best welds

[redsox985]

that's nice,some people here are going crazy preparing for the categorie 2 hurricane and buying stuff like 20 dollar flash-lights, lol.(that's what it was forecast to be as of wednesday) now there saying its a tropical storm. i just tie down the canoe and put the patio furniture in the garage, pickup some ice, batteries and I'm done!

What's wrong with expensive flashlights? I've shelled out about $60 for one. It was a SureFire.

And my school doesn't offer welding until highschool as part of Metal Tech. Out wood shop is great. It got about a $200,000 overhaul a few years back. Metal is so so. We did just get a Miller 252 in today! WOOT! But we now have the 252, 3 Miller 140's, and 3 225 amp stick welders. One MM140 and the new 252 are set up for aluminum. The 252 can do a 1/2" of steel or aluminum in a single pass. I brushed up on my welding skills today. I'll get some photos on Tuesday when I go back. Hopefully I get my Droid X by then too so I can snap 8MP photos and maybe a sweet through the lens welding video in 720p. Ya, I'm kinda pumped for this phone.

 

[r97]

droids are awesome! i wish my current school had a metal or wood shop, the high school has no metal shop, but you get to make decent sized wooden boats in wood shop, so i'm exited about that.

 

[devino246]

droids are awesome! i wish my current school had a metal or wood shop, the high school has no metal shop, but you get to make decent sized wooden boats in wood shop, so i'm exited about that.

Wooden boats?
My school does have an auto shop, with a Snap-On MIG something or other and a Lincoln Electric stick welder, but your lucky if the teacher lets you use it, much less master it. Its is nice getting to work on cars for 3 hours straight, but the teachers moodier than a pregnant woman.

r97, I wouldnt mind seeing some of your welds. Post up a pic or two

 

[r97]

i'll see if the camera will let me take a good pic of the weld this time, lol

EDIT: got some ok pics, the lower weld is the normal circle pattern which i was compareing to just going strait(i read some where about going straight looking better), the penetration isn't great, but i was just compareing beads. the one on the bottom is on the nicer end of my welds, i have better, and worse, lol. oh ya my welder is a lincoln weld pack hd, this one to be exact, http://www.mylincolnelectric.com/Catalog/equipmentdatasheet.aspx?p=7104, like i said i wish i could get some better quality pics, but these are ok.

 

[redsox985]

Do you have a plasma cutter? I see those edges look very similar to the scrappy edges of come plasma cuts. Just wondering, are you using the mask that came with your welder? I use a $35 auto adjusting mask from HF turned to as light as it can get. It makes welding so much easier. I can't wait to try out the new Miller 252. The teacher is restricting use to shop teachers and students who have 2 complete years, 4 semesters, of metal tech under their belts. Me being one of them!

 

[r97]

naa, no plasma cutter (i wish) just a piece of scrap with whats left of a terrible weld i broke in half while i was learning, i almost posted a pic of my first "weld" (its pretty much a spot weld followed by a bunch of splatter)

 

[devino246]

They really arent that bad. I just dont see the reason for welding in circles, unless you need to cover a large area. Its looks to me like you got decent penetration, even on the straight welds. It looks like your starts are a little off, but once you get going its nice and uniform. Remember, its flux-core. Its probably not gonna have that nice stacked dimes look.

 

[KieranM]

nice welds R97, you have found a good method, try to practise with angles, where the pool has to flow into place, and hey, everyone has bad welds, if you dont your probably a robot on an assembly line

 

[r97]

robot, lol. yea i have decent practice with fillet welds and, well actual welds, like i said the one above was only done to compare one technique(that i had heard was better than circles) to the circle technique(partly why i don't have too much penetration), my findings say circles are better, but with practice i could make the other come out pretty good too

 

[redsox985]

I think that straight lines do not get ample penetration. It seems as if it sits on top of the metal. I did both, as well as half moons, on a piece of scrap 1x1 and then cut it on a band saw and the circles seemed to be the best although none looked like stacked dimes. The circles looked best and had the best penetration. The weld was slightly onto to inside and there was a perfect heat signature. The inside was just slightly "messed up" by the welding. I don't know how else to say it but it was not perfectly flat like it was. I was a good, semi-appealing, weld.

 

[r97]

yea, i think the problem with straight lines is they don't spread the heat around, its basically comparing one huge spot weld, to a bunch of medium sized ones over-laping each other

 

[redsox985]

Ya, I favor the circles method. I am best at the kind of welds where you have to go left and right to join a piece to a flat face and fill the 90° angle. I get that dimes look out of it.

 

[r97]

soooooo, you like fillet welds?

 

[redsox985]

Hahaha, sure. They are my best looking ones. I didn't learn the names. We only did book work when we would screw around. We have like 35 Chapter books for metal tech, after doing Chapter 1, I learned doing metal work was more fun than doing metal work books.

 

[r97]

sry i missed in one of your other posts, no i don't use the welding mask that came with the welder, it is super dark and uses up one hand, sooooo, with the jumpy flux core wire taking 1 hand off the gun is a horrible idea. yea i don't really now my "vocab", but after skipping through the "how to setup your Lincoln weld-pak HD" i picked up a few terms.

 

[devino246]

Better flux-core weld

 

[r97]

good job, i wish my camera would take nice pictures easily(to get the one i posted i had to search through about 50 tries at taking the pic, )

 

[devino246]

The cut-a-way pic took at least 5 tries and its still not as clear as id like it. Ive found it helps to pull the camera back and zoom in. I hate autofocus

If anyone can get their hands on some acid, it would be nice to be able to compare the penetration. All you have to do is cut the weld, smooth the cut edge with some sand paper, and let that end sit in about a 1/4" of acid. I used feric chloride (PCB etching solution) but i suppose a similar acid would work.

 

[redsox985]

I think my fillet weld ability dropped over the summer. And a 2 tacks next to it. Sorry about the cell phone shots. My Droid X will be here Thursday night!

 

[devino246]

could you make the pics a little bigger?