Thread: How many would like a procedure for welding 1.6 Duragal

Evening all,
Ok,I have new electrodes and went out today and did some welding on 1.6 wall Duragal.

Welding 1.6mm tube with a stick electrode. Yes it can be done with mig but not all of us have a mig.

With this in mind ,all comments I make from herein will deal with welding by stick electrode of thin wall galvanized products.

Some housekeeping first to tidy up some matters that keep cropping up.

Safety
For those with breathing problems would be wise to regard the fumes given off with extreme caution . Precautions for welding zinc coated products are pretty standard worldwide

Material to be welded.
Well usually this is Duragal SHS or RHS, box section to most people. It does come in thicker wall sections but many of us buy 1.6mm WT because its cheap.


Welding machine type,
Sorry, but if you want to weld 1.6mm wall thickness you really need to have a DC output machine. In general this means an inverter, but a rectified AC power source is also good. I won’t speak for generated DC as I have never welded with it on really low amp settings. Bear in mind we are looking around the 40 amp operating range.

.If there are people that say they can weld 1.6mm wall thickness using their transformer buzz box well and good,. If they can post an instructive post an article I am happy to read it and learn from them. Me, I only succeed in blowing a hole on the initial arc strike. I won’t say it can’t be done, I am just saying I can’t do it.


Electrodes
I am using 1.6mm Gemini 12 as they are the smallest diameter electrodes I can lay my hands on. Purchased this week 6/11/12 at $27 per 2.5Kgs.Also have some new 2 mm to try as well.

Eyes
If you wear glasses to read you will also need your glasses to weld. Alternately stick a diopter in with the helmet lens filter. Firstly try the glasses tree at the chemist shop to find the right power for you. 1 ,2 or 3 .Then you will know the diopter power you need to weld with. A note here is that bi focal and graduated glasses are pain in the rrrs to wear in respect of aligning your eyes, the short focus areas of your glasses and the window in the helmet. The buggers will slide down your nose and ruin your focal length-usually during the weld.

I have found that wearing single focus reading glasses or the diopters much more user friendly. Its difficult enough when phaffing around with thin wall materials, amps, alignment and so on. One less source of bother is a good thing.

Amperage setting
Duragal have an excellent guide for most welding processes.
See it at

http://Www.austubemills.com/.../Dura...lding%20Guide_...
More on amperage and arc length below


Welding helmets
While an auto darkening unit is without doubt good it’s not absolutely necessary. Then again a beginner, bearing in mind the above comments about less bother, may find it easier. A point to note is that some cheaper end helmets suffer at the lower end of the amp range and can flicker on and off.

Material preparation
If you read the Duragal welding guide they tell you Duragal is ok to weld without skimming off the gal. Your mileage may vary but I do get better results, ie fewer blow holes from removing the gal . With zinc materials, where present, a molten weld pool transforms zinc to gaseous reactive material. That’s where those gas holes come from. Just a skim with a flap wheel is good for me.

Fit ups
Filling any gaps from bad fit up is not real easy with stick in thin stuff, so keep those joints gap free. That means being careful and cutting your joints square.

Tack ups. & Amps as for tack up
Normally expect to run 10% higher but this is 1.6mm thick stock. Better to play with some scrap first and sneak up on your final amps while refining your technique.
Tacks themselves are kept small. The beads themselves are small anyway ,so don’t exacerbate this by making chunky tacks which will be difficult to weld over and look like crap to boot..

The welded bead
I found the 1.6mm diam electrodes tend to wobble due to their small diameter ( no it was NOT me shaking from hair of the dog) and this make it difficult to strike the arc. Amperage was set at 40 .I ran a couple of beads semi vertical down and used a slightly longer arc length than normal to flatten the bead.

Pics tomorrow maybe if it does not rain as I’m welding outside.

Cheers
Grahame