Asking for some comments on my welds

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I've been welding just as a hobby, fix up kind of stuff for a long time, but I've never gotten that far into it. I took some basic welding in high school back in the early 80's and a two week course as part of my automotive pre-apprenticeship course at college, otherwise I'm self taught.I think I'm a fairly decent fabricator and I'm a good handyman, jack of all trades. I've worked in the trades on and off most of my life and now do a lot of side work which is starting to include more and more welding. My main job is helping my wife run her family's liquor shop.I'm a Canadian living in Tokyo Japan.OK here is what I was welding today, I'm working on my welding table and this will be a removable vice mount.The small plate will be welded to the large plate with four holes in it, then the square tube will be welded onto the small plate.I cleaned everything up as well as I could.....and clamped the parts in position on my table.I tacked the four corners of the smaller plate to the larger plate.I then welded a bead about an 1-1/4" long from each corner towards the center.and promptly ran out of wire! I have more on order, it should come tomorrow.Mild steel 6mm thickHobart Handler 175 200VWire is 0.8 or 30 thou (?)Heat setting is #4 (the highest)Wire speed is 50 (recommended on the machine)I'm using straight Co2 gas as I get it for free.I was dragging on all the welds.How is my welding?As I said I'm working to get better at this, I have more work coming that will need good welding. I'm also looking to get certified, or qualified here in Japan, not sure exactly what that all involves, a written and then a practical test I understand, but I am looking into that, I want to achieve that and be certified, or qualified, I'm not sure how you say it even Please give me some feed back on the welds that I've shown.A couple of questions if I may;Should I get my bottle of CO2/Argon mix refilled? It is not cheap, but if it makes a big difference then I will do it.Can someone point me towards a certification type site or list of what makes what certification over there in the US or Canada?Thank you all in advance.Cheers!Dragon D-150 Arc WelderHobart Handler 175 Set up with 100% CO²WT-60 Plasma Arc Panasonic TIG Star YC-300TWX-2 Panasonic YX-0092UW Water Cooler for the TIG
Reply:I've never seen a stacked drag weldThe main thing is not to panic or get excited Bobcat 250, X-Treme 12VS,  MM211Meltabo, Milwaukee,Porter Cable,Dewalt,MakitaVictor O/A, Ingersoll-RandEvolution Rage2, 40 amp PlasmaLincoln 225 AC/DC
Reply:Third weld picture looks good.  The first two weld pictures look like they may have been a little on the cold side.  I think you have a good handle on it.  seabee78
Reply:Originally Posted by RenagadeI've never seen a stacked drag weld
Reply:Originally Posted by seabee78Third weld picture looks good.  The first two weld pictures look like they may have been a little on the cold side.  I think you have a good handle on it.  seabee78
Reply:"Cold" can mean a couple of things. Usually it means you need more voltage. However it might also mean you have too much wire speed for that voltage ( or the wire size is too big for that voltage), or that you are holding the gun too far away. With mig, the closer you hold the gun, the "hotter" your weld, the farther away, the "colder" all other settings staying the same. You want to be 1/4" to 3/8" away from the material with the gun.1st bead your motions could be a bit "tighter", same with weld 3. By that I mean the distance the "dimes" are apart could be closer together. The ripples in #2 are very close together and very nice. However there is way too much material there and it's started to roll over the base material.Now push vs drag. With FC wire you drag. With solid wire you can do either, but generally if you push, you reduce your heat input and lay down a flatter bead. If you drag, you tend to pile more metal on top of the weld you have already made. We teach guys to push when we teach solid wire mig at the tech school. If you can push with mig, I'll have no issues getting you to do nice drag welds. The opposite is not true with the majority of guys. I see a lot of guys who want to drag solid wire because they say they can't see. To push and see, you need to get you head out in front of the gun and look down the barrel, not sit behind the gun and try to see thru the gun. I think if you push, it will solve some of your issues since I believe the main problem with #2 is too much wire. #3 is probably the best. #1 I'd rate as a close 2nd and I think it might be just slightly heavy on the wire. I have a feeling this one may look nicer in person than the pict with the flash is making it out to be. #2 is the worst of the bunch, but again not all that bad. I think some of what is being seen as "cold" is due to the contrast and shadow of the flash in the pict. I know I've made some beautiful welds that look like crap when I try to take a picture of them some times. Good natural light ( or a good light source from a lamp) and backing up farther and then zooming in can help with this. I want to say this one might be a bit better than the pict is making it out to be. I like the tightness and consistency of this one the best. If the bead didn't have as much material, I'd list it as my 1st choice. I'm going to say with #2 the reason you have too much material is because your travel speed was slower than the other two, hence why your ripples are tighter. You might have held the gun a bit farther away as well, but it's hard to say without having watched you run the bead in person. You might also be able to turn down the wire speed slightly. Biggest change though would be going from drag to push. This is what I'd suggest doing 1st as chances are that will flatten the bead out the most. After we see how things look when you do that, we can play with the other settings some.6mm is close to 1/4". You are pushing what that machine can do, so it's not a big surprise that it looks like you could use a bit more voltage. I thought that machine was a 230v unit. If you are running it on 200v power, that would partially explain why it doesn't have the oomph I'd expect from it. If they make a 200v machine for export, then maybe I'm wrong on this and they possibly just have the max material a bit lower than the 230v units I'm more familiar with. ( they typically over rate machines anyways) Usually running 100% CO2 helps with your penetration over C25. With your low input voltage,  you may really NEED to run 100% CO2 to get the most out of this machine. Using C25 might limit you to 1/8" or possibly 3/16" material vs the 1/4" I'd normally expect.Overall quite nice. I think you have a few small things you can do to fine tune things a bit better..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 DSW"Cold" can mean a couple of things. Usually it means you need more voltage. However it might also mean you have too much wire speed for that voltage ( or the wire size is too big for that voltage), or that you are holding the gun too far away. With mig, the closer you hold the gun, the "hotter" your weld, the farther away, the "colder" all other settings staying the same. You want to be 1/4" to 3/8" away from the material with the gun.1st bead your motions could be a bit "tighter", same with weld 3. By that I mean the distance the "dimes" are apart could be closer together. The ripples in #2 are very close together and very nice. However there is way too much material there and it's started to roll over the base material.Now push vs drag. With FC wire you drag. With solid wire you can do either, but generally if you push, you reduce your heat input and lay down a flatter bead. If you drag, you tend to pile more metal on top of the weld you have already made. We teach guys to push when we teach solid wire mig at the tech school. If you can push with mig, I'll have no issues getting you to do nice drag welds. The opposite is not true with the majority of guys. I see a lot of guys who want to drag solid wire because they say they can't see. To push and see, you need to get you head out in front of the gun and look down the barrel, not sit behind the gun and try to see thru the gun. I think if you push, it will solve some of your issues since I believe the main problem with #2 is too much wire. #3 is probably the best. #1 I'd rate as a close 2nd and I think it might be just slightly heavy on the wire. I have a feeling this one may look nicer in person than the pict with the flash is making it out to be. #2 is the worst of the bunch, but again not all that bad. I think some of what is being seen as "cold" is due to the contrast and shadow of the flash in the pict. I know I've made some beautiful welds that look like crap when I try to take a picture of them some times. Good natural light ( or a good light source from a lamp) and backing up farther and then zooming in can help with this. I want to say this one might be a bit better than the pict is making it out to be. I like the tightness and consistency of this one the best. If the bead didn't have as much material, I'd list it as my 1st choice. I'm going to say with #2 the reason you have too much material is because your travel speed was slower than the other two, hence why your ripples are tighter. You might have held the gun a bit farther away as well, but it's hard to say without having watched you run the bead in person. You might also be able to turn down the wire speed slightly. Biggest change though would be going from drag to push. This is what I'd suggest doing 1st as chances are that will flatten the bead out the most. After we see how things look when you do that, we can play with the other settings some.6mm is close to 1/4". You are pushing what that machine can do, so it's not a big surprise that it looks like you could use a bit more voltage. I thought that machine was a 230v unit. If you are running it on 200v power, that would partially explain why it doesn't have the oomph I'd expect from it. If they make a 200v machine for export, then maybe I'm wrong on this and they possibly just have the max material a bit lower than the 230v units I'm more familiar with. ( they typically over rate machines anyways) Usually running 100% CO2 helps with your penetration over C25. With your low input voltage,  you may really NEED to run 100% CO2 to get the most out of this machine. Using C25 might limit you to 1/8" or possibly 3/16" material vs the 1/4" I'd normally expect.Overall quite nice. I think you have a few small things you can do to fine tune things a bit better.
Reply:OK that makes sense. In your case 100% CO2 is helping you get the most out of that machine since you don't have the input voltage it's really designed for. I would not try to do anything any thicker than you are if it's structural. In fact I'd probably error on the side of caution and say you are possibly over stretching the machine a bit and it might not be a bad idea to reduce the thickness if the weld is critical. For just sticking metal together for noncritcal projects you are fine though..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 DSWOK that makes sense. In your case 100% CO2 is helping you get the most out of that machine since you don't have the input voltage it's really designed for. I would not try to do anything any thicker than you are if it's structural. In fact I'd probably error on the side of caution and say you are possibly over stretching the machine a bit and it might not be a bad idea to reduce the thickness if the weld is critical. For just sticking metal together for noncritcal projects you are fine though.
Reply:Nice write up DSW.  I don't think i could have explained it that well:thumbup:seabee78
Reply:My rolls of wire came today, so I finished welding this up.This time I used the push method like suggested.Between the two arrows.Between the two arrows, this is filling the gap I had from the previous drag welds.These two welds are attaching the tube that slides into the bench to the plate that will mount the vice.Again, a Hobart Handler 175 run on 200V 50Hz. The machine is on the #4 heat setting and I was running the wire speed at 50 (recommended on the machine) The steel is 6mm thick mild steel, wire is solid wire .8mm or .030 running 100% CO²Did I do any better? I know I need more practice and that I shall do.Here the vice is mounted on the fixture that is inserted into one of five tubes under the benchtop. I think this will work well for me.Thanks for all the comments, without having access to a better welder in my shop showing me what to do first hand, this is the next best thing, and I really do appreciate the help guys.Cheers!Dragon D-150 Arc WelderHobart Handler 175 Set up with 100% CO²WT-60 Plasma Arc Panasonic TIG Star YC-300TWX-2 Panasonic YX-0092UW Water Cooler for the TIG
Reply:They seem to be a bit flatter from what I can tell. They are very inconsistent, but that doesn't really surprise me when someone changes the way they are used to welding. I'll guess that will improve thru practice. I'd still like to see you tighten up your pattern a bit and get your dimes a bit closer together. If when you tighten up the pattern it seems like you have too much material still, back down the wire feed maybe to 45 and see if that helps.Keep practicing. It takes a while to learn to read the puddle and manipulate it. The only way to do that is to put in a lot of hood time..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 DSWThey seem to be a bit flatter from what I can tell. They are very inconsistent, but that doesn't really surprise me when someone changes the way they are used to welding. I'll guess that will improve thru practice. I'd still like to see you tighten up your pattern a bit and get your dimes a bit closer together. If when you tighten up the pattern it seems like you have too much material still, back down the wire feed maybe to 45 and see if that helps.Keep practicing. It takes a while to learn to read the puddle and manipulate it. The only way to do that is to put in a lot of hood time.
Reply:Since you have the voltage maxed out, with you're 200V input, it doesn't look like the unit offers enough voltage to run CO2 properly on this material thickness. Off a 230V input your unit is probably around a 150 amp, to maybe max 160 amp unit with CO2. With your significantly lower input I wouldn't be surprised if you're only able to output 120 amps with CO2. I could be wrong though. Everything definitely looks cold though , as if you were trying to weld it with a 120V 140 amp unit.  CO2 is a voltage hungry gas, you might be better off getting that bottle of AR/CO2 filled. A better long term solution would probably be to purchase a 180 -200 amp unit that was designed to give full output from a 200V input.Your pics aren't very clears. However, some of the roughness along the edge (toes) of the welds has me wondering if you have your wire speed set to high for the voltage available.The door chart settings supplied with your machine were created by running the unit off a 230V input. With your 200V input they might not be close to accurate. Hard to say though, since your unit has wire speed tracking circuitry in it.ESAB Migmaster 250 Hobart Ironman 230Multimatic 215TWECO Fabricator 181i & 211iHH125EZ - nice little fluxcore only unitMaxstar 150 STH - very nice
Reply:Originally Posted by DanSince you have the voltage maxed out, with you're 200V input, it doesn't look like the unit offers enough voltage to run CO2 properly on this material thickness. Off a 230V input your unit is probably around a 150 amp, to maybe max 160 amp unit with CO2. With your significantly lower input I wouldn't be surprised if you're only able to output 120 amps with CO2. I could be wrong though. Everything definitely looks cold though , as if you were trying to weld it with a 120V 140 amp unit.  CO2 is a voltage hungry gas, you might be better off getting that bottle of AR/CO2 filled. A better long term solution would probably be to purchase a 180 -200 amp unit that was designed to give full output from a 200V input.Your pics aren't very clears. However, some of the roughness along the edge (toes) of the welds has me wondering if you have your wire speed set to high for the voltage available.The door chart settings supplied with your machine were created by running the unit off a 230V input. With your 200V input they might not be close to accurate. Hard to say though, since your unit has wire speed tracking circuitry in it.
Reply:Step up transformer might help. I've only used them the other way around, when we had to power 208V equipment off 230v power. My buddy whose job we were working on knew all about that stuff, I just did the manual labor on those jobs..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 DanSince you have the voltage maxed out, with you're 200V input, it doesn't look like the unit offers enough voltage to run CO2 properly on this material thickness. Off a 230V input your unit is probably around a 150 amp, to maybe max 160 amp unit with CO2. With your significantly lower input I wouldn't be surprised if you're only able to output 120 amps with CO2. I could be wrong though. Everything definitely looks cold though , as if you were trying to weld it with a 120V 140 amp unit.  CO2 is a voltage hungry gas, you might be better off getting that bottle of AR/CO2 filled. A better long term solution would probably be to purchase a 180 -200 amp unit that was designed to give full output from a 200V input.
Reply:Originally Posted by DSWInteresting Dan, I was always under the impression it was the other way around and the addition of argon to the mix required more power to run a bead vs 100% CO2. Thus the reason why you got more penetration on smaller 110v migs running 100% vs C25.As I've mentioned, I do think his wire speed might be a bit high for those settings running on 200v power. I agree with you there.
Reply:Originally Posted by DanHere's a simple brief explanation why CO2 requires more voltage then an Ar/CO2 mix.http://edgewh.esabna.com/EUWeb/MIG_h.../592mig4_2.htm