New to welding and first welds

admin

I fired up my new Hobart 210 MVP today and tried a little welding.  Last weekend a friend of mine that's a 35+ year welder helped me set everything up but today was pretty much my maiden voyage.  I set the welder up according to the specs on the door and it blew a hole in the 1/8" metal so I dialed it down considerably for the rest.  I tried a few different settings and also tried pushing vs pulling and this is pretty much what I ended up with.  Any feedback would be appreciated.  Be as brutal as you like just give me ideas on what I need to do so I can improve. Attached Images
Reply:No brutality needed. I see a couple that aren't too bad. Practice is the only way to get better. Hood down, @$$ up!2013 Chevy 3500 diesel DuallyLincoln Vantage 400 Mochine55 Lincoln Shorthood sa200Tooled up...Watch it, that's hot...
Reply:You don't mention if you are on 230v or 110v. Since you blew a hole, I'm going to guess you are on 230v power.For  1st welds they aren't bad, but they look cold. If you blew thru, my guess is you stayed too long in one spot. That's not a bad thing as most guys tend to need to slow down vs speed up.keep up the work and run longer beads. Little 2 or 3" beads don't show much. We have students run 6" beads. If you are worried about going thru too much material right now, flip over that angle so it's a V shape and run beads to fill it all up. that will give you lots of experience running basic beads and will let you get a feel for travel speed and consistency. Don't forget to cool the piece every 3 or 4 beads or the heat build up will F with your settings. The machine will act like it's set higher than it really is.Keep it up and good luck..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:I plan on spending time this weekend trying to play with the machine settings and see if I can tell a difference.  I'm really looking forward to learning this craft.  I have the machine running on 230 and I had it set on 4 when I blew the hole in it.  The rest of the welds were set at 2 with a wire speed between 25 and 40.
Reply:It helps to list all the info. Machine used ( we don't always remember or keep track), in your case 110v or 230v, wire type ( FC or solid), gas used if solid wire and flow rate, wire size and wire speed as well as what setting you have the voltage at, material thickness and so on. The more info we have, the better job we can do in helping you to improve..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:For a first timer, it looks good!Lincoln Power Mig 216Lincoln AC/DC-225/125Miller  625 X-Treme PlasmaMiller 211 Forney 95FI-A 301HF 91110Victor Journeyman O/PMilwaukee DaytonMakita  Baileigh NRA Life Member
Reply:Go get a bunch of crap)junk) to weld. Spend 4 times the amount of time cleaning-prepping-clamping-positioning as you do welding. Think of welding as art work. It makes no difference how good you are with a spray gun. If a moron brings junk, you return shiny junk.( UH-OH- better get Maaco !)Prep is EVERYTHING ! Prep is EVERYTHING ! Prep is EVERYTHING ! Prep is EVERYTHING ! Prep is EVERYTHING ! The manufacturers list specs for their filler materials for a reason. Find them and read them. Print them out and mount them in your work area. The people that make the equipment do the same.Bubble gumTooth pixDuct tapeBlack glueGBMF hammerScrew gun --bad battery (see above)
Reply:With MIG I really don't see much benefit in running beads on a flat surface. To keep the bead from piling, you end up having to run much lower machine setting than you would on an actual joint design. On the butt-joint you set up with the angles, you needed to either gap the two pieces or bevel both pieces. With my 245V input, I definitely would have started tap #2 on a butt joint constructed out of 1/8". Travel along the joint would be straight with a slight wiggle if needed.For future practice on 1/8",  I'd start out by focusing on flat/horizontal T and lap joint. Then some flat and horizontal out side corner joint, and lastly butt joints. The T & lap will require similar machine setting. An outside corner will require lower settings then the lap or T. Butt joint machine settings will be somewhere in between the lap  and outside corner.ESAB Migmaster 250 Hobart Ironman 230Multimatic 215TWECO Fabricator 181i & 211iHH125EZ - nice little fluxcore only unitMaxstar 150 STH - very nice
Reply:Dan, when we start off students we usually have them begin with beads on flat plate. The reason is at that time, all we want them to do is concentrate on consistency of stickout ( distance of tip to work surface for those that don't know), gun angle and travel speed. Usually we have them do this for at least 30 minutes or so, until we can see they have the basics down. ( I'll admit some can take a lot longer to get the basics down) Then it's over lapping beads, 1/2 on 1/2 off the last weld. This helps them learn how to "aim" at a joint, yet when they do both these drills, they aren't eating up a ton of materials. It's not unusual for new students to get thru all of this in the 1st night of class even after the safety briefing and showing everyone how to set up their booth.Next as you suggest is flat laps. This is followed by flat T's, then outside corners, and finally gapped but joints. they get signed off on each joint before they move on to the next. Then they follow the same sequence for horizontal joints. After those get done, vertical, and then finally overhead.It's not so bad for students at the tech school where they have access to as much material as they want to practice on ( though we still try and get them to maximize the stock as much as possible, and then cut it up so they can reuse it again). It's killer though on guys trying to learn on their own and have to pay for their own practice materials. I see a lot of guys making basic mistakes quite frequently simply because they are "rushing" and not spending enough time burning beads to practice with. I'll agree that beads on flat plate tend to be "tall", but an hour of running beads ( remembering to cool the material between every 2 or 3 beads) will give them lots of weld time on minimal material. They can run thru a whole spool of wire on a nice 2" piece of angle iron running overlapping beads and have tons of time working on stickout, gun angle and travel speed, not to mention at that point they probably can aim the bead at the lower toe of the last one and don't wander around as much like a drunken sailor. Then when they have done all of this, they usually don't "waste" as much material when they start on laps, T's and the other joints, or make a huge mess of their 1st basic projects.Even with all the "free" material our students get to use, one thing that many of the co-op employers "complain" about is that guys don't learn to do long enough beads, since the max length we usually give the students to practice on is 6". I've seen a lot of guys who are paying for their own materials try and get away with even shorter beads. The other things guys often don't work on is tie ins or start/stops. We try to encourage that they work on this by maximizing the welds on each piece even if they screw up and stop short. Unfortunately it's tough on mig with short pieces to work on.Last edited by DSW; 11-30-2013 at 08:28 AM..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 information.  I've been sick for a couple of days now so I haven't been able to get any practice in but I plan on starting tomorrow.  Over the next few weeks I plan on doing alot of reading to get some of the basics down.  I appreciate the help and feedback from everyone.
Reply:not bad for a start. try running longer beads. maybe draw a straight line with soapstone on a 6x6 inch flat plate and follow that. use the first pass as a guide for the next. after you fill the plate go perpendicular with the next row of passes. this is called padding and is good all round practice.i.u.o.e. # 15queens, ny and sunny fla
Reply:Not too shabby for your first beads. Keep at it. Also there's a lot of videos on utube that will help. Check out weldingtipsandtricks.com jody does a lot of arc shots!