Thread: Arc control with basic stick machines

Gidday

At the end of the day stick isnt the ideal process to weld such thin Material in industry Tig or Mig welding would be the process of choice so what your attempting is a difficult weld......................using Manual Metal Arc

Im definately not saying that this cant be done but it does take a good understanding of the process and takes a lot of practice and application to pull of good consistent results.

Needless to say theres no easy way round the problems youve described & more than anything else comes down to operator skill and experience.

............even skilled stick welders would probably hesitate welding such thin material with stick!

If you want to persevere heres some things that will help:

Use 2.5mm electrodes (or smaller) the best quality you can get I'd go 4113's
Weld using DCEN (Electrode Negative)
Play around with your AMPS until you get a good weld the first 1/3 of your run dont worry if you burn through after this to begin with................
You'll be able to avoid this down the track by adjusting your travel speed and slightly reducing your AMPS
WHilst keeping a short consistant stickout slightly wiggle your electrode from side to side as you lay down your Run..................

Hope this helps ......................

Im sure other forumites will have some good advise for you also!.........................

Regards Lou

hi,
Its pure physics nothing more .
The weld pool doesn't heat up instantly but takes a fraction of a second.
Thats the bit where the peno lacks.

At the other end of the bead the thin material heats up past its capacity to dissipate the increasing heat in the material -hence a hole or a undercut crater.

As for the footpedal, it not feasible within the price range of your welder.

I am unware of any stick welder( Stick- not tig OK!) set ups with a pedal.

Technique is the key. If you are going to do a bit of this stuff either develop a technique or increase the wall thickness of the RHS you will be welding upon.
By technique, I mean weld a bit , go some where else and weld,as it cools and return and weld when it is able to be touched.

Longer arc lenght -decreases penetration-shorter arc length better penetration

There is more of this crap around now, by my observation- (ie 1.6mm wall thickness than anything else) .This is solely due to pricing that is better because of thinwall-less weight- less costs.

This stuff is in the main, Duragal and imbedded into the metal for a depth and when its 1.6wt, that not much leeway to play with in scuffing off the zinc/gal before welding.

Grahame

Thanks guys. I was welding DCEP because a few early experiments with DCEN seemed to give an angrier arc and put more heat in the work -> more holes. I'll give it a shot with DCEN possibly combined with lower amps.

The rods are those Gemini 1.6mm 6013 (?) mentioned in several threads and 2.0mm Ferrocraft 12XPs (from memory). I use the 2.0mm on the butts, the theory being that with the large root gap the extra metal will fill in the gap more easily. Seems to work, they're easier than the 1.6mm. The 1.6mm work alright on the tees, haven't tried the 2.0mms there.

A TIG with a foot pedal would be nice. I dream of a Lincoln or Miller AC/DC TIG one day.

I will try a short arc and hovering for a second at the starts. Part of the problem is probably that after starting the weld, it's hard to get the arc instantly how you want it. I tend to start long after initiating the arc and get shorter as I zero in on the start position. At least the scratch-on-scrap to start the arc is working superbly as tipped in a previous thread. Much easier to restart rods with scratching.

I'll also try to perfect a longer arc at the ends to fill the undercut puddle. This may be resolved with timing, I hope.

Yes, it's galv and I use an angle grinder so it may well be 1.4mm or 1.5mm after I clean off the zinc. Can't make it easier. It seems so easy when I occasionally weld 3mm+ pieces. Let alone a few experiments with 8mm.

Thanks for the tips.

I have the same machine, commonly weld the same stuff (and can never be arsed grinding off the duragal) and have a similar problem with weak-looking starts. At the end, lengthening the arc and playing it back a bit does do a better job of filling in the crater, but not ideal.

I usually weld DCEN, but contrary to advice given here, had been considering DCEP for thin sections as more heat is in the stick, perhaps reducing blowthroughs, but haven't actually tried it.

However I have found the best solution was to get a MIG

I went with stick because I didn't want the hassles of gas. Don't really want gasless MIG either. If I went with gas it'd be TIG, and I can't really afford the TIG machine I want. I'd certainly love to have one though. I consider it a challenge to stick weld this stuff. The end goal is a feature packed chicken coop for 8 chickens, ~2m x ~2m x ~1m. Still at the practicing stage right now because I don't want mistakes on the final product.

Something I do on this sort of thin stuff is add in to the weld pool some welding wire, means I can have the amps up a smich (for starts) and can add a drop or two if it looks like things are to hot and can fill an end, process is basically the same as oxy acet wire welding, have to be a little careful as you can add too much and stall the arc tho, can also fill quite big gaps that would otherwise just be a big mess.

A few other techniques you might try... a very short arc, rapid travel and stick angle up closer to vertical, this smothers the arc a bit and keeps the heat down, need to have no gaps tho especially if you have the amps up enuff for a good start, this probably works best on horizontal butt joins, basically I listen to the weld and just concentrate on where I am going as I don't watch the weld pool, not until the end, also try vertical down less peno so should be less chance of a hole but does get messy if you do get a hole.

At starts you might try to get the arc going but then pull away but stay at the start for a second, practice with seeing how far you can pull away and hover for and still maintain an arc, this gives you a little time to establish the arc, see where you are and how much metal is being deposited and where and get a bit of heat in to the job before you make a weld run.

Pete

Originally Posted by pjt

... you might try... a very short arc, rapid travel and stick angle up closer to vertical

This is what I do on the tees with the 1.6mm rods. They're funny welds - there's no time to listen to the arc or watch the pool, just go at a certain speed based on past experience. If you start to listen, it's too late and it'll blow holes. Just go, go, go. And if I am too slow and a hole starts, might as well break the arc, there's no repairing it on the fly. I have to skip ~8-10mm ahead or risk it spreading.

I might get some wire and try it. Do you use MIG wire or TIG filler rods?

Gassles MIG works very well on thin gal sections - in fact it works well with most material except for thin sheet, albeit with a bit of smoke and spatter.

I think I've said it before, but I find it much better if I put a solid tack on the corner then weld up to the tack. This means you can run a smidgeon hotter (which will help your problem) as some of the heat at the end of the weld gets dissipated weld your weld pool gets to the end and hits the tack. This also means that there's a bit of extra metal at the end to fill any hole. I've tried both dcep and dcen with thin gal - I found either worked ok (but prefer dcep). I also Tig a fair bit. I love it heaps as a technique but it's a pain with gal, so prefer stick in this situation. Like rustyarc, I don't grind gal off these days - you can't get rid of the fumes anyway - so gotta take precautions regardless. Cheers - Mick.

So just curious - Will a Tig foot controller actually control the amps when in MMA mode with multifunction machine? To scared to try it

Originally Posted by WelderMick

I think I've said it before, but I find it much better if I put a solid tack on the corner then weld up to the tack.

I might try this. I've never liked welding over old weld deposit because I just end up with way too much material and ugliness. That means I'm also no good on long welds that require restarts after finishing a rod, or jobs that require lots of tacking before welding. I need to practice, might as well do it now. I presume I'm supposed to not go over the old weld, but to start/finish as I meet the old weld instead? The few attempts I've made I just go over the old stuff with a brute force approach and it's ugly.

Originally Posted by Legion

I might try this. I've never liked welding over old weld deposit because I just end up with way too much material and ugliness. That means I'm also no good on long welds that require restarts after finishing a rod, or jobs that require lots of tacking before welding. I need to practice, might as well do it now. I presume I'm supposed to not go over the old weld, but to start/finish as I meet the old weld instead? The few attempts I've made I just go over the old stuff with a brute force approach and it's ugly.

If the tack is on the corner it won't look so bad, the idea is to weld up to, and partially melt into the tack, but don't go completely over it. Clean the slag off the tack first, so you can see exactly what you're aiming for. Try it out on some thicker metal first - there's certainly not much time to react with the thin stuff. Cheers - Mick

Originally Posted by Legion

This is what I do on the tees with the 1.6mm rods. They're funny welds - there's no time to listen to the arc or watch the pool, just go at a certain speed based on past experience. If you start to listen, it's too late and it'll blow holes. Just go, go, go. And if I am too slow and a hole starts, might as well break the arc, there's no repairing it on the fly. I have to skip ~8-10mm ahead or risk it spreading.

I might get some wire and try it. Do you use MIG wire or TIG filler rods?

I have a pack of ordinary oxy acet filler wire, any mild steel filler rod should do.


Pete

My tip for finishes would be to avoid the issue by avoiding finishing right at the edge. You'll always burn away too much. Right at the edge is the last place you want it weak as well. You don't really want to turn down since good penetration all the way along is important.

Stop 10mm from the edge. Let it cool off and clean it up. Then weld from the edge inwards to meet up with your 1st weld. Make sure it penetrates into the 1st weld. If all goes well you'll have a consistent bead.

With the starts, as my TAFE teacher always says, it takes under 1 second to heat up both the rod and the base metal. Therefore strike your arc a bit (maybe 10mm again) in front of where you want to start welding. Then you move it back to the start and commence running your weld. It should all be nice and hot by the time you start the actual weld. Any cold weld that you had at the arc start will be penetrated through as your pass over it again. Any slag won't have a chance to cool as long as you strike it close to where you commence welding.