What the welding shop has me doing...

[Haywire]

If you read my other thread, you know that a local shop agreed to supply me with their drops for welding practice. I go get a bucket, weld them together and then go back and exchange them for more drops. I don't have to pay for practice material and their drops come back heavier. Not much of a gain for them, they're really just doing me a favor.

Anyway.. they're cutting circles out of 1/4" plate on their plasma table for a customer. The foreman suggested that I weld the small ones onto the large ones to get used to welding a curve and holding a consistent rod angle while doing it. I don't know how successful I was, but it's good practice I suppose.
I decided to stop playing around with all the different rods and stick with 7014 till I can get a consistently good bead with that (or I run out of the 5lb I have). Then I'll move on to the others.

Here's what I ended up with.

 

[dcyrilc]

Looks like you're coming along pretty good since last week.:thumbsup:

 

[groundcover]

Looking good ! I have seen some "pros" work that didn't look that good. Nice deal you set up with the scrap material , good thinking !:thumbsup:

 

[Haywire]

Looks like you're coming along pretty good since last week.:thumbsup:

When you get yours, you'll find that there's not much of a learning curve to 7014 and fillet welds. 130A seems to do well for 1/8" rod and 1/4" material. All you have to do is figure out rod angle and speed.

Butt welds are a different animal. There is a reason why I haven't posted any pictures of them. LOL

Ian

 

[Haywire]

Went back out and did a couple butt welds. One of the things that make them harder than fillet is if you're using drag rod, the two pieces of metal guide your rod. You stick the rod in the joint and let it do the guiding. You just control speed and rod angle. On a butt weld, you have no guide. YOU have to lay a straight bead down the seam. I tend to wander back and forth.

Ian

 

[MikeD74T]

When you're ready to challenge yourself mount the base at a 45 degree angle on a piece of scrap then weld the second disk to it. weld in a continuous loop to get all positions. MikeD74T

 

[BlacknTan]

Looks excellent to me, Haywire..

You should be proud of that work!

 

[frischtr]

Went back out and did a couple butt welds. One of the things that make them harder than fillet is if you're using drag rod, the two pieces of metal guide your rod. You stick the rod in the joint and let it do the guiding. You just control speed and rod angle. On a butt weld, you have no guide. YOU have to lay a straight bead down the seam. I tend to wander back and forth.

Ian

Do you have a gap between pieces on your butt joints? I was always taught to tack a gap the width of the electrode diameter on either end, then fill in the back side from the top, utilizing the keyhole method. It's way different then fillet work. Nice job in the pics...

 

[Haywire]

Thanks B&T... I did turn the good side to the camera of course. LOL.

Ian

 

[Sandlot]

Went back out and did a couple butt welds. One of the things that make them harder than fillet is if you're using drag rod, the two pieces of metal guide your rod. You stick the rod in the joint and let it do the guiding. You just control speed and rod angle. On a butt weld, you have no guide. YOU have to lay a straight bead down the seam. I tend to wander back and forth.

Ian

I am blind as a bat and while doing a butt weld, I tend to wander off course too. I have found that putting a soap stone line right on the seam gives me a better chance to see where I need to be welding. :thumbsup: