Need to learn more about welding

[BigBlue1]

I'm basically a novice at welding. I took a year or two of shop class in HS and learned the basics of welding but never really had an opportunity to do much with it. That was 30 years ago. I do have an old Lincoln AC arc welder that is in decent shape and does the job for me when I need to stick together non-critical joints in pieces of metal. Of all my mechanical and shop skills welding is likely one of the lesser developed, but I do know enough to not consider myself a moron.

I'd like to improve my welding skills. At present I don't want to invest in a new welder or get into other types of welding. Just want to get better with the stick welder so I can feel more comfortable about my welds being structurally sound and not looking like crap. Can someone point me in the direction of some type of book or on-line reference that can learn me a thing or two? Things like what settings to use for various types of steel and thicknesses, what type of rods to choose, how to weld inside corners, etc. I've got time this winter to research things and to play around.

Here's an example of a bracket I made for adding hydraulic dump to my leaf cart which shows my meager skillset:



Thanks!
Rob

 

[BukitCase]

Hard to beat Jody at weldingtipsandtricks.com - also check utube for Steve Beliel (not sure about spelling on last name - he also has DVD's available for stick, tig, mig, etc... Steve

 

[Msamt]

I was in a similar situation, there was a course offered at our local votech for a couple hundred bucks, great investment for me. I did end up spending money on a multi process Lincoln unit, but with the work I've done so far it's almost paid for itself in 1.5 years.
MT

 

[Shield Arc]

Hard to beat Jody at weldingtipsandtricks.com

Very hard to beat Jody's videos. Jody is an amazing welder!:thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[BigBlue1]

Thanks. I'll check out that web site and the guy on YouTube and see how that goes for me.

Rob

 

[tomplum]

I find too that when I need to do some wacky out of position welding or something special, that practice is definitely needed before I hit the to be finished product. More so if I've been away for a awhile. So save those scraps to help you get dialed in.

 

[frugalangler]

Practice, practice, and more practice. It's like a musical instrument, you can't develop skill by watching a video, you can learn techniques, but skill is acquired through doing. Don't be afraid to pick up a used MIG and run some flux core, cheap way to acquire some better capability for cheap, add a gas tank and you'll get better looking welds, but of all techniques I've found FCAW to be easiest to achieve decent strong welds, it's most similar to stick in that it's gassless, my problem with stick is that I am not steady enough to hold a consistent arc with a long stick waving around, but a MIG torch I can steady with my second hand and get decent consistency.

The suggestion of a VoTech class is good, but honestly the use of Jody's video (and a few others that are good) and home practice is about the same, used to be the only way to learn a skill before YouTube was something like a VoTech, times have changed.

 

[BMan2005]

Very hard to beat Jody's videos. Jody is an amazing welder!:thumbsup::thumbsup:

What he said! Shield Arc is pretty good also for a guy that's only been at it a few weeks, he's helped me a lot.

Also, get on YouTube, man there is a plethora of good videos to watch. Jody like he mentioned, Bob Moffett (hope spelled that right) with weld.com, and Chucke2009 all have some great information and have a camera set up to show the puddle when welding. We finally caught up with the newer technology and got a flat screen with the smart TV package so I can sit there and watch YouTube on my TV. I've only been at it a short while and between the fine folks on here and those I listed I think is the only reason why I'm getting good at turning on my welder. Just wish I had more time lately for practice. I'm like you, I don't like not being pretty proficient at anything I do. Welding is definitely testing me, but I do at least enjoy learning.

 

[BMan2005]

Hard to beat Jody at weldingtipsandtricks.com - also check utube for Steve Beliel (not sure about spelling on last name - he also has DVD's available for stick, tig, mig, etc... Steve

Someone has actually uploaded 2-3 of Steve's DVD's to YouTube. The full DVD at that. Check those out as well, older but alot of great info!

 

[jaxs]

I to have been struggling for a couple of years trying to learn welding. Started out with a Miller Thunderbolt that by all accounts is a fine diy machine but like someone above said,waving a long electrode around made it difficult to get anything done. Paid $300 for a Lincoln Pro-Mig 180 and love it for flux core,still can't weld worth a dam but I've stopped throwing things across the shop. When I weld,I remember an old Irishman that ran a blacksmith shop when I was a kid. He was a poor welder but that didn't stop him. I often repeat what he would say after lifting his hood to look then drop the hood to weld some more. "If a little bit of daubing do little bit of good,whole lota daubing do whole lotta good."

 

[swines]

Obviously, the only way you learn to weld is by actually welding. But, I understand your dilemma, you want some type of reference material so that you can better understand some of the parameters and be able to troubleshoot what you're doing. I'd buy a number of welding books like the Audel Welding Pocket Reference (James Brumbaugh, Rex Miller), Practical Welding Technology (Rudy Mohler), The Procedure Handbook of Arc Welding (James F. Lincoln Foundation), and Modern Welding (Althouse, Turnquist, Bowditch, Bowditch).

If you have those books as part of your welding library, you should be able to research any problem and process from a number of different viewpoints and come up with your own procedures and methods to fit the welding problem you're trying to solve.

Oh...and practice...just run welds at different settings with different rods to see the results you get - make notes and keep a notebook of projects with welder settings and welding results for a reference. I go back in my notebooks from as long as 20 years ago and am often surprised that I've done a procedure, made notes on it and have forgotten how I setup the welder, prepped the metal etc.

 

[BigBlue1]

I watched a few videos and then spent some time practicing today. I can do pretty well on flat surfaces. Inside corners are still tough but I did figure out a bit more about how to do them better. More experience with amperage settings and rod types will be good to accumulate over time. Here are a couple pictures where I was practicing with different rod types, different amp settings, and an inside corner. To me they don't look awful. The butt joint turned out pretty solid. Enough to lift up the corner of my workbench when I had the piece in the vice trying to break it to see how strong it turned out.

Rob

 

[BMan2005]

Starting with 6010/6011 was the best advice I got and did. Really helped me to learn to watch the puddle and easiest to do with the very light slag it has. It's helping me to know how to manipulate the rod & amperage. I'm very new to this, but these guys on here are great and give good advice to help.

 

[BigBlue1]

Starting with 6010/6011 was the best advice I got and did. Really helped me to learn to watch the puddle and easiest to do with the very light slag it has. It's helping me to know how to manipulate the rod & amperage. I'm very new to this, but these guys on here are great and give to good advice to help.

I've been mainly practicing with 6013 rods. I do have some ancient 7014 ones that I've tried too, but the flux is kinda flaky.

One thing I'm unsure of is how best to finish a weld. As you can see in the pics the way I pull away at the end leaves a divot. There must be a trick to avoiding that?

Rob

 

[BMan2005]

I've been mainly practicing with 6013 rods. I do have some ancient 7014 ones that I've tried too, but the flux is kinda flaky.

One thing I'm unsure of is how best to finish a weld. As you can see in the pics the way I pull away at the end leaves a divot. There must be a trick to avoiding that?

Rob

I think 6013/7014 run and look about the same welding. Haven't ran 6013 but been playing with 7014. Love how easy it is to use but I can't see the Puddle well at all with it. Looks like a slurry of slag behind the rod. Maybe with time I can read it better,. Other than 6010/6011 I really like how 7018 runs far as watching the Puddle, I can see it better than 7014. Take what I say as a grain of salt man, I'm really new to this but reading and practicing a ton trying to learn the art.

Maybe shield arc or some others will step in, but SA told me to back step just a hair and pause in the Puddle just a brief second to fill the crater then break the arc.

 

[BMan2005]

3 min 40 sec you can see him fill the crater and talk about doing it.

6013 Stick Welding Tips - YouTube

 

[Tractor Seabee]

I've been mainly practicing with 6013 rods. I do have some ancient 7014 ones that I've tried too, but the flux is kinda flaky.

One thing I'm unsure of is how best to finish a weld. As you can see in the pics the way I pull away at the end leaves a divot. There must be a trick to avoiding that?

Rob

I have seen a lot worse welds than yours. Appearance is not as important as the soundness and the penetration. I have seen welds that look great but no penetration, all on the surface. Like others have said, practice and more practice. At the end of a weld you need to full the arc back a little and add more metal at the end.

Ron

 

[BigBlue1]

3 min 40 sec you can see him fill the crater and talk about doing it.

6013 Stick Welding Tips - YouTube

Thanks for that video.

Rob