My welds

admin

Here are some of my recent welds. Im a hobbiest and do some welding on the side. Nothing towed or driven on highway cause im not to the point that i absolutely trust my own welds enough to put anything on the road. Im welding with a miller 180 with 75/25 mix and 35 wire. Let me know what i need to improve on. I know my consistency varies but its tough sometimes cause without bracing i shake from nerve damage in my wrist. Anyways, let me have it. Miller 180 Auto-Set
Reply:Miller 180 Auto-Set
Reply:I'm far from an expert, but they look pretty good to me!
Reply:1st pict the upper root weld looks cold. Lower welds look like they could have used more volts as well. The two done on the curved cut pieces look better. It's tough without settings, wire size and material thickness to really tell how close the settings were to what they should have been though.The 1st sectioned weld, the one on the left was definitely on the cold side and is cold lapped on the bottom. The others don't look bad, but again without any more info it's had to judge. I'd be tempted to say they are on the cold side as well from the appearance of the toes and the amount of reinforcement in the center. If I had to guess, I'd say the material is 1/4" and that is pushing the limits on that machine. I'd have been tempted to run .030 wire with the voltage cranked all the way up on that material. I'd run  .030 because it would let me up the wire speed and still stay slow to try and stay in the puddle as long as possible..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:Ok thanks! I was thinking cold as well. Yes the t joint and all flat stuff and angle is 1/4". And wire is 35. Im thinking next roll i may step down to 30 to see how it does with that. Also i have my bottle gauge at about 12. I will admit i stayed just shy of the "door settings" on all the welds. It gave me less spatter but i know its more about holding and penetration then it is looks.Miller 180 Auto-Set
Reply:Originally Posted by CrazydOk thanks! I was thinking cold as well. Yes the t joint and all flat stuff and angle is 1/4". And wire is 35. Im thinking next roll i may step down to 30 to see how it does with that. Also i have my bottle gauge at about 12. I will admit i stayed just shy of the "door settings" on all the welds. It gave me less spatter but i know its more about holding and penetration then it is looks.
Reply:I was asked by Pm what I see that makes me think these welds look "cold".There are several things. One is overall bead shape. The beads look too narrow for the amount of reinforcement in the center. In theory the bead should form a 45 deg angle from the top of the vertical toe, to the toe of the lower weld. The reinforcement should extend slightly beyond this 45 deg angle. Legs themselves should be the same as the thickness of the base material, in this case 1/4". To me I'm not seeing that in many of these welds. The lines I drew sort of disguise some of what I'm seeing and make it look better than it is, but the lower toe doesn't look like it's out far enough compared to the reinforcement I am seeing.I'm also looking at how the toe of the weld meets the base material. The toes should be washed in well and not meeting at an almost a vertical angle or overhanging. Those sharp edges circled in blue are typical of cold lap where the weld material simply piles up on top of the base material and doesn't wet in well. The blue circles show "problem" areas. The white circle shows what I'd like to be seeing over the whole bead. That is the washed in toe look I'm looking for in the other areas. You made it work in that area because of several things. One you went up father on the wall, "spreading out" the weld material, and the increased time on that big weave meant that you pumped more heat into the material by the end of the weld. The yellow circle shows an definite area of cold lap.Another thing would be the very basic info given on that machine. Under real world conditions that class of machine tops out at 1/4". To get that you'd have the machine close to maxed out. With the reference to the large wire and what I see in the bead profiles, it tells me you needed more volts to get the bead to wash in better most likely. Going to a slightly smaller wire means you could up your wire speed. More wire speed at the same voltage, usually increases the amps slightly. Also because you are laying down less material in one shot, you tend to have to slow your travel speed down, increasing the heat input in the same area. I don't know if you were dragging or pushing since you don't mention that. I'm thinking it's possibly a push since most people are right handed and the weld was run right to left. A drag will lay down more material on average than a push, even though you get a bit more penetration. The extra material can tend to overflow onto cold plate and give you a cold lap if your voltage isn't high enough. It's not uncommon for new mig welders to want to drag a weld because they can see better that way. In general solid wire mig is typically pushed, though I know quite a few who prefer to drag. Pushing tends to flatten the bead and help avoid cold lap. To do this and see well, you have to get your head out in front of the gun and stare down the barrel. Also a longer than normal stick out would also cause the weld to run colder, leading to cold lap issues. Again you'd have to up your volts to compensate for the longer stick out. To get the most out of that machine when pushing the upper limits, you need to keep the gun in tight, say 1/4" to 3/8" stick out at the most, and closer is better.There are some other little details that I see that are hard to point out in the picts. Experience tells me they are there simply from other things I'm seeing in the picts.Overall the beads aren't that bad. There are just some small things that need tweaking to get them where they need to be. You already pointed out your consistency issues. I think if the volts were cranked up some more many of the rest would go away. Also I'm wondering if you really can "see" and understand the puddle yet. Some of my comments are based on the assumption that you can't do this quite yet. Once you learn how to see and read the puddle, it's easier to work with borderline settings since you are watching the puddle and reacting to what you see. This is one of those things that's very hard to explain, but easier to show someone. It tends to drive students nuts when I can change the settings on the machine and still run almost identical beads. The reason is that I change the way I weld based on how the puddle is reacting, while they are just "going thru the motions" doing timing patterns. Hope this helps..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:Huge help! Will be practicing more tmro afternoon and will try the things u suggested. Also, yes I was pulling. I've never pushed but will start giving that a try as well. I do see what your talking bout with the weld bead shape and keep an eye out. I have been keeping my stickout as close to 1/4" as I can. Gonna have to get my head down in there more to really watch puddle reaction. Thanks and ill post up some more practice welds tmro afternoon.Miller 180 Auto-Set
Reply:DSW,Your above post just saved me a bunch of keyboard punching time.  Crazyd's welds are definitely on the cold side. The poor tie-in and wet out along the toes of the weld is a good indication of this. The voltage and wire speed definitely need to be increased. I field tested the MM 180. During this testing I complained to Miller, that compared to Hobart's Handler 187/190 the MM 180 top end  (1/4" steel) produced quite a bit of spatter. They agreed; however, instead of tweaking the choke design, they made a significant reduction to the suggested voltage and wire speed dial settings. I don't  remember exact settings anymore, but originally the suggested voltage dial setting was in the 8 to 9 range. Miller's quick fix to reduce the spatter was to drop the voltage dial setting down to around 6. They basically reduced the load voltage down from around 21 to roughly 19. Of course to do this you also have to reduce the amperage.  Crazyd, my attached weld is a decent example of how you want the weld to tie in and wet out along the toes of the weld. Attached ImagesESAB Migmaster 250 Hobart Ironman 230Multimatic 215TWECO Fabricator 181i & 211iHH125EZ - nice little fluxcore only unitMaxstar 150 STH - very nice
Reply:Did you remove the mill scale ? This will also affect penetration.Miller Dailarc HF 250 Hobart 140
Reply:As always Dan, that's a beautiful textbook weld there.Crazyd that is exactly what you should aspire to have your welds look like..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:Ok guys will do. Yes, I took a flap disk and took it down to bare shiney metal. One of the things I have always noticed and was gonna be my first question to ask was my beads always have humps in the middle like speed bumps. Now I know why and what to look for. Practice practice practice. Hopefully ill have some improvement welds to show tomorrow. Thanks again guys!Miller 180 Auto-Set
Reply:.....and all that for free. You guys rock!If you don't want to stand behind our Troops, feel free to stand in front of them.
Reply:If I could take the class I would. Trust me. HahaMiller 180 Auto-Set