Thread: One little big job

Are you saying that the position requires a different setting than downhand even when it is the same material to weld? So if I try a piece of 65x65x2.5 and a 25x5 welded downhand and set it all good, it will not work for the same material vertical? Bummer!
Hi Mark, your down hand ssettings would probably do for verticle down welds on the material and the job at hand. PLEASE NOTE: Do not use v-down for high strength welds ie;your beam. For V-up your settings will be slightly lower V/amps. Have fun on the weekend, look foward to reading your progress!

Hi Marc,
Yes you must reduce the downhand settings slightly to get an adequate setting for vertical.
What must be kept in mind is that the vertical can not tolerate too much volume of metal deposited at any one time.

Gravity makes the molten metal sag . To reduce the volume ,reduce the wire feed.
Note this is not by a significant amount amount.

Probably you will find, to get that sweet spot you may need to reduce the fine voltage setting by,say, 1 point.

It should be mentioned to keep the gun cable straight as excessive bend or coiling causes internal friction which in turn slows down then wire speed - reduces amps.
Also there may be some reading here which may be of value ,though there the dinky size migs in the main.
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/

Grahame

OK...had an eventfull weekend, managed to feed 10 family members at the Bavarian Restaurant...and also to fit a lock on my gate.

Fitting a deadlock on a metal gate prooved to be a challenge. I used a Lockwood external deadlock that I had left over from a previous renovation.

Removed the external barrel and it's gear in order to be able to fit it on a flat surface.
The base for the lock was a 3mm plate some 20 mm larger all around. I had to bend the plate to weld it to the main frame that is 65x65 and also to the first bar that is 25x25, so had to bend the edge 20 mm. With no forge this was a bit dodgy so I decided to cut along the bending line with the grinder halfway. Bend it easy in the vice and then weld along the bend. Perfect sharp 90 degree angle.
For this weld I cranked the heat up a tad to get good penetration. 3coarse / 1fine and wire 6
I then cheeted and removed the gate in order to weld downhand the plate to the frame and bar. No problems. My arms don't hurt anymore, I think I can enter the cemet bag hurling competition.
I turned the settings down to 2/4/5. Got a bit of smoke from the paint but I grinded the welding spot. Achieved a nice even crackling sound. By the way I cook bacon regularly and never get that sound.
I drilled the locks fitting plate out to 8 mm, drilled my base plate with 6.5mm and tapped the thread for 4 8x20 bolts. Had to grind two of the bolt's head a bit lower to fit.

Next was the striker. That is the gadged that recieves the two deadbolts. I cut two more or less triangular bits from an 8mm plate and after a lot of shaping with the grinder and a very large and coarse square file and after drilling both out with 13mm drill, I got to weld them on a 65x100x5mm plate. Clearly they had to be dead accurate, paralell and the two holes aligned.
The striker turned out real good. It would clearly withstand the assaults of a truck crashing in the gate. To weld the 8mm stirkers to the 5mm plate I had the machine on 3/2/6.5 I grinded a 45º chanfer off the strikers some 1/3 of the thickness and the weld got good penetration. I tacked them first, then did one centimeter of weld on one side. Corrected the vertical with hammer and square, welded 1 cm on the other side, then full go both sides. The second striker was a bit harder sicne they are too close for good access on the inside weld, but I managed from both ends and in the denter I just let the wire stick out a bit more. Still Ok weld.

Now came the challenge. To weld the striker plate ot the gate post that is concreted in the ground. Since you advised against my gravity altering magnet, I had a go at vertical weld. Had the plate clamped in place, the paint grounded off from the post. Fist setting was 2/4/4 torch pointing upwards some 10 degrees

The nothingess.
A hissing sound and watch the wire melt backwards. I had to clean the torch nozzle that turned black from the paint smoke, and had a few molten steel perls stuck in it. I managed to free the wire again and increased the wire speed a tad.
No joy, same result hissing and splutter.
I increased the heat to 3/1 wire at 5 torch 5 degree up...not better, just louder hissing.
3/2/5 torch horizontal. A few sporadic cracks like from a dodgy wipp cracking competitor.
Finally I held the torch real near and pointing a bit downwards and now I had a few burst of good weld. Nothing to be proud off though and all in dear need of DeeWalt 115.

Well...the stricking plate is positioned perfectly aligned with the lock nad it works a charm, But I must say that when I gladly left the welds on the thick plate au naturalle
I had to grind and grind my terrible vertical welds.

I did notice that the smoke from the surrounding paint does not help. The nozzle got as black as a chimemee and that can not be good. The torch position upwards, made the little drops fall all back into the torch and I had to clean again and again. manytimes the wire got welded to the tip and I barely managed to free it again.
It seems that only when I had the settings much higher than I would want to try on a 2.5mm pipe, did it start giving me some results
However all was not lost, I can now actually see the welding pool much better and I can push it were I want it to be. Yet I can only do so if I get the right setting. When it goes silent and hissing there is nothing I can do.
In hindsight, I should have probably tried to set the heat even higher and do a bit of spot welding, 1 cm at the time. That would have probably given me better results.

At a volts of 2/4, the wire feed, if causing a hissing sounds needs to be turned down, back reduced, less..


Hissing indicates spray, which aint what you need for postional welding -too runny and sloppy

If wire is hissing turn it back until it begins to crack .Its like frying bacon type cracking.,

Increasing the voltage setting will only make it worse.It causes those big runny drops to fall off and block your nozzle.

Grahame

Hmm, so had I set it at 2/4 and wire down to 3 it may have worked?
It just sem reasonable to increase the speed of the wire so that it does not burn back...
Then again I gave it more amps rigth?
At what point do I have to change the tip?

Originally Posted by Marc

Hmm, so had I set it at 2/4 and wire down to 3 it may have worked?
It just sem reasonable to increase the speed of the wire so that it does not burn back...
Then again I gave it more amps right?
At what point do I have to change the tip?

There is a point under the "Crackling Noise" where this will happen, but the post said it hisses. Hissing occurs way above the "crackling Noise" in my experince.

Some photos of the resultant weld may help.It can be hard to estimate this by remote control.

Regarding the contact tip, it is not a big deal to change, maybe a $1.50 or $2.
Generally, the tipcan be reclaimed by filing the end flat to get the round shape back and eliminate the bell mouth hole that the burn back causes.

Tuning is a matter of setting the voltage first and tuning the wire speed to it.It may well be you will have to run 3/1 or 3,2 to get the desired result.Its had to tell when not on the spot.
An experienced mig welder will be able to tune the machine in a say 10 to 15 seconds. Is thereany one local that can help Marc?

I have changed jobs in the last week and my new gig is back teaching ( I won't bloody learn ,will I ?)
Any my new place has rigs very similar to yours but in 3 phase .

When I get a chance to scratch my bum,I'll set a test piece up with photos and a walk through of procedure.It might be a week yet?

Grahame

Thank you for that Graham... yes photos... next weekend.

I think my mistake is that I change the settings all at once. If I weld thick material, I crank up the voltage AND the wire at some guesstimate. And if I want to bring it down, I do the same.
I'll have another go at my stricking plate next week. Grind off all the mess and start again. Set voltage at 2/4 and will play with the wire speed so long up or down until I get it going
I once repaired a marine gear box and made some parts by hand with a file, I sure must be able to set the correct wire speed for a bloody MIG
As for local welders...mm..I am new to the place and the local tradies are few and far between plus I try to keep the content of my workshop hidden as best as I can. I already got done for my ride on mower. That's the reson for the 7 foot security fence.

Back to teaching he? Good luck with that. I hope you teach adults. Kids can be demanding and if you are no longer 30 I think they can test you badly.

Marc is the welder in Sydney or up the bush.

Hay Mark, Something that may help: a good T.A. , or some 'quality time' with the Misses! So get set up, volts on what ever you think is a good start , then roughly match that with your amps/wire. Now ask your T.A./Lovely assitant to slowly turn the wire feed up, then down until you hit the sweet spot. Note the settings and use this as a reference. You could even do this on the job until you get used to your welder.
NOTE: Dont change volts while welding, only amps.
Cheers, Col.

lets hope we dont read about this beam extension in a coroners report

Originally Posted by tlbsg

lets hope we dont read about this beam extension in a coroners report

That was uncalled for.

If you had read the read the posts in their entirety,you would find few of us have been working very closely with Marc on this.

In addition there has been a few PMs passed back and forward.

Marc is making a great effort to ensure that this is a success. He is just a bit frustrated at not being able to get his new toy operating to the max. He is the sort of bloke who will keep going at it, until he gets it right.

The over hang is only a few feet anyway supporting a verandah and may be a few people.

If you are unable to help,thats fine, just sit back and learn.

Cheers
Grahame

Originally Posted by Col James

Hay Mark, Something that may help: a good T.A. , or some 'quality time' with the Misses!
So get set up, volts on what ever you think is a good start , then roughly match that with your amps/wire.
Now ask your T.A./Lovely assitant to slowly turn the wire feed up, then down until you hit the sweet spot.
Note the settings and use this as a reference. You could even do this on the job until you get used to your welder.
NOTE: Dont change volts while welding, only amps.
Cheers, Col.

Hi Col, thank you for that. I thought of that but I was told you can not change the settings as you weld. So it is only the volts then. Will do.

As for the photos, we had a bit of a slow weekend this time, no much work on the gate so I joined the missus in the garden, got to prune the hibiscus
and the bottle brush and a few other I don't know the names, dig up feed and spray the citrus, weed the potato plants that look very promising and other
related tasks. If father's day activities allow me next week I'll take a few photos of my progress.

Graham, I must say that I really appreciate the camaradery and good will of the weld experts in this forum.
Having worked for many years in my fathers wroght iron art works as a blacksmith in a previous remote life, I do not accept mediocre results easily and so with your
help I am sure that this famous beam extension will end being a good strong bond. What I am doing now is practice with your and the others guidance.
Thank you all for that.
Kind regards
Marc

“Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you.” William Arthur Ward (dedicated scholar, author, editor, pastor and teacher)

Nice quote. Everyone is allowed an opinion.