Some Position Questions

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Just getting started with MIG welding and looking to improve my technique.  I started with oxy, which made things a lot easier to see.I've been pushing, and from what I've been reading, it looks like I want to have my gun angled back 10 or so degrees from straight up and down, correct?  That's travel angle?  The forward or backward angle along the direction of the weld, if I understand correctly.I'm mostly welding in the flat position, practicing butt joints for now.  Is work angle the side to side angle?  For flat position welding, My work angle would be 90, correct?  My work angle only changes if I'm doing some other position like horizontal or t-joints?Lastly, how do you orient your weld seam to you?  I've been pushing, running my beads straight out from where I'm standing.  Would I be better served by orienting my work so that the weld seam is perpendicular to me, rather than parallel?  Compared to my work with oxy, I'm having a harder time seeing the puddle because my hands and the gun are in the way.-Jeremy
Reply:Sounds like you have the angles down right. How you position your work depends a lot on the person welding. I weld right to left pushing with mig. I see a lot of students who weld at an "angle" across a plate if running a bead on flat plate. They position the piece straight left to right in front of them, but based on how they have their body positioned, their body wants to move naturally at a slight angle to that plate. When done, most right hand guys find they started out say at the top of a 6" long piece of 3" stock, but they finished in the middle on the left side. To go straight across, they either need to reposition their body slightly ( usually shifting their left foot back about 2 or 3"), or angle the plate so the middle on the left side is about 1 1/2" higher.It's pretty easy to pick this up after they have done a few dozen welds. If they consistently make nice straight beads parallel to each other, but slanted on the plate, their position needs to be adjusted slightly. As you improve and get more practice, it gets easier to put the bead where you want it, despite not being in the optimal position. I typically have to do this so I can stand slightly off to one side and let the student stand about where he'd be while welding to watch. I can get away with this most times because I have learned to read the puddle and know how to manipulate it to make it go where I want it to, even when I'm fighting where my body naturally wants to go in the process.Not everyone welds the same way. I've seen a number of guys who will weld almost straight towards themselves ( I do that often doing overhead). I tend to weld right to left as mentioned, but lean way over to look down the "barrel" of the mig to more easily watch the puddle. I have a student this term who finds it easier to look in from the side. It makes it a bit harder for me to explain things as what he sees isn't exactly what I'm seeing while welding, but it works for him and I can certainly tell he's able to see the puddle the way it works for him.A small note. But welds are some of the hardest to master often. We have students 1st do beads on flat plate, followed by overlapping beads ( padding). Then they do lap joints, followed by T joints and T joints with stacked beads, then outside corners and finally but joints and V grooves. Each drill builds on what you learned with the last one. Overlapping beads teaches guys to aim at the same point consistently. Laps are just like overlapping beads, but now you have an edge to protect. T's take that a step farther as now you have less of a heat sink on one piece and you don't have a nice edge at the top to follow and so on..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:Impatience leads me to jump right in, but I'll go back to just running beads, then overlapping them.  Odd that butt joints are harder to master, they seem the most basic.  Ts were the hardest thing I tried with oxy.Thanks for the info!-Jeremy
Reply:I'm not telling you what you are doing is wrong. Just that you may be taking a big bit all at once. Usually I find that taking one small step at a time is easier than jumping ahead and trying to learn everything at once.What makes but joints tough is that usually to do them right, you have to gap the pieces. You need enough heat to melt thru 100%, but not enough to blow big holes in the edges. Too many times students either don't penetrate all the way to the back side 100% even though the top looks nice, or they make huge holes and loose the bead. If you bevel the edges a lot, you can but them tight and have a bit easier of a time, but the same issue still crop up. Simply trying to blow thru the full thickness with the pieces butted tight seldom works well. You need a lot of heat to melt all the way thru and with mig, you also are laying down a lot of wire in the process usually. That means a huge bead on the one side that you have to deal with. This works with sheet metal, but not well with thicker stuff.Post up clear detailed picts of your welds and we'll help you improve. Both sides if doing but joints. We'll need info like machine you are using, settings for power and wire speed. Type of wire, wire size, material thickness and so on. The more we know, the better our answers will be..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:Yeah, I have the tendency to jump into a new hobby with both feet, then slow down once I realize how much I have to learn Posted up once in the Projects thread with my first welds. Using an Eastman 135 to learn on. I know it's not much of a machine, but I'm just doing hobbyist stuff for now and trying to learn. I'll post up some more once I get a chance to do more practicing.-Jeremy