todays weld beads

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Square root butt welds once again. 3/16ths plate, all welds are DCEP, 6013 at 85 amps or 7014 at 120 amps. Despite really trying to slow down and read the puddle, I am still too fast, although maybe a little morre consistent. I think I have the heat correct, but am rushing the weld speed. Any thoughts appreciated. These are not necessarily in order that they were welded. Attached Images
Reply:And the 7014 coupons Attached Images
Reply:Not bad. 6013 and 7014 are both drag rods. That means you can simply keep the flux coating in contact with the plate as you weld. Keep in mind that a standard rod will make about 6" of bead and leave you with about a 2" stub. If you get done welding and find you have a lot more rod left, you are probably going too fast in your travel speed. If you used up the rod and still have more to weld, then chances are you were moving to slow.But joints are usually one of the hardest to master. At the tech school we have students start out simply running beads on flat plate. This lets you simply concentrate on travel speed, rod angle and arc length. Since both of these are drag rods, if you keep the flux in contact with the plate, that will eliminate that variable. Travel speed you can work out from how much rod you burn as described above. This just leaves you with rod angle to maintain as well as doing everything as consistently as possible. Fexal posted up some nice picts of 6013 beads where you see the slag peeling off in one big piece with no chipping. That's usually a sign you got everything almost perfect. 7014 acts the exact same way when everything is right.  If you are beating on the slag, you have something wrong and need to make some adjustments.After students can run some decent basic beads, we move them on to overlapping beads on flat plate. aim at the root of the previous bead, and run the next bead so it overlaps 50% of the previous one. Don't forget to cool the plate down every 2 or 3 beads, or the build up of heat will make it seem like you have increased your amps. I tell students if they can pick up a piece with their bare hands, it's cool enough to run the next bead. This drill is the exact same thing you will need to do if you ever need to run multiple beads, so it's not a s pointless as many think it is. It also lets you get a lot of practice on very little material. After the students can do a nice consistent overlap of beads on flat plate, then we move them on to lap joints. It's very similar to the last drill, but now you are running up against the edge of a piece of plate, rather than a bead. I suggest most students try and concentrate the bead on the lower plate near the corner and "wash" the puddle up against the upper on until they see the very edge start to melt, then swing back down to the lower plate.After Laps, it's T joints. Same basic drill, but now the vertical "wall" is taller and you don't have a reference to judge how high you are going. Most students have issues here with rod angle and it quickly shows up as undercut on the upper plate, or beads that are "aimed" poorly and don't tie in well to one piece or another. After they do a single pass on the T and get signed off, we have them do 2 more passes over that one over lapping 50%. When that gets signed off, we have them do a basic weave across  the beads to cap. T's usually take the most time as there's quite a few steps to get signed off on with this and stick.After T's is outside corners. That's where the inside edges of the plates just touch and leave a V groove to fill. This one requires a bit more skill as now you have 3 thin edges to work with. Top 2 and the root. It requires a bit more finesse than the previous beads.We usually have the students do each one of these previous drills with 6010, 7014 and finally 7018, so they end up doing 3 single bead plates, 3 50/50 plates, 3 laps, 3 T's (with 3 parts to the T's, single bead, 3 stacked with the top ones half on half off, and finally the weave over everything) and 3 outside corners with stick before they get to but joints.Finally the students move on to but joints. With stick, it's usually bevel buts as we run 3/8" plate for our coupons. With thinner material you can get away without bevels, say with 1/8" or 3/16", but the basics are still the same. Drill here is with 6010 for the open root pass, followed by 7018 out to fill and cap as the class is designed to work towards pipe eventually.  What kills most students at this point is simply prep. If they are in a rush and don't prep their pieces nice, consistent and even, they have nightmares and can't understand why. I don't know how many times I'll prep and tack bevel coupons and the student has no problems, but as soon as they try on their own, they fail miserably. The drill honestly isn't all that much harder than the outside corner except now you have a gap at the bottom. Not having a consistent gap and thickness is what kills them. Once they get a decent root pass done, most don't have too much trouble doing the fills and caps.After this they do it all over from single beads on flat plate, but now horizontal... When those are all done, then Vertical, followed by overhead. The only way to learn to "see" the puddle is to run lots of rod. Don't be at all surprised if it takes 50 lbs or more of rod to even start to learn the basics by the time you get thru all the positions and joints....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:DSW: that was a GREAT learning summary/strategy. I was hankering for something just like this, it's helpful to someone at the very beginning of a long (slow, part-time) process.Miller XMT304 CC/CVBernard TIG coolerSSC foot pedal"It's a poor craftsman who blames his tewls toles TOOLS" (!^$#% keyboard)
Reply:Try going left to right like flux cored my seem more comfortable to me at least but you really gotta watch for slag inclusions  or un equal leg length otherwise your welds look good when you get going but you start and stop points are rough, Good luck