Also a bay on show us yours.... I would`nt recommend welding without a mask ,I thought I was special my first time ,it does nothing to my eyes.. Practice ,practice and more practice...
Thats very true ... you can pick enough up to get by but a course would teach you everything you needed ...
do your self a massive favour and get proper argon mix shielding gas.. heat is a killer for distortion, but unfortunately each spot needs the required heat to melt the material being welded.. to much heat build up in one area will create uneven distortion, as the metal cools the weld area shrinks, its actually the shrink that causes the trouble. as the metal shrinks it pulls drawing in the surrounding metal and causes the buckling. Mig forms a hard weld bead that usually needs a grind to smooth it out ... If you gas welded the join it will still shrink in whats called the HAZ or heat affected zone, the area that discolours around the weld area. With gas welding there will still be distortion but with the soft weld bead the gas welding produces when you planish the weld bead the area within the HAZ is relieved and in effect stretches out to its original state releasing the dips and peaks that may have occurred further up the panel above or below the weld.. Unforyunately the MIG weld being a hard bead and an introduction of additional material isnt easy to planish and will usuually cause the original material to crack.. So most folk spot with the mig grind off the heads and fill the shrink with filler...Ive been welding for a good few years and so far never had a really good distortion free mig weld on thin sheet large unsupported body panels.. I can easy gas weld two halfs of a door skin together without any filler rod, planish the weld file and prime without filler... the same panel with MIG would be a lumpy bumpy mess needing some hammer and dolly work and a good wedge of filler.. In the end controlling the shrink is the problem since you need the heat to melt the materials together... My pet hate is seeing panel repairs where the weld seam is bursting through the filler... Im on my third rear wheel arch on the camper, ive not been happy with any of them so far.. Im thinking that lightly stretching the edges of the panels might help. My thoughts behind this are that lightly stretching before welding will compensate for the weld bead shrink ie post planish the parts ( light stretch), butt weld both parts and let the heat shrink the panels back to normal, equals nice flat distortion free panel... lightly grind back the weld ( which will cause the panel to shrink further because of the heat) and hope for the best ... sorry to be so long winded
Ken, dont be put off, buy a welder and get some practice, its easy enough to pick up, make some scrap and get in some practice but above all get involved and dont get disheartend.. you will burn up lots of tin but when you get the settings fixed youll be off and running.. The welder in the pic will do the job, but its limited and will fraustrate you and probably hold you back. The settings are limited which brings its own problems, you have to adapt you technique to the welder, Its better to adapt the welder to your technique, the more settings the easier life becomes.. A ratty old second hand single phase pro style mig plant for £100 will do more for you than a halfords hobby kit ... and they wont fraustrate you as much ... and someone will always buy your old pro stuff for what you paid for it if you fall out of love with it.. go for it, you might find your a natural
Hmm, that depends on what you want to do with the skills you will learn.. Gas welding is a great discipline and it has a lot of uses including heating rusty nuts etc.. it doesnt take any longer to learn the discipline and really isnt any more dangerous that mig... sparks fly with mig and you have to be aware of your surroundings.. you can set a lot of stuff alight with gas to .. Im on the spot here, I have gas, spot, Mig and tig plants and use them all for diffrent jobs... Im most likely to mig chassis parts and floors and panels that probably could be spot welded but due to access problems I will plug weld with the mig... heavy stuff 16 gauge and up I will either Mig or Tig depending on what it is and where its going, if its on show probably tig ( or gas if lighter gauge) the benefit of the tig or gas is less dress up... If its under the car or in a position thats hard to get to its likely I will fire up the MIG If I wanted to do a car and wanted to get tooled up as quick as pos I wpould probably just go for the MIG as it is easy to use comact and reltively safe and if you dont get along welding sheet metal you can always make some gates and garden furniture and fix stuff with a quick buzz... Im not a lover of CO2 for mig I prefer argon co2 mix, I think that it cools the weld better and aids weld flow giving a less lumpy finish and a flat grey weld bead. Loads of fellas I know routinely use 0.8mm wire in there MIG for light panel work.. In my opinion thats overkill an simply deposits more weld material on the job that ends up in the atmosphere when its ground off.. If you start with 0.6 wire right there you introduce less material into the work you calm down the heat needed to melt the wire and you get more of it on a 5kg roll Its horses for courses, its only my opinion but starting up save tearing your hair out, get a good plant, the more you spend doesnt really mean the better you will get, buy smart, go for quality used plant with decent amp range thats adjustable (more than just High and Low settings ), infinite wire speed , and argon mix.. for starters.. get welding and take it from there... Oh an auto darkening mask is handy and good light on the job if like me your at the specky blind as a bat stage in life
thank you so much this advice is well handy i will get a mig and hopefuly can use for gates and iron work as wellif i get on with it
Just bought a Portamig 185 myself and I am sorry I never did it earlier! Get on the mig-welding.co.uk forum and keep an eye on the sales section. There was a BOC 190 and a clarke s 230 on there this week for less than £400. My Porta retails for £549 but there still some expense after that. Goes down to 15amp tho!!!
Unless you get a good deal on a SIP I'd look elsewhere as they're renowned for wire feed problems but can be modified and upgraded for the task in hand. Clarke are a good budget welder with a good following if you can't justify an expensive bit of kit.
i have this one... http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/pro-90-mig-welder and its done me fine on every job ive done on my bus. not sure how good it actually is, but I can now weld pretty well with it. so if your on a budget this is a good option.
That's the point Ken, trying to learn on a cheapy 90A welder for instance is very difficult. I got one to learn (I thought), got nowhere then bought a 170A welder. When someone came round to buy the cheapy one, I demonstrated it and found I could weld perfectly ok with it having now learned on an easier machine, but for a beginner it was hopeless. Mine goes from 20A in 6 settings, I guess thats 20A, 50A, 80A, 110A, 140A, 170A but i NEVER use the lower setting. I thought they'd be useful, but you'd have to be running continuous beads to get any penetration with the lower power settings and that's a no-no on anything thin enough for the low power. If you're going to be doing bodywork in "joining the dots" welding style, you need quite high power for a nice flat penetrating blob. Lower power just needs more time so puts as much heat into the panel, possibly more. Recently I've been using the 80A setting for lightning fast flat "blobs" - less grinding - but I think if I'd tried this a few years ago I'd have been making holes everywhere!
