What Should I be Practicing??

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I'm currently attending a Technical College student (at 36 years old, with 3 kids) going for a full welding certification and am also taking blue print reading for welders. I'd like to practice welding during the summer. My wife's grandfather who passed on about 12 years ago was a very good and successful welder. Wife's grandmother who is being taken care of by wife's aunt at grandmothers house still has nearly all the welding tools and gear. I've gotten thru brazing and have just begun stick welding. I'm really enjoying it all... What should I fire up to be practicing on? Guessing I should not be concerned with brazing practice, there are some tall old tanks I can use- and the hoses look fine on them. However, I'm thinking there's not much left in them anymore. There's also a large 220 Amp stick welder that I can utilize, it's old with nothing digital on it all- But I'm told it works just fine. I recently got myself an auto darkening helmet which I wished I'd gotten a long time ago- I wear all my safety gear and have learned a few times that when your gloves start smoking... Fingers and hands feel a good bit of heat very shortly there after. I've got a full apron and welders arm vest as well. I'm going to get one of the guys I work with (the fleet mechanic) to show me how to use the welder and help me check stuff out- he's old school and knows a good bit about welding. The welders at school are digital Millers. This welder is mounted on a custom welded rolling cart (complete with multiple storage areas), but it only has knobs and dials on it and cranks- No Digital Stuff At All. From what I've been told though, those old school type welders can outperform some of these newer models. Advice? Tips? Suggestions? Thank you in Advance. Bob.
Reply:Originally Posted by Trucker2WelderI'm currently attending a Technical College student (at 36 years old, with 3 kids) going for a full welding certification and am also taking blue print reading for welders. I'd like to practice welding during the summer. My wife's grandfather who passed on about 12 years ago was a very good and successful welder. Wife's grandmother who is being taken care of by wife's aunt at grandmothers house still has nearly all the welding tools and gear. I've gotten thru brazing and have just begun stick welding. I'm really enjoying it all... What should I fire up to be practicing on? Guessing I should not be concerned with brazing practice, there are some tall old tanks I can use- and the hoses look fine on them. However, I'm thinking there's not much left in them anymore. There's also a large 220 Amp stick welder that I can utilize, it's old with nothing digital on it all- But I'm told it works just fine. I recently got myself an auto darkening helmet which I wished I'd gotten a long time ago- I wear all my safety gear and have learned a few times that when your gloves start smoking... Fingers and hands feel a good bit of heat very shortly there after. I've got a full apron and welders arm vest as well. I'm going to get one of the guys I work with (the fleet mechanic) to show me how to use the welder and help me check stuff out- he's old school and knows a good bit about welding. The welders at school are digital Millers. This welder is mounted on a custom welded rolling cart (complete with multiple storage areas), but it only has knobs and dials on it and cranks- No Digital Stuff At All. From what I've been told though, those old school type welders can outperform some of these newer models. Advice? Tips? Suggestions? Thank you in Advance. Bob.
Reply:While brazing is not a often used skil I still enjoy it. It teaches heat control and hand eye cordination similar to tig i.e two hands working together. When you get the welder running you can practice any joint you want just practice and get used to the feel and what you are looking atMillermatic 252millermatic 175miller 300 Thunderboltlincoln ranger 250smith torcheslots of bfh'sIf it dont fit get a bigger hammer
Reply:Practice of any kind is helpful. Welding is all about learning to read the puddle. The only way to do that is quality hood time, and lots of it.I wouldn't worry too much about using and older non digital machine. If anything it will help you learn how to dial things in. Even with the digital machines at the tech school, I still run test beads and tweak the settings based on how the machine runs. The numbers just let me get close to start.If anything I'd ask your instructor what areas he thinks you need the most work on and then practice on that. Where your skill level is would tell me where you need to practice and what to work on. AT the tech school there is a set pattern we usually run students thru. Usually starting with the flat position. 1st running beads on flat plate, then overlapping beads. This is followed by lap joints, T joints, multi pass beads on the T joint followed by a weave over everything on the T joint, outside corners and then beveled but joints in that order. You move on to the next joint after passing the one before it and getting signed off. When all your flats are done, you next go thru the whole thing again with horizontal, vertical and overhead in that order. with stick you do each phase with each rod, usually 610, 7014 and finally 7018 in that order. So for example you do 3 flat lap joints, one with 6010, one with 7014 and one with 7018... You end up burning a lot of rod doing stick. After flat plate, most go on and do all their joints on 6" pipe and later do it all over again on 2" pipe.Post up picts of your practice welds along with settings and so on and we can help you from there..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:Do yourself a favor if your serious about welding.......Buy some books and read themthe hands on part won't do you any good at all if you don't understand the theory behind the welding process.......Then you can practice GOOD habits instead of BADbecause you will know what your pursuing......So many people try to self teach and pick up bad habits that are hard to change........  Miller Dynasty 350Twenty Six HammersThree Crow BarsBig Rock
Reply:Originally Posted by B_CDo yourself a favor if your serious about welding.......Buy some books and read themthe hands on part won't do you any good at all if you don't understand the theory behind the welding process.......Then you can practice GOOD habits instead of BADbecause you will know what your pursuing........
Reply:Originally Posted by B_CDo yourself a favor if your serious about welding.......Buy some books and read them.
Reply:Millers student pack has a lot of great info on all three. You can either buy the hard copy from Miller, or download it all for free. It's a shame they raised the price. It was probably the best deal on the market for what you got as far as literature as well as the calculators and so on. Now I think the packet is a bit over priced to get the hard copy. I'd just download the info and buy the calculators and accessories if you want them.Lincoln also has some excellent books and most are dirt cheap. You can find them on their website but you have to hunt a bit.. If you get nothing else, the "Bible" is a must have if you are serious. It's a bit technical, but the definitive reference on just about anything welding related.http://www.jflfoundation.com/SearchR...show=30&page=1http://www.jflfoundation.com/Product...ProductCode=PH.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 DSWMillers student pack has a lot of great info on all three. You can either buy the hard copy from Miller, or download it all for free. It's a shame they raised the price. It was probably the best deal on the market for what you got as far as literature as well as the calculators and so on. Now I think the packet is a bit over priced to get the hard copy. I'd just download the info and buy the calculators and accessories if you want them.Lincoln also has some excellent books and most are dirt cheap. You can find them on their website but you have to hunt a bit.. If you get nothing else, the "Bible" is a must have if you are serious. It's a bit technical, but the definitive reference on just about anything welding related.http://www.jflfoundation.com/SearchR...show=30&page=1http://www.jflfoundation.com/Product...ProductCode=PH
Reply:On the thread title....Safe sex and being a good citizen.
Reply:Originally Posted by RaulRecommend a couple of good ones? Mig Tig Stick?
Reply:Originally Posted by B_Cunless you can fly us out to your pad.....Never been to NJ....lol
Reply:Practice 3g (vertical up) with a 7018! Do vertical t joints and laps and stuff.  For me 3g was the hardest thing to pass. It takes a good deal of practice!
Reply:Originally Posted by jamesyarbroughPractice 3g (vertical up) with a 7018! Do vertical t joints and laps and stuff.  For me 3g was the hardest thing to pass. It takes a good deal of practice!
Reply:Thanks guys, I'm currently on a stick welder in the welding lab. I've just started, so I'm still trying to master button welds with 7018 rod. I will attempt to post pics in the coming days. I live in Clinton, SC- about an hour above Columbia, SC. I attend school at Piedmont Tech in Greenwood, SC. I enjoy brazing, it's easy for me- compared to stick welding, which is like trying to learn how to ride a bicycle for the 1st time all over again for me. I did good on brazing and torch work- perhaps from operating heavy equipment and being a commercial driver for so long, the hand eye coordination part for me is great! I love sinking my teeth into the welding trade, I wished I had tackled it 5 years ago. I'm doing all flat work for the most part, even brazing we didn't do too much outside of flat work- some vertical but not much. Would it be beneficial for me to join the AWS?? Are there certain magazines or trade organizations/websites I should be pouring over?? My challenge for me right now is keeping that puddle from flowing on the stick welder, instructor keeps saying I'm long arcing- though I've gotten better some, it's still a challenge. They have us do our button welds on thick pieces of cut pipe- so it's rounded surfaces. Thanks again, did not expect such a large and informative response- very surprising, in a good way! Bob
Reply:Thats where practice comes in getting used to keeping a consistent arc length. Watching the weld but looking ahead so you don't fly off the curve in the road.Millermatic 252millermatic 175miller 300 Thunderboltlincoln ranger 250smith torcheslots of bfh'sIf it dont fit get a bigger hammer
Reply:Originally Posted by JPSI resemble that If just starting with stick welding,  running lapping stringers on a flat plate over and over then get a piece of angle and fill that up, lots of practice not much steel.Following what DSW suggested and in the order he listed them I believe is a proven system
Reply:There's a book in Tractor Supply Company store that I came across recently on Welding for $25, it looked very interesting. Are there certain books that I should look at and/or be looking at/for when it comes to actually "studying" the art of welding?? Thanks, Bob.
Reply:Originally Posted by Trucker2WelderThere's a book in Tractor Supply Company store that I came across recently on Welding for $25, it looked very interesting. Are there certain books that I should look at and/or be looking at/for when it comes to actually "studying" the art of welding?? Thanks, Bob.
Reply:Originally Posted by DSWMillers student pack has a lot of great info on all three. You can either buy the hard copy from Miller, or download it all for free.
Reply:Miller has changed things a bit since they added the training videos. It took me a bit to find what I was looking for, so it's no surprise you had trouble.http://www.millerwelds.com/resources...pamphlets.htmlTig Handbookhttp://www.millerwelds.com/resources/TIGhandbook/Guide lines for TIGhttp://www.millerwelds.com/pdf/gtawbook.pdfGuide lines for MIGhttp://www.millerwelds.com/pdf/mig_handbook.pdfGuide lines for SMAW.http://www.millerwelds.com/pdf/guidelines_smaw.pdfPipe welding handbook.http://www.millerwelds.com/pdf/PipeWeldingHandbook.pdfYou might look at Amazon and see if you can't find a used copy of Lincolns book a bit closer to home. I've used Amazon to pick up older copies of fairly expensive books like some of the AWS manuals. Yes they aren't current, but as just a basic reference there's still quite a bit of good information in them. Some times you just have to wait and see if a cheaper copy comes along. I've got a list of books I check periodically looking to see if a cheap copy comes up. I'm not going to spend $150-250 for a reference book for personal use, but I'd certainly drop $50-60 on an older clean used copy.Last option is to find someone who can get the book while they are in the US and bring it back with them. $75 for international shipping seems a bit stiff, but it's been years since I needed to mail anything overseas. I know UPS/Fedex was very expensive. Most of the stuff we'd ship went US postal. There are issues using the postal service, like the lack of an easy way to track the package, but you can save some money if you know someone who is willing to mail it for you and are willing to take the risk it might get lost in transit..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 might look at Amazon and see if you can't find a used copy of Lincolns book a bit closer to home. I've used Amazon to pick up older copies of fairly expensive books like some of the AWS manuals. Yes they aren't current, but as just a basic reference there's still quite a bit of good information in them. Some times you just have to wait and see if a cheaper copy comes along. I've got a list of books I check periodically looking to see if a cheap copy comes up. I'm not going to spend $150-250 for a reference book for personal use, but I'd certainly drop $50-60 on an older clean used copy.
Reply:The book I saw at Tractor Supply was titled "Farm and Workshop Welding", by Andrew Pearce. The book looks very neat, on the cover it says "Everything you need to know to weld, cut, and shape metal".
Reply:Has anybody heard of that book or know about it?? The links have been very interesting in this thread, thank you.
Reply:welding is the part where you finally get to put the pieces  together. i missed it if you said what you are ultimately trying to do, but  if its not just welding, burning rod or wire, there are many other things to learn that together allow fabrication..concept and design, materials, measuring, cutting,shaping ,  bending, which you should start to think about as well..good luck and enjoy it..