Mig welding tips and advice pls

[wehey]

hiya all
I have just attempted my first bit of welding and would appreciate a bit of advice.
There is a ton of welding to do on the Pao so I decided to make a start in the wheel well before trying exterior bodywork, as its hidden and won't matter as much as it not often seen.
I brought some 0.8mm m/s sheet and did a load of practicing, playing around with the various settings until I managed something the resembled a weld.
Below is a pic of the result of my first patch and although it does the job its a right bloody mess and definitely needs to improve before tacking bodywork
Can anyone tell from the pic if the mig is set up correctly. I.e can any heat, wire speed and gas setting be tweaked to get a better result. All criticisms kindly received
No laughing now.....here's the pic

 

[MicraPRO]

I'm no expert but looks pretty good to me!
Get a flap disk for your grinder and see if you can buff it back a bit?

 

[pollyp]

i subscribe to this

https://www.youtube.com/user/weldingtipsandtricks

 

[andy]

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/

loads of help and tips on there,
loads of tips on youtube, like pollyp says.

 

[Vitus992]

I agree with andy - mig-welding.co.uk is a very friendly place. I'm just contemplating having a go at mig welding and found this guy quite good - straight to the point and no more chatter than needed:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJAFY2kKKb5sg79yld7T3hA

 

[Magpie42]

Areas that you can't see, as long as it's solid, it's good...you've not splattered everywhere or blasted through it....get the grinder on it to tart it up if you like (also gets rid of little holes that water can hide in)...

 

[Azzydot]

hiya all
I have just attempted my first bit of welding and would appreciate a bit of advice.
There is a ton of welding to do on the Pao so I decided to make a start in the wheel well before trying exterior bodywork, as its hidden and won't matter as much as it not often seen.
I brought some 0.8mm m/s sheet and did a load of practicing, playing around with the various settings until I managed something the resembled a weld.
Below is a pic of the result of my first patch and although it does the job its a right bloody mess and definitely needs to improve before tacking bodywork
Can anyone tell from the pic if the mig is set up correctly. I.e can any heat, wire speed and gas setting be tweaked to get a better result. All criticisms kindly received
No laughing now.....here's the pic

Sorry what mm thickness is that ? Looks great just needs grinding


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[wehey]

Sorry what mm thickness is that ? Looks great just needs grinding


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Hi mate,
It's 0.8mm. There are many little holes lol
I have been playing about with the settings a bit and have found that a lower wire speed, upping the gas flow and keeping the wire closer to the piece has helped a lot.

 

[Azzydot]

Hi mate,
It's 0.8mm. There are many little holes lol
I have been playing about with the settings a bit and have found that a lower wire speed, upping the gas flow and keeping the wire closer to the piece has helped a lot.

I just sold my mig after having arc and mig decided mig wasn't good for thicker metal but arc was good all rounder


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[Stani1029]

I'd check that the polarity is the right way round for gas welding, also was it bare metal you were welding to?

 

[wehey]

The polarity is set right.
It was originally set up as gassless but luckily I have a welding shop just round the corner from me, so I took it into them for the conversion.
All surfaces were also ground down to bare metal.

 

[l_jonez]

Looking at the picture you need to up the gas flow a bit, You can see a few porous welds. I'd also up the current as it looks like theres not much penetration just weld pooling on top of the steel.

Good for a first attempt though, I've seen much worse.

 

[SirChris]

15lpm is a good start, then back of ensuring the weld isn't effected. 10mm odd away from the metal, watch the pool and tease it across the metals. *I am not a professional, so if anyone wants to correct me, it will be appreciated

 

[wehey]

Cheers Chris. It's definitely improved after turning the gas up a bit
It seems to create a better pool

 

[Ciarán Leeman]

I seem to remember Edd China saying on Wheeler Dealers that when mig welding it's important to have a proper mig welding mask rather than a normal one as you can seriously damage your eyesight.

Don't know if that helps in any way at all. Lol

 

[wehey]

I seem to remember Edd China saying on Wheeler Dealers that when mig welding it's important to have a proper mig welding mask rather than a normal one as you can seriously damage your eyesight.

Don't know if that helps in any way at all. Lol

Thanks dude.
I have brought myself an auto darkening mask which has really helped

 

[h701micra]

What welder do you have?

 

[wehey]

What welder do you have?

It's a Clarke EN130 converted to gas.

 

[h701micra]

It's a Clarke EN130 converted to gas.

It's just so I can imagine you're controls
Assuming it has Min/Max and 1/2 ?
What wire thickness? As that plays a large part in how fast you need it to come out
Looking at the photo its coming out too fast

 

[wehey]

It's just so I can imagine you're controls
Assuming it has Min/Max and 1/2 ?
What wire thickness? As that plays a large part in how fast you need it to come out
Looking at the photo its coming out too fast

Hi, Yes you are spot on with the controls but I'm not 100% sure on the wire thickness.
I just told the guy what I was welding and he gave me (supposedly) appropriate thickens wire.?
I have recently been playing about with the settings and upping the gas flow, turning down the wire speed and holding the tip nearer the piece has made a huge difference.

 

[Antony]

I've just been given my dad's old mig.
Gonna try to get a HUGE welding bottle....

 

[h701micra]

Hi, Yes you are spot on with the controls but I'm not 100% sure on the wire thickness.
I just told the guy what I was welding and he gave me (supposedly) appropriate thickens wire.?
I have recently been playing about with the settings and upping the gas flow, turning down the wire speed and holding the tip nearer the piece has made a huge difference.

Well 0.6 wire will spool faster than 0.8 to fill the weld pool appropriately. With 0.8 being thicker it doesn't need as much to fill the same gap
The tip should say what wire you have

Every variable makes a difference. It's a catch 22 scenario really. You need to know how to weld to set up the machine but you need the machine setup to weld.
Too little gas is porous welds, too much interrupts the arc and spatters
Too little wire feed doesn't get the appropriate amount of filler metal in quick enough
Too much causes it to sputter as it stubs in the weld pool and builds up
Then you have torch angle, stick out, burn back, wire stick out, travel speed blah blah blah. You could go on for a while
But you're doing the right thing, practicing
Get an offcut weld a 2 inch bead, make alterations and weld again, see how it affects the weld. Dont go too mad om thinner stuff as the hotter it gets the more likely it is to blow a hole

 

[solarice]

Best advice i'd say is to practice on spare pieces of metal the same thickness before you start on the car. You'll know almost immediately when you've got it right (verifying with the online resources as you go). The last thing you want, is to have to redo your old work because you're no longer happy with it.

 

[tomwest]

It's just so I can imagine you're controls
Assuming it has Min/Max and 1/2 ?
What wire thickness? As that plays a large part in how fast you need it to come out
Looking at the photo its coming out too fast

on the clarke models, the min/max and 1/2 are voltage settings. the current setting is linked to wire feed speed.

 

[h701micra]

My Clarke manual says differently
Min +1 is 35 amps
Max +2 is 135 amps