Arc Welding help...

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Spinal

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I've done some welding in the past, but always OA, never arc. So a bit of a noob here.

I didn't want to spend the £200-£300 to get some cylinders for a small job, so bought a £50 arc welding kit on amazon.

It does 40-100amps, so for my panels (1.3-1.4mm thick according to my caliper) I'm using 1.6mm rods. Couldn't find anything smaller.

My issue is that at 40A the rods keep sticking and I'm struggling to get a puddle formed, but at 50-60amps, I'm blowing through.

Any ideas/advise/suggestions? (beyond get a torch or a mig welder :p)

M.
 
I suspect your difficulties lie in the inherent difficulty of arc welding thin sheet - hence the near universal adoption of MIG when it appeared. MIG is perfect at the gauge you are working with (with sub 1.0mm wire) and good enough to tackle up to 3.0mm - just.
Perhaps someone with arc experience (if such a person still exists) can advise on how to get better results with the stick but bear in mind that a MIG can be operated from a disposable cannister of gas priced at circa £25.
Do have a link to the vendor of your welder? (I may be in the market for a cheap stick welder - for 3mm work).
 
Would slightly thicker rods make the amps less critical ?
 
No help, but I could never get the hang of arc welding, but could do a reasonable job with gas.
Prolly teaching you to suck eggs but be REALLY careful of arceye - it can get you when you least expect it and it isn't much fun.
 
Clean the edges of the weld to be made and ensure the rods aren't damp. Even slightly damp!. A hot rod will arc far better than a cold damp one. 1.6 rods should be fine for what you're doing.

Dragging the rod tip along also helps start an arc going rather than just plunging in there.
 
Thanks :)

Thicker rods I reckon would do the opposite, as to melt them more current will be needed, and more current is not my friend right now :p

Arceye - yups, kit came with a welding helmet, which I've replaced with a self-darkening one that I'm happier with.

Bellow: I got this one: Silverline 677293 Arc Welder 40 - 100A: Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools
Mainly because it comes with a 3-year warranty... and 40-100a should be more than ample for anything I'll do. Going to buy some thicker plate now, and see if I can get away with that for the rest, and then come back to the thin bodywork bits when I've figured it out a bit better...
M.
 
Thicker rods I reckon would do the opposite, as to melt them more current will be needed, and more current is not my friend right now :p

I'm inclined to agree (MIG wire for welding similar gauge is 0.6-0.8mm diameter).
DRUK's comment re dryness is spot on. A mate used to store his above his hot water tank in the house.

Arceye - yups, kit came with a welding helmet, which I've replaced with a self-darkening one that I'm happier with.

While we are among warnings...be cautious welding galvanised. The fumes are vicious and will leave you feeling very poorly. Best avoided but possible with layered up face masks, good ventilation, and quitting the area (go outside for fresh air) as soon as the welding is finished.

Bellow: I got this one: Silverline 677293 Arc Welder 40 - 100A: Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools
Mainly because it comes with a 3-year warranty... and 40-100a should be more than ample for anything I'll do. Going to buy some thicker plate now, and see if I can get away with that for the rest, and then come back to the thin bodywork bits when I've figured it out a bit better...
M.
Cheers!
 
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What brand are the 1.6mm electrodes? If they've got Silverline written on the box that could be a large part of your problem as cheapnese tat doesn't even come close to how bad Silverline stuff often is. Many of the other DIY brands are a potential waste of time too as they don't make anything, just buy it in and rebrand it so when it comes to consumables the quality can be all over the place... good one day, terrible the next time you buy some as it's a different batch made somewhere else

I haven't held an MMA stinger for years as my world is mostly non ferrous and always thin stuff so stick welding is the last process i'd use and i don't know how available some of the following brands of electrode will be in 1.6mm but have a look for Murex (ESAB), Oerlikon, Lincoln and Bohler. E6013 is what you're after, i'm not upto date with the current trade names but Murex and Oerlikon (at least) are often available as 'general purpose white box' which should be cheaper than many brands of DIY tat and soooooo much nicer to use as they're usually the same as their trade named brethren but without certs etc
SIF (famous for brazing products) are one of the box rebranders these days, at least for a lot products, but are usually a safe choice and something like SIFtrode 6013 should be easy to find in 1.6mm

There's a stick welding tutorial here Arc Welding Tutorial and if you search the forum for murex white box you should find some threads discussing decent brands, trade names etc

Too late now but FWIW things are a lot different regarding the cost and availability of welding gases these days... there's a lot of choice for MIG and TIG with various rent free suppliers that have a returnable deposit on the cylinders. BOC responded by bringing out a couple of DIY deals which basically cuts the rental and gas price a LOT and waives the usual collection fees. There's a few sticky threads in the gas section of the MIGwelding forum that go into the details
Disposible cylinders for MIG are a complete waste of time and money, you get 110L max that lasts around 10 min arc time and costs upto £20. The smallest refillable cylinders typically contain a min of 1340 litres and a refill costs around £36 (inc VAT). The first cylinder would cost an extra £70ish due to the deposit but £50ish of that is refundable when you return the cylinder. Those prices are for Hobbyweld

You can also get oxy acetylene rent free these days, loads of sources for oxygen but IIRC Hobbyweld are the only source for acetylene with a returnable deposit. Air Products do something similar but the start up costs are significantly higher while the gas itself is significantly cheaper and available in slightly larger cylinders
Be aware that some of the rent free suppliers offer propylene as an acetylene alternative and claim it's suitable for welding with. It isn't. Like many salespeople they're clueless about the technical side and don't understand the chemistry behind welding gases... while you can physically stick metal together with it welds will be embrittled due to the properties of the flame (even a neutral flame has an oxidising effect), it's only suitable for heating, cutting or brazing where the flux needed anyway prevents embrittlement
 
Wow the prices of cylinders has dropped quite a bit! Feel a bit silly now for not having gotten cylinders... ah well, live and learn. I have an old mig rig somewhere which I could never get the hang of, may try again.
 
I use Air Liquide welding rods. I generally use on thicker material and use 2.5mm or 3.2mm rods.
A technique that I use to avoid blowing through thinner metal is a kind of join the dots method. Strike an ark and concentrate a small puddle for a few seconds on one area.
Then move up the seam perhaps 20mm-25mm and repeat. Again repeat about 20mm-25mm up the seam. Then go back and puddle adjacent to the first weld.
Continue with this random spotting until the full weld is covered.
The reason for this is not allowing one area to get too hot and allowing to cool before attempting another weld.
Try adjusting the amperage by just a fraction if possible, as a minor amount can make a great difference and also experiment with the angle of the electrode.

Good luck but as mentioned many times over, MIG is ideally the way to go with body panels.
 
Right, so lesson learnt.

I had an old gassless mig welder bought years ago, which a friend of mine deemed as useless. Tried using that, and guess what, managed to fairly painlessly seal the holes I blew through.

Now, it's not pretty, and it spatters a hell of a lot (maybe because I'm used to OA, but wow there's a lot of sparks and metal flying! I now have two new burns... yes, I should have been wearing gloves... but.. well... no excuse really), but it seems to work.

I'm struggling to form a bead I'm happy with, but it'll close holes. I think I'll this small mig for the really thin stuff, and the arc for the thicker stuff....

I'll get there in the end!
M.

(oh, and a minor edit: worth remembering when welding, don't rush to weld as soon as you find a long lost mig welder.... you may forget that you had put stuff back into the car, and have now melted the side of your toolbox)
 
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A good, informative post HR - only one point I'll take issue with you over....


Disposible cylinders for MIG are a complete waste of time and money, you get 110L max that lasts around 10 min arc time and costs upto £20.t

... to defend the small disposable cylinder for MIG welding. If you already have a welding set and only have a small amount of welding to do, the disposable cylinder has its uses. So far my first has outlasted a (nearly full to begin with) spool of wire.
 
I've done some welding in the past, but always OA, never arc. So a bit of a noob here.

I didn't want to spend the £200-£300 to get some cylinders for a small job, so bought a £50 arc welding kit on amazon.

It does 40-100amps, so for my panels (1.3-1.4mm thick according to my caliper) I'm using 1.6mm rods. Couldn't find anything smaller.

My issue is that at 40A the rods keep sticking and I'm struggling to get a puddle formed, but at 50-60amps, I'm blowing through.

Any ideas/advise/suggestions? (beyond get a torch or a mig welder :p)

M.

Make sure you only weld overlap joints do not try to butt weld,with a stick welder on thin metal, I couldn't and I was asme 9 coded years ago.
 
A good, informative post HR - only one point I'll take issue with you over....




... to defend the small disposable cylinder for MIG welding. If you already have a welding set and only have a small amount of welding to do, the disposable cylinder has its uses. So far my first has outlasted a (nearly full to begin with) spool of wire.

I suppose they have their place but personally i've never heard of anyone getting much more than 10 mins arc time out of one and the results i've seen with disposibles are typically more flaws than welds... for example a mate of mine was making himself an exhaust a few years back and as he was only tacking the thing together before bringing it to me for final welding he tried using 'em. In not very long he'd spent more ££ on disposibles than a proper cylinder would've cost him. What he brought to me was an utter mess of burnt/oxidised tacks that had no fusion to the base metal. Once i'd convinced him to buy a proper gas cylinder he found that he could actually weld

Shielding gas doesn't go off so now that are rent free supliers about it's no different to buying engine oil in proper 20L or bigger barrels or a massive pack of bog rolls, beer by the crate etc saving ££ compared to retail sizes and not having to go shopping so often
 

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