At Home In The Woods

   / At Home In The Woods #5,081  
One difference is, when tacking or welding the two pieces, you have doubled the amount of metal that has to be heated/melted to get penetration in both pieces. You asking more from the welder in that case.
 
   / At Home In The Woods #5,082  
I was able to get good penetration with my practice beads on the 1/4" thick metal as you can see below. Ignore the first bead on the left. It was made with the highest wire feed speed setting.

Does anybody here think that these are good penetration? I can see that they've got some penetration into the base metal, but my hunch is that it's inconsistent and not to be trusted. What do more experienced eyes see?

I really think that you are asking your welder to do more than it is really capable of here. In more experienced hands, perhaps it could be coaxed to do the job. Hand any old instrument to a virtuoso, and he'll make it sing. But for those of more moderate skill, we need our tools to be working with us, not against us.
 
   / At Home In The Woods #5,083  
I've missed your MIG specs, but I agree that I haven't seen what I would call good penetration with any of the welds. 1/4" steel may just be too thick for your welder. You could try beveling the edges of your work, leaving a small gap, make a root pass, then back fill, but if THAT won't work, then your welder just doesn't have enough uumph, uh, amps.

mkane09
 
   / At Home In The Woods #5,084  
again guys -- its a HF model - not a 400-600 buck machine. Its as good it will get. its enough to hold 1/4 or smaller metal pieces together when done right. OBED - the weld looks a bit better as you are getting more consistent bead now. What the guys wanted you to do was take a grinder with a grinding wheel and cut in a grove in that metal you are working with, lets say 1/4 to half way through. Lay down a weld in that groove (called root pass) you made and inspect the other side. You will see heat penetration that they are talking about. Then lay down another weld on each side of that.
 
   / At Home In The Woods
  • Thread Starter
#5,085  
It appears to me that these practice beads (ignoring the first bead on the left) have penetrated one third of the depth of this 1/4" piece. Maybe I'm not viewing it correctly. I am just a beginner. According to my welding book, 1/3 penetration is what you want.

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I have seen guys on YouTube welding 1/4" steel with the same HF welder I have so I'm hoping I can get good enough to do the same. Yes, they have more experience and I'm just a beginner. However, practice makes perfect.
 
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   / At Home In The Woods
  • Thread Starter
#5,086  
I tried welding several "T" joints today.

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My first attempt wasn't so great.

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I laid another bead beside the first one. Not great either.

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I laid several beads on top of the other beads while experimenting with wire speeds and my technique. Pretty ugly - at least that's what my wife said.

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Ok, now it was time to start over using the other side of the angle iron. Still really ugly.

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So I cut off the old weld with the angle grinder and tried again. Still very ugly but there was some improvement.

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Cleaned it off and tried again. Yep, still ugly.

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   / At Home In The Woods
  • Thread Starter
#5,087  
I've really been struggling with being able to see what I'm doing while I'm welding. I decided to shine a work light on my work area and see if it helped.

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I ground off the old weld and tried again with more light on the subject.

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Actually, the last inch on the right of this bead looked somewhat promising. It had good penetration on both pieces and had just the right amount of metal.
 
   / At Home In The Woods
  • Thread Starter
#5,088  
The wire speed I was using was 3 out of 9.5 which seemed to be working. Next, I ground off the bad part of the weld but left last inch on the right.

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Then I filled in the part I had ground off.

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Here's my next attempt.

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   / At Home In The Woods
  • Thread Starter
#5,089  
My technique was improving and I it appeared that I had found a good wire speed setting. So I cleaned off all the welds and tried again. This one was the best attempt of the day.

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Here's the side view. The cooling of the weld pulled the T-joint slightly off of 90 degrees. This behavior is expected if you don't make some arrangements to prevent it.

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I feel like I had a successful day. I'm optimistic that this last weld would hold. Sure it could be prettier but I'm not entering a beauty contest. Yes, I obviously need more practice but I saw enough improvement to keep my hopes up.

Thanks for indulging me.
Obed
 
   / At Home In The Woods #5,090  
Pardon me if you've mentioned it and I missed it, but is there a reason you aren't practicing on thinner metal? I still really think you are asking too much of your welder, working on metal that thick. Almost all of the welds you're showing look cold to me. You have managed to produce a few that look like they got okay penetration, but you are leaving yourself no margin for error at all. On top of that, you are really making life hard for yourself, trying to learn under such adverse conditions. I admire your persistence--I'll say that.
 
 
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