safe

 

well now I'm onto welding exhaust pipe together and it was just really globbing on there. seemed like it was either too hot or too cold though.

edit- we are posting at the same time lol. Yeah scrap metal is like in crazy demand, all over craigslist its "will buy your junk scrap metal!!"

edit2- yeah i'm just going to start with it over hot cause I havent really "distorted" anything yet.

 

Exhaust places usually have scrap in the garbage bins

 

looks like i gotta go dumpster divin'

 

Here's a pic of my work when I was learning. Not the greatest work but it worked well.

 

For metal as thick as you're using (looks like either 1/8" or 3/16"), you should have the current maxed on that little welder. I run thin exhaust pipe on B with small wire. on C if I'm using quality pipe that's decently thick..
But for anything over 12gauge plate (just under 1/8" thick), I run it on "D" and adjust the wire speed to get a proper weld. with as thick as that stuff is, you almost can't get it too hot with your welder.. if you start getting it too hot, you'll see the weld puddle kinda sink in to the metal and it'll pull metal from past your weld puddle area into the weld.. but again with that stuff, I doubt you'll get that far on a 120v welder.

pics later.. I'm bored.. might as well go and burn something.

 

just a heads up, if you dumpster dive, ask first.
alotta places sell their scrap metal, and store it in dumpsters before pickup.
they get pissy if some joe just walks up and "dives" in.
(don't ask me how i know...)

 

okay, here ya go..
I grabbed a chunk of 1/8" flat bar I found in the scrap pile and played around with it..

First pic...
center- "A" current setting. wire speed very low. this is CRAP! don't do this.
left. "B" Current setting. wire speed still slow. this is better, but still crap..
right. "C" current setting. wire speed too high. note it's beginning to stick, but its still globby. this is about where yours are.


I took a wire wheel and cleaned them up.. note the center sample was so cold, the eyes didn't even stick to the metal when I hit it with a wire wheel!


Decent welds:
left: Temp "C". wire speed slower than pic above. around 2 I think. don't remember now.
center: Temp "D" wire speed about 3-3.5. this is about where you want to be. note how the edge of the weld now blends in with the metal instead of sitting on top of it.
right: Temp "D", wire speed about 2-2.5. this is borderline too hot. note how it's starting to look sloppy.. ideally you would want something between the two pics on the right.


same as above, cleaned with a wire wheel:

 

Now I just welded down the end of the plate.
This was on temp "D"- same settings as the last sample above. note how I burned the crap out of it and the metal started globbing and melting.


this was on temp "C". note how you have to cool it down when you're working on the ends rather than in the center of the plate. don't know of a more technical way to 'splain it than that..




Now on to gas settings...
left... I turned off the tank and let the gas bleed off as I was welding. decent bead on the end, but got progressively worse until it was just spitting and spattering. note how the bead looks horrible and there's metal slag all over the place.

The sample on the far right is with the gas set to 20L/min.
the sample just to the left of it (2nd from right) is with the gas set at 5L/min. that's the needle just barely registering movement on the gauge.

Notice how there's not any discernable difference in the weld

the blob in the middle is me just starting with a huge "C" and working my way smaller and smaller so you can see the basic technique.. also note the nice bluing of the steel around it. seeing that bluing like that after the weld shows you got plenty of heat in it- that's just about the right temperature and wire speed. can't get much better than that with a 110v welder.

 

Welding on the ends = less metal to absorb heat = lesser heat temp.

Nice comment on the bluing. I used that to see how much heat got into it. You could also try turning the plates over to see how much heat got to the other side.

 

BRAVO!!!!!!! MATT!!!!!!! Excellent! Very nicely done!

 

yeah Jeffy- you can see the bluing from the 'good side' show up on the side with the bad welds..

okay, now it's time to pack the car and go camping for spring break..... see you guys next week.

 

thanks Matt, that was informative. I've been switching from different metals and thicknesses and I dont think thats helping me much. I welded up the exhaust today and i was mixing fresh metal with slightly rusted ones (looked a little worse/globbier than Jeffs pics) which I know did not help. I also tried to weld up an exhaust hangar to the sheet metal under the car and burned right through the sheet metal and I felt pretty bad...tried to fill it in the best I could. The thickness difference between the hangar and the sheet metal was throwing me off as far as what setting...
anyway thanks guys...been rushing a little bit because I really didnt plan on working on this as long as I have been (want to work on the maxima!)

 

my advice there is to slow down and do it right. hurrying and screwing things up only takes longer to fix...
"If you don't have the time to do it right once, how are you going to find the time to do it again?"

 

true true.

 

I've burnt though some metal before. Fixing holes is another skill. Welding the edges until the hole is closed up is fun.

 

yeah I thought exhaust shops welded to the under-body of cars all the time but now I'm starting to wonder because that was not fun or easy at ALL. I ended up welding a nut onto a patch-plate and covering the spot that I burnt through. I couldnt lay a good bead, it was frustrating but hopefully it holds up.
I'm going to be working on a little sheet metal interior trim piece these next couple days so hopefully I can get things looking a little better this time around. I'll post up pics if im proud lol.

 

If your'e welding on sheet metal, go buy the smallest wire you can find. I think they sell like 0.018 or .015 or something like that.. that'll be what you want to use for sheet metal.

 

mannn you got me doin too much work. :-p. I decided not to do the interior piece because it was just takin too much effort so I just bought what I wanted online...metal is not for everythang, im quickly learning.

 

so how's the sp135 working out for you? up to par for the tasks you have for it? I just bought the same one the other day and it's getting delivered today!

Have you been welding with flux core this whole time, or did you get a cylinder and start using gas?

 

Hey. Its not bad, I have no experience with other welders so I cant make a comparison. It seems to be doing a good job with everything I've done so far, my skills are the restriction point. I didnt even bother with the flux core stuff, I went straight to the Mig set-up. At least I thought I did. For the longest time I couldnt figure out why the guys on tv and youtube had wide larger tips on the guns they used until I found out that I never switched over to the MIG tip to allow the gas to spread out over the weld. So I guess this whole time Ive just sprayed half of my argon cylinder into the atmosphere and I hope thats the reason for my lumpy welds.

But yeah, I've done alot of exhaust stuff, and mostly thin stuff that it can easily burn right through if I'm not careful so I think it should be fine with probably most anything I want to do with it. I love having a welder! and I'm glad I bought a decent machine. Have you welded before? or are you just starting? Its kind of a tedious skill and most of it is grinding,cutting, preparing the medal.

 

That sounds good, glad you're enjoying it! And yes, practice is key for people like us. We'll get there though. Once our skills get up to par, having a welder will come in so handy! I have lots of plans for mine already. Unfortunately I still need to get a cylinder and a decent helmet...so I'm stuck with that stupid face shield lincoln includes, and some messy a** flux core. I can't wait to get the MIG set-up going.

Yeah, I've welded before, with flux core and with shielding gas actually. I never noticed that flux core sucked so hard until I paid attention this time...it's annoying as hell. Messy, spattery, smokey...yuck. I haven't welded that much before, but enough to have a slight clue what I'm doing. I just need to practice alot.

Once I get the MIG setup going and some more time to practice, I'll post up some pics to be judged...it may be a while though.

 

word. I had to splurge and spend another 120 on the cylinder but I just bought a cheapie helmet $20ish bucks(non auto darkening of coarse).

Good luck with the "spectator" mask you better drill some holes and tie a string if you want it to stay on your face haha. Its mean to just be held up. I was thinking the same as you until I saw the thing and said no way in hell was I going to be able to manage that balancing act.

 

heh.. I tried holding that stupid mask up while I was practicing on the first piece of metal I tried to weld... after about 5 seconds, I threw it out and went and bought a real helmet.

non-auto darkening ones are fine. many pros I know still use them exclusively. unless the shop is very well lit, it's hard to see anything through the auto darkening ones anyway. but they're waaaaay easier than trying to weld while holding up that stupid observer mask!! would have cost the same to just put a real helmet in the box with the welder. oh well.


Last weekend I tried to go back to the flux core crap since a friend left my C25 bottle open and emptied it... maaaaan that stuff's nasty compared to a good gas setup... but I was at least able to stick together the crap I needed to weld on.

 

what you been creating matt!?

 

guess I am one of the lucky ones. I have access to a 300 amp lincoln electric tig welder which can be set up for stick, tig for steel and tig for aluminum. For mig I use an ESAB.