Since a few folks here seem to be enjoying reading about my progress, I will continue to post updates. I took various TBN'ers advice and got some pieces of metal to stick together, instead of just welding beads. I bought some 1" x 1/8" thick bar stock and cut it into 3" lengths. Here are the results.
All welds were done using DCEP.
One catch: everywhere it says 100 amps, it should actually be about 65 amps. I was accidentally reading off the AC side of the scale. I was also going to take a picture of the back side of the welds, but it was pretty boring. No blow-through, just basically a clean joint. On two of them, the two pieces were a little bit mis-aligned when I did the weld, so I can see penetration at least halfway, and in some parts all the way through. But I didn't think that would come across on camera.
Having had some moderate success with butt joints, I moved on to T joints. These were surprisingly challenging. The main challenge was angling the rod properly so as to get the bead to climb up the vertical piece. I aimed at what I thought was a 45 degree angle, but that was insufficient.
Again, I was reading off the AC side of the scale, so where it says 100 amps, it's about 65. Where it says 130 amps, it's about 100. I used the same 3/32" 7014 at first, but had a little trouble and decided to give 1/8" 6011 a try, thinking that perhaps the thicker rod would make it easier to get the bead up the wall. Judge for yourself!
