Thread: Welding Progress

Probably best to raise this in the welding subforum.
The discolouration of the metal is called the heat affected zone. Good to see on the back of a T joint but if your sheet pieces are butt jointed, you actually want the weld to go all the way through.

For a horizontal weld, you generally dont bother going forward andback repeatedly. You just turn it up if the weld is cold. Maybe at the start, you can start your arc ahead of where you want to weld then bring it back.

Hi Peter, WELDING - Woodwork Forums is a dedicated forum for welding queries - do a search here and you'll find lots of good discussion.

basically, welding fillets (i.e. in corners) is harder to get the hang of compared to butt welds (flat joints), so best to practice on flat joints first. Back and forth movement isn't necessary, sometimes it is used if welding rusty metal to clean ahead of the weld, but there's more risk of slag inclusions if you backtrack too much. A better technique is to either go straight, or weave (zigzag) slightly side to side to make sure both pieces of metal are involved in the weld. To check your penetration while welding, look at what's happening at the front of the arc. The arc should be eating into the new metal (both pieces) as you move along and the weld pool should be filling the crater up virtually immediately as you go. Note that half of the molten material is actually molten slag which floats on top of the weld and adds nothing to the actual strength of the bond - so you have to watch what's happening at the front of the weld pool rather than just checking to see what's been deposited. Cheers - Mick

Thanks all. Next time I post I'll stick it in to the welding forum but thanks a lot.

Just a heads up to be a little careful about welding too close to what you call one of the "magnetic thingies". I don't "do" stick, so can't comment on how they affect the arc in that case, but they definitely will pull a TIG arc when you get close to a magnetic clamp, at least that's my experience with them. I tend not to use them too much these days, both for that reason and the fact that I can set up a job more accurately and take steps to avoid it pulling out of square if I clamp the work with conventional clamps. It takes fractionally longer but my welding table corners are square so it's not too bad.

Good luck with the fabrication.

Pete