First ever mig welds

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Well last night I deided to try something different so I did some mig for the first time in my life. After about an hour I decided to give vertical a shot and heres how they looked after about an hours of practice. Welds were done on 1/8th inch plate. Heat was set to 20 and wire speed was 240 with 75% argon 25% co2. What does everyone think?  Vertical upVertical downLast edited by BB70Chevelle; 01-22-2010 at 11:39 AM.
Reply:first time vertical up with mig, not bad,put it in a vise and try to break it.
Reply:Not bad, but you have WAY more bead than you want for 1/8". Usually on a fillet weld you are looking for about 1-1.5x the thin plate thickness, so you'd want 1/8"-3/16" up each side roughly. That looks like 3/8"-1/2" on each leg, about what you would expect on 3/8"-1/2" steel. More bead does NOT equal a better weld. With that much bead, it will be tough to break, but I'll bet you don't have a lot of penetration in the base material. You would be much better off with less bead, and more penetration.Looking at the short length, thin steel, and the amount of bead, you were set too low on your heat to do the joint properly, possibly with too large a wire. I don't see the distortion I would expect from that much weld at the right settings/ wire size. You don't list your machine, but I'm betting a 110v mig from the looks. Looking at Millers chart on the MM140 with 75/25 they list 1/8" at a 10 on heat or max on that 140amp machine, 90 with 0.023 wire, 65 with 0.030 wire..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 mesed up typing it sorry about that. I just measured it and It's 1/4 plate and the edge of the cover pass is about 1/2 into both pieces of plates. Machine was a 210v MM252 unsure what the wire size in it was. Later today I'll do a break test on them and see how they look.
Reply:That makes more sense, the picts looked a bit odd for 1/8". It's still a bit heavy on the legs at 1/2", 1/4"- 3/8" would be closer to what you want usually. The settings might be a bit light, 21.0 @ 400-375 with .030- .035 wire is the listing Miller gives for 1/4". Thats about right for .045 wire though.All in all you are getting the idea. The one thing to watch with mig is that it's easy to run beads that are too cold, yet look good, especially if you run multiple passes. If you are running .030-.035 wire, I'd suggest you bump up the settings and run this in one pass. With the MM252 you should have no issues with 1/4" on penetration if the settings are close..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