Thread: Help needed with vertical up

Steve ,
I would not be attempting vertical up on 3mm thick material.Vertical position means that the arc needs to be moved slow ( vertically not side to side) and bites into the parent metal.There is simply not enough metal thickness to bite into.

If its a situation where you can't change the position-vertical down may be the way to. This involves a different rod a 6013 and a higher-much higher amperage -and a significant angle change .
Otherwise lay it over on the flat and do it.

What joint configuration are we talking about here a butt or a fillet? On the tee joint there are 2 one at 90 -a fillet - and flush - a butt joint.
Grahame

Originally Posted by Grahame Collins

Steve ,
I would not be attempting vertical up on 3mm thick material.Vertical position means that the arc needs to be moved slow ( vertically not side to side) and bites into the parent metal.There is simply not enough metal thickness to bite into.

What joint configuration are we talking about here a butt or a fillet?

The vertical joints are fillet. The fit up is not very good. The RHS that ends at the joint has been slightly bevelled so I have a gap (1 to 3mm) and this thin end.

One person suggested I try a stop/start approach. This sort of worked but I'm sure the result will be full of slag or faults.

I tried vertical down on a close fitting joint. I might just get away with this and I will try increased amps to see if I can get a good fillet. My efforts weren't good and I doubt there is much strength there.

Would it be worth trying to put a bead on the end of the RHS at the joint ? This would reduce the gap and give me more metal to weld to. But against this I will end up with two joints which doesn't sound good to me.

I've done the butt welds on the top of these joints (fixing the mess I made last week) and these seem good now. If these vertical welds are a killer I can try to tack the bottom of some and we should be able to rotate this frame 90 degrees so I can try horizontal welds.

The only vertical ups I've done were on 5mm bar and the weld sure did eat into the metal. If this means it is hopeless on 3mm then I won't try. One last idea I have is to try a backing plate. I might be able to fit a 16g plate behind the gap. Is this a worthwhile attempt ?

As Grahame said vertical up on 3mm is not ideal . Vertical down IMHO is a last resort.
A tight fit up will help . I do it push at about 15-20° forehand. I also prefer DC. A "Christmas tree" weave is best for your root. You are doing a series of triangles on top of each other , but not much time in the middle. "Look after the sides and the middle will look after itself". The capping run is a real 123,123,123 from side to side , again not much in the middle .
If your capping is "Ropey" your going up too quick.
I have never thought it a particularly attractive weld. It is one as Grahame mentioned that you do in a different position if you have the choice.

Originally Posted by Riley

As Grahame said vertical up on 3mm is not ideal . Vertical down IMHO is a last resort.

Thanks for this. It now looks like we can rotate the frame we are building so all these welds will be horizontal so I might be off the hook.

But I still want to try vert-up so I've got some scrap to practise on. I will try the fir-tree pattern. Also, I now notice that Grahame has posted a thread on vertical up (https://www.woodworkforums.com.au/showthread.php?t=54622) which I should have noticed before I started this thread (oops).

Originally Posted by Riley

As Grahame said vertical up on 3mm is not ideal. A tight fit up will help. I do it push at about 15-20° forehand. I also prefer DC. A "Christmas tree" weave is best for your root.

Like a lamb to the slaughter I spent today trying vert up. Mostly it was hopeless (the neighbours must hate my angle grinder by now) but occasionally it was good.

I am welding 50x50x3 RHS using a 2mm type 12 rod and about 60 amps (I think my scale is high so probably about 50 amps).

I can't get the weld to work if the rod is pointing up. If it is horizontal I can get a wet surface above the pool and this is when it works. If the rod is pointing up at all the slag overtakes me and I lose the flow. Does this suggest anything I am doing wrong ?

Also, the christmas tree weave had me flummoxed because it is such a fast and precise movement. I tried vertical weave (is this whipping ?) but often I end up wetting one side of the joint only. I tried a small horizontal weave and this worked better. The horiz weave is about 3mm. On this small wave should I be trying a vertical weave also ? Say inverted Vee or similar ?

Not professing to be an expert but with a rod welder i used to have the rod pointing up 10 - 20 degrees and weave across from side to side but with a slightly dip in the middle. Too high amps and it runs down on you or you blow holes in the work, too low angle and the slag gets in the way. Probably lower amps is better but then of course you dont get the strength.

If it is realy important you can always weld across and build your way up but that is very slow and boring.

Vertical up is never a neat weld on light material but if you have no choice then do the best you can. Heavy plate is a different story.

Practice is all it takes or get a mig.

Originally Posted by Calm

Not professing to be an expert but with a rod welder i used to have the rod pointing up 10 - 20 degrees and weave across from side to side but with a slightly dip in the middle. Too high amps and it runs down on you or you blow holes in the work, too low angle and the slag gets in the way.

Thanks for this. I will try rod upwards again and also the dip in the weave. I didn't have many bad runs today but with higher amps I did blow the top of the metal away (end of the weld).

Originally Posted by Calm

If it is realy important you can always weld across and build your way up but that is very slow and boring.

Do you mean doing one horiz stroke and then waiting before the next ? Won't I trap lots of slag doing this ? I thought stop/start welding was a bit iffy.

What intrigued me today was that parts of some welds looked great. If I can get this right it will be very useful. But so far I have zero good out of 50 welds. Practice tomorrow should help.

Originally Posted by phelum

Do you mean doing one horiz stroke and then waiting before the next ? Won't I trap lots of slag doing this ? I thought stop/start welding was a bit iffy.

The slag will droop to the bottom of the weld so you can weld "above" it.

I would not be buggering around with vertical on 3mm if A FLAT WELDING POSITION is possible.

All the instructions here will only serve to confuse and frustrate you.

Stop and re start technique vertical up will be possible but dont let the weld cool down between strikes.

It sounds like you are making hard work out of something which only needs a simple solution.

I can only advise to perfect your vertical technique on thicker plate and at another time.
Will try and make time to do a photo thingy on it over the long week end( May day for Qld)

Cheers
Grahame

Originally Posted by Grahame Collins

I would not be buggering around with vertical on 3mm if A FLAT WELDING POSITION is possible.

The 3mm thickness and the poor fit-up sure won't help. We might be able to rotate the frame but it is big and heavy so I'm not sure. So, I will keep practising in case I'm stuck with vert up.

The crescent weave (suggested by David) helped today and if I learn to do it automatically things should be okay. All my weaving so far has been on one axis only so complex things like curves are a bit of a battle.

The 3mm thickness doesn't seem to be a problem. My practice pieces are thinner now due to grinding and re-welding but I haven't blown any holes yet. I am only trying to do the root pass because I can't see any value in multiple passes on this RHS.

The picture here is today's effort. A big version is at http://phelum.net/temp/P1020730-1280.JPG. Some bits look okay to me but no weld is all okay so it seems worth persevering to me. Please tell me if it looks like a lost cause.

Hi Steven

The weld on the far left looks like your on the right track. I think the only way to get it right would be through practice practice practice!. Have been learning to weld with the mig recently 2-3000 welds later and am just getting comfortable.
What exactly are you welding?.
Will you be welding at a comfortable level or is it above your head, which could be quite difficult.
Mitch

Originally Posted by mitch

What exactly are you welding?.
Will you be welding at a comfortable level or is it above your head, which could be quite difficult.

Hi Mitch,

I'm welding a 6m by 2m frame made from 50x50x3 RHS. Luckily it's about 1m off the ground so it is head height if I sit on a small box.

Our local psychopathic neighbour decided to bash the hell out of his drum kit this arvo so I used the opportunity to grind the old welds ready for another try tomorrow.

Hi Steven

Neighbours with a drum kit wouldn't dare complain about grinding would they? On the farm I wear ear plugs in the workshop and therefor have the radio flat out which I can still only just hear but apparently you can hear it quite well from the house half a km away!

Have you had any trouble with the galvanising splattering. I was welding some 40x40x2 RHS gal the other day with the mig, the welds were ok but the gal left a white slag which was quite annoying. How did you go with this?

Mitch

Hi Guys
I did a litle experimenting with root gaps and vertical down on 3mm w/thickness.It was with angle section but the results are interesting.
Using the right rods and the a decent prep it can be done and looks quite ok.
For the dog house it will be OK.


Pics No1 & no 2 is the bead albeit a little wobbly.Its OK for without my welding glasses.The last pic is a mitred angle section butt joint that I put the 1 mm cutter through and dressed the edges.

Electrode was a Kobe RB 26 on AC at 82 amps run with a little longer arc than normal but a quicker travel speed as it is vertical down.

If I get time I"ll play with the vertical up later.

Cheers
Grahame