Stick practice

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I hope I'm in the right section. Practice with 6013 and 7018 on 1/4 steel plate.  Top bead 7018, bottom bead 6013.
Reply:Bbeads look large and somewhat cold, but it's hard to tell with no references. When asking about your beads and looking for feed back, it helps to tell us all the information up front. Machine used, polarity ( AC, DC+, DC-), material type and thickness, amps used, rod size and type. We don't know, so we would have to guess. Amps that are right for 1/8" 7018 wouldn't be right for 1/16" rods. Amps that work for 1/2" plate would be wrong for 16 ga etc.... That's why it's important we know all the info up front.Your plate needs to be cleaned a bit better. While stick is more tolerant of junk like scale etc, it never hurts to grind to clean steel. A wire brush won't cut it. It's great for removing slag, but it just polishes rust and scale. It doesn't remove them. Also your material is really thin looking. The beads themselves are super large in comparison. Usually you want your beads about the same size as the material thickness of the thinner piece. So if you are welding 2 pieces of 1/4" steel in a T joint, the weld goes up 1/4" on each plate, not 1/2". That rule breaks down some what when you hit 1/8" as it gets tough to make welds on thinner steel and not have the beads bigger than the base material, but you still want them as small as possible, so on 1/8", 3/16" would be about the biggest I'd want to see, if not 1/8"..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Thanks for the feedback.  The material is 1/4" steel plate (not really sure if carbon steel), both 7018 and 6013 are 1/8" local brand, amperage is 120 for 7018, 100 for 6013.  The machine that I used is a cheap DC inverter combo welder (TIG).About the bead size I am agreeing with you about the size, it's too big and I'm guessing my travel speed is too slow. Here are some additional photos with reference as to the size of the bead and the material thickness.
Reply:Had free time to practice stick welding.  Material is 1/4 mild steel plate, 1/8 7018 rod, 130 amps, uphill.  I need more practice haha
Reply:your 7018 uphill needs some adjustment. When using a z weave you start you puddle on one side then move straight across to the other side quickly, pausing for a second on each side. Then you z over to the other side and up. Don't move too far up, just a wee bit. Pause for a second then move straight across to the other side and pause for a second again. Dont hold too long in the middle, move quickly across the middle area. In the photo you posted, your moving too far up as your moving from side to side. Your also z ing over and up on each side. You only want to z over and up on one side, then move straight across to the other side, the z over and up again. Keep your upward distance consistent and always pause for a second on each side. Pausing on the sides allows your puddle to wash in to the edges and fills any uncercut of the base metal.  The middle takes care of itself.JasonLincoln Idealarc 250 stick/tigThermal Dynamics Cutmaster 52Miller Bobcat 250Torchmate CNC tableThermal Arc Hefty 2Ironworkers Local 720
Reply:Thank you for the advice snoeproe.  I'm having a hard time starting 7018s as my machine doesn't have a hot start function.  What's the best way or technique to start 7018s? The beads looked too spaced out.  So I need to tighten up my Z weave and just dash across the middle.  Thanks again snoeproe.
Reply:I never really use hot start with 7018. When I did my cert for vertical up on 3/8" ASTM A36 steel I ran at 114 amps the entire time. I used the same technique snoeproe just said and my beads came out great. Vertical up is very partial to consistency. My instructors told me to pick a song with a constant rythm and hum along as you weld. I may have looked rediculous singing in the booth, but d@mn it worked for me. I think 130 amps may be a little hot for uphill on 1/4" steel plate. As for starting the arc i just did a quick scratch at the bottom and let the puddle build up for a second or two before i started welding.
Reply:Thanks Starscream for the input.  That's a nice idea basing your welding/weaving rhythm on a song.  I'm not really sure if my machine is giving 130 amps as this is just a cheap welder, but the dial is pointed at 130 amps.  Maybe in a day or two I can post new practice beads trying all your advice/inputs.  Thanks again.
Reply:Had time to practice again.  I had a hard time starting the 7018s.  The bottom slag inclusion is from the start and the top slag inclusion is from the restart.
Reply:I also got my argon tank so I tried TIG for the first time.  It's hard but it is addicting.  Inconsistencies all over
Reply:Consistency, consistency, consistency...  you need to be more consistent.On your tig beads, I see a lot of orange "dust" along the edges. That's telling me you fouled the tungsten and just kept on trying to weld. That's no good. As soon as you foul the tungsten, STOP and regrind. I tell students learning tig to get used to grinding. They'll do more of that then they will welding.In post 4 your weave is way too large. You have a very saw toothed look to the legs because your motions are too big, You need to move forward 1/3 as far for each side to side motion you do. That will allow you to fill in those missed portions of the legs..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:what will be the difference if the toggle switch of my machine is set to stick welding instead of TIG welding? (while I'm TIG welding) apparently I made those beads with the toggle switch on stick welding (very stupid of me)Thanks for the tips.  I will be trying those tomorrow.Last edited by balongdelossantos; 11-01-2014 at 12:12 PM.
Reply:I don't know. I have know idea what machine you are using..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:You can TIG weld in stick mode, thats the very old school way they use to tig weld. Scratch start. The newer version of that is called lift-arc. Or using a remote using high frequency waves to start the arc. If it has TIG setting it sends a different amount of volts opposed to stick setting. Tig setting will have a smoother arc.Miller Maxstar 200 SDPiperliner #10 Gold
Reply:Originally Posted by smilexelectricYou can TIG weld in stick mode, thats the very old school way they use to tig weld. Scratch start. The newer version of that is called lift-arc. Or using a remote using high frequency waves to start the arc. If it has TIG setting it sends a different amount of volts opposed to stick setting. Tig setting will have a smoother arc.
Reply:You need to list amps used, material thickness, filler rod size and so on, so we can give you better feed back without guessing.All those beads all look too cold to me. It's tough to make tall beads like that on flat plate if your amps are correct. If you amps are right, my 2nd thought is that you aren't forming a puddle on the plate, but instead melting the filler with the arc and dropping it on the plate. Those beads have a lot of the characteristics of filler just blobbed on the plate without forming a puddle. Remember you melt the filler with the puddle NOT the arc.Steel usually has nice crisp ripples, hence the term "stack of dimes". The ones you show have the rounded edges you usually see with alum, not steel. That tends to make me think you are not melting the filler with your puddle, but melting the filler with the arc and it's dripping on cold material..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Originally Posted by DSWYou need to list amps used, material thickness, filler rod size and so on, so we can give you better feed back without guessing.All those beads all look too cold to me. It's tough to make tall beads like that on flat plate if your amps are correct. If you amps are right, my 2nd thought is that you aren't forming a puddle on the plate, but instead melting the filler with the arc and dropping it on the plate. Those beads have a lot of the characteristics of filler just blobbed on the plate without forming a puddle. Remember you melt the filler with the puddle NOT the arc.Steel usually has nice crisp ripples, hence the term "stack of dimes". The ones you show have the rounded edges you usually see with alum, not steel. That tends to make me think you are not melting the filler with your puddle, but melting the filler with the arc and it's dripping on cold material.
Reply:Material thickness?...If you are using 1/8" stock, amps seems about right. I'd bank on you melting filler with the arc vs melting it with the puddle. Tungsten is a bit smaller than I use but still in the range of the tungstens, Filler is about right.I'd suggest you spend some time simply running puddles on bare plate with no filler so you get a feel how things react to travel speed and arc length. That's usually the 1st thing we have students do. I'd change one variable at a time for simplicity. Change how fast you travel maintaining a constant arc length for a dozen or so beads. Then change arc length while maintaining a consistent travel speed and not how the puddle reacts. Poor torch angle also is a big contributor to melting the filler with the arc. Many guys don't extend the tungsten out far enough to see the tungsten well. To compensate, they crank the torch way over to something like a 45 deg angle and blow a ton of heat out in front of them as they go. Small filler that's well heated will often melt before it hits the puddle and drip down on cold plate causing what I see there. You want the torch almost vertical, tipped back maybe 10 or 15 degs or at about the 1oclock position. That puts the heat down into the plate and doesn't over heat your filler. I also like to have new students learn to start adding filler using the lay wire technique. Keep the filler in contact with the plate and slide it on the plate into the puddle to melt it, or "chase" the filler with the puddle. Start a puddle and then bring it up to the end of the filler and follow the filler with the puddle. If you have a decent sized puddle, the filler will HAVE to melt when it hits the edge of the puddle and won't make it to the arc.If you are having trouble seeing the arc, you need to extend the tungsten out more. A gas lens can help with this and still maintain good gas coverage, but it's not required. You can stick the tungsten out pretty far and not have serious issues with gas flow for learning. If you want to know how far, make a few runs maintaining travel speed and arc length and just keep extending the tungsten out farther each time until you start to see porosity and gas issues. With a gas lens you can be out stupid far before this happens. With a normal #7-8 cup 5/8" or more is easily doable and almost 1" probably wouldn't surprise me..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Good info DSW.  I'll try it.  I'm having some TIG challenges also.  Same approach on tungsten out for aluminum?30+ yrs Army Infantry & Field Artillery, 25 yrs agoMiller 350LX Tig Runner TA 210, spool gunLincoln 250/250 IdealArcESAB PCM 500i PlasmaKazoo 30"  vert BSKazoo 9x16 horiz BSClausing 12x24 lathe20T Air Press
Reply:Same. With alum it's even more important your torch angle isn't excessive. The filler melts a lot easier then with steel. By the time most guys I work with get to aluminum, they are at the point they can at least tap in filler and don't have to use the lay wire technique any longer. Biggest issue with alum is heat. You want your amps at least 20% higher than with steel, so for 1/8" you want to be at a minimum of 150 amps if not higher. Pound the pedal to the floor and get the puddle to form NOW, then fly. Don't ***** foot and try to creep up on the amps. All you'll do is heat up the whole piece and when it's ready to weld, the whole thing will want to go at the same time. By going heavy on the amps and moving fast, backing down on the amps as the plate heats up, you outrun the heat build up and get a better weld. Also it's important to take a stainless wire brush to the alum surface and remove the alum oxide layer. Alum oxide melts at a much higher temp than bare alum, so by the time you melt the oxide layer, the center is already a liquid. If you try and go slow and creep up on the amps, the center will all be liquid and as soon as the oxide layer melts, the whole thing usually drops out around the puddle and you just have a big mess..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Originally Posted by DSWSame. With alum it's even more important your torch angle isn't excessive. The filler melts a lot easier then with steel. By the time most guys I work with get to aluminum, they are at the point they can at least tap in filler and don't have to use the lay wire technique any longer. Biggest issue with alum is heat. You want your amps at least 20% higher than with steel, so for 1/8" you want to be at a minimum of 150 amps if not higher. Pound the pedal to the floor and get the puddle to form NOW, then fly. Don't ***** foot and try to creep up on the amps. All you'll do is heat up the whole piece and when it's ready to weld, the whole thing will want to go at the same time. By going heavy on the amps and moving fast, backing down on the amps as the plate heats up, you outrun the heat build up and get a better weld. Also it's important to take a stainless wire brush to the alum surface and remove the alum oxide layer. Alum oxide melts at a much higher temp than bare alum, so by the time you melt the oxide layer, the center is already a liquid. If you try and go slow and creep up on the amps, the center will all be liquid and as soon as the oxide layer melts, the whole thing usually drops out around the puddle and you just have a big mess.
Reply:Originally Posted by DSWMaterial thickness?...If you are using 1/8" stock, amps seems about right. I'd bank on you melting filler with the arc vs melting it with the puddle. Tungsten is a bit smaller than I use but still in the range of the tungstens, Filler is about right.I'd suggest you spend some time simply running puddles on bare plate with no filler so you get a feel how things react to travel speed and arc length. That's usually the 1st thing we have students do. I'd change one variable at a time for simplicity. Change how fast you travel maintaining a constant arc length for a dozen or so beads. Then change arc length while maintaining a consistent travel speed and not how the puddle reacts. Poor torch angle also is a big contributor to melting the filler with the arc. Many guys don't extend the tungsten out far enough to see the tungsten well. To compensate, they crank the torch way over to something like a 45 deg angle and blow a ton of heat out in front of them as they go. Small filler that's well heated will often melt before it hits the puddle and drip down on cold plate causing what I see there. You want the torch almost vertical, tipped back maybe 10 or 15 degs or at about the 1oclock position. That puts the heat down into the plate and doesn't over heat your filler. I also like to have new students learn to start adding filler using the lay wire technique. Keep the filler in contact with the plate and slide it on the plate into the puddle to melt it, or "chase" the filler with the puddle. Start a puddle and then bring it up to the end of the filler and follow the filler with the puddle. If you have a decent sized puddle, the filler will HAVE to melt when it hits the edge of the puddle and won't make it to the arc.If you are having trouble seeing the arc, you need to extend the tungsten out more. A gas lens can help with this and still maintain good gas coverage, but it's not required. You can stick the tungsten out pretty far and not have serious issues with gas flow for learning. If you want to know how far, make a few runs maintaining travel speed and arc length and just keep extending the tungsten out farther each time until you start to see porosity and gas issues. With a gas lens you can be out stupid far before this happens. With a normal #7-8 cup 5/8" or more is easily doable and almost 1" probably wouldn't surprise me.
Reply:Had time to practice TIG.  Thanks DSW for the advice, tips etc.  I think I made an improvement from the last time I practiced.About the craters at the end of the weld, what is the best way to avoid those? I'm only using scratch start TIG
Reply:Beads still look cold to me for some reason. I'm thinking it might simply be an optical illusion with the camera flash and contrast sa the edge pict doesn't look as tall as the flat picts make it out to be.I don't know why guys always want to weld "sideways" across the short side of the material... Well I do, because it's easier for them to do so. I'm constantly telling guys at the tech school to weld along the 6" length rather than the 3" length of the coupons. Yes it's harder. That's the point. It forces you to learn to shift your body or hands to make longer welds. In fact one of the guys who hires out of the tech school I know complains that the 6" welds aren't long enough to prepare guys for the real world. His test is to give guys a 12" joint to weld up and see how they do in the last 6" and if they had to stop and reset themselves or could just go with the flow.Filling craters just takes practice. Since you can't back off the amps like you can with a pedal, you have to just swirl the puddle a bit and add more filler. You were real close on a few of those. ( lower ones in pict 1 and left side ones pict 2)Just keep it up, you are doing well. I'd move you on to overlapping welds at this point. Instead of running each weld side by side 1 full bead like you did. run the next bead overlapping the last  by 50%. That gets you ready to do lap joints. It allows you to learn to aim where the bead needs to go with the least amount of material waste. As good as your spacing is, I doubt this will be too tough for you, and you can quickly move on to joints. I'd still suggest you work on longer beads though. I also wouldn't mind seeing you dip a bit more often to tighten up the pattern some..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Originally Posted by DSWBeads still look cold to me for some reason. I'm thinking it might simply be an optical illusion with the camera flash and contrast sa the edge pict doesn't look as tall as the flat picts make it out to be.Yes you aim at the toe of the weld. I prefer to keep most of the puddle mostly on the lower plate and wash it up the 1st bead with just a bit of torch motion myself..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Noted sir.  By the way what thickness of metal should I use for lap joints for a good practice piece?
Reply:1/8" works well. It's thick enough you don't burn thru, thin enough to allow you top work on heat control. 14 ga would also work but requires more control than 1/8" does. We use 3x6" pieces.Be sure you tack both sides of the laps before you weld. If you don't, the plates usually pull and you can weld both sides. We have the students set up the laps like steps adding one plate at a time. That way you use less material. You get 2 joints from the 1st 2 pieces, then 2 more joints with each additional piece added. If you just keep welding 2 together as pairs, you get 4 joints for 4 pieces. If you stair them, you get 6 joints for 4 pieces..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Originally Posted by snoeproeyour 7018 uphill needs some adjustment. When using a z weave you start you puddle on one side then move straight across to the other side quickly, pausing for a second on each side. Then you z over to the other side and up. Don't move too far up, just a wee bit. Pause for a second then move straight across to the other side and pause for a second again. Dont hold too long in the middle, move quickly across the middle area. In the photo you posted, your moving too far up as your moving from side to side. Your also z ing over and up on each side. You only want to z over and up on one side, then move straight across to the other side, the z over and up again. Keep your upward distance consistent and always pause for a second on each side. Pausing on the sides allows your puddle to wash in to the edges and fills any uncercut of the base metal.  The middle takes care of itself.
Reply:It depends on what you want to do with it. If it's just hobby or around-the-farm welding, it's fine, although it does look a little cold.  Also, practice using two pieces of metal - welding them together.  It's fairly easy to weld on a flat plate.-RuarkLincoln 3200HDHobart Stickmate LX235TWECO Fabricator 211i
Reply:Originally Posted by balongdelossantosThank you again DSW.  This is like an online welding school haha  ... Thanks again DSW.
Reply:Originally Posted by that'll_buff_outquick question:using a start-on-left example do you: establish puddle and move horizontally to the right, pause and move up diagonally to the left, pause, move up a hair and pause, move horizontally to the right.... rinse and repeat?if a dot (.) is pause,and a underscore (_) is move straight acrossand a backslash (\) is move diagonally up and to the left, and the | symbol (dunno what that is called) means to move up slightly  ._. then \.|. then _. then \.|. then _. and so on...does this help clarify my question? (prolly just adds confusion, ha)anyhow, this makes me look at weaving uphill differently than i would with a ./.\./.\./ movement. i would assume the pause-and-move-up-on-one-side method would be used if the materials were of dissimilar thicknesses. but i dont really know. so im askin. thx