I wish I could weld

[IslandTractor]

My welder will be here next week. I hope I look as good as you starting out.

Anyone have thoughts on acquiring steel to burn? I hate to spend a bunch of money on stock just to burn up.

Find a metal recycler in your neighborhood. They'll sell you some.

I also go to ironwork shops/welding shops etc and buy scrap. They'll either give small amounts to you or sell by the pound.

 

[prichard]

Thank you. I was thinking about the scrap yard. Have to run up there at lunch some day.

 

[IslandTractor]

I forgot to mention another spot to get practice steel: the local dump. Ours has metal recycling in a big pile and no one cares if I pick through it. Great for sheet metal and tubing.

 

[prichard]

I'll check dump next time I'm there. There are guys there that pull stuff aside for the scrap yard. I can probably pay them scrap price.

 

[Eric Salop]

My welder will be here next week. I hope I look as good as you starting out.

Anyone have thoughts on acquiring steel to burn? I hate to spend a bunch of money on stock just to burn up.

I was surprised at how little steel I needed once I started to practice butt joints. For every joint I would weld it, then grind it out and try again - sometimes having to repeat the same joint several times before it looked right. After that, I move on 1/2" further down the bar, cut it off, then try and join it back together again. This way only foot or so of steel can keep me happy for hours.

 

[SPYDERLK]

If you go on welding web and read up on the number of guys that have died and been severely injured from using brake cleaner, you would NEVER EVER use it again. Throw it away.

DANGER using BrakeCleaner to clean your Parts

Ironic. ... Surface cleanliness is extremely overrated in stick welding. Pristine is when it has to be 100% as opposed to high 90s.

 

[SPYDERLK]

I thought I better have another try at the stick welding game. My first mini project is to reinforce a wooden carry box with steel, which gives me plenty of chance to practice butt joints.

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Actually, if truth be told, I spent a lot more time with the angle grinder, removing slag holes and starting again, than I did melting metal. I seem to be able to make two types of slag :-

Bad slag - This stuff just doesn't want to come away. When part of it finally does, it will almost certainly be covering something very ugly underneath.

Good slag - This is almost self peeling, needing only a gentle push to reveal something underneath that almost looks like a proper weld.

Now I need to figure out how to make more good slag than bad - or buy another pack of grinding discs

Buy a cheap needle scaler. Good for slag removal and peenig the bead to remove stress. ... Also, get some 3/32" 6011 rods to spot fill imperfections using about the same amp you use for an 1/8" bead.

,,,,A die grinder with 1/4" carbide ball cutter is good to clean out pocket imperfections prior to touch up.

 

[Eric Salop]

Buy a cheap needle scaler. Good for slag removal and peenig the bead to remove stress. ... Also, get some 3/32" 6011 rods to spot fill imperfections using about the same amp you use for an 1/8" bead.

,,,,A die grinder with 1/4" carbide ball cutter is good to clean out pocket imperfections prior to touch up.

Thanks, I will have a look out for the needle scaler and ball cutter.

In this country 6011 doesn't seem to be widely available, at least not to people like me who would only buy small quantities, it's all 6013 or 7018. I have just been given a pack of Lincoln 6013 rods by a friend. Tried them last night and found the flux coating on these to be much more tolerant than the non-branded ones I had, making it easier to re-strike and tack things up.

Also had a quick go with these new rods at welding vertically, nothing fancy, just trying to run a bead up or down. That's hard ! I quickly realised fully vertical is way too ambitious for me at the moment and tried it instead at 45 degrees, as the training book recommended. Played a little with the current and still struggled at going up. Going down at 45 degrees was much easier, possibly because in that direction, it is easier to see where the weld pool is going. I can see I will need a lot more vertical practice, or if not resign myself to welding in just 3 positions - on the flat, perfectly level and horizontal .

 

[Shield Arc]

Eric I wouldn't recommend you run 6013 or 7018 vertical down hill! There is a trick to running any rod with heavy slag vertical down hill! 6011 or 6010 is a piece of cake to run vertical down hill.

 

[HenryIV]

Most of my welds are DC electrode negative. I had trouble in corners. I read somewhere that when welding in corners with DC, magnetic fields can make the weld puddle difficult to control. I switched to AC for these corners and had much less problem. Another tip that I picked up from a Brit, was to keep a piece of scrap nearby on the work piece. I strike new rods on that scrap for a few seconds to heat the rod up before I go to the work piece. It's a poor man's rod heater, and really, not so much waste for a non-production environment.