Porosity and Otherwise Lousy Welds

[Shield Arc]

Only in my dreams...

Why is that? It's all in the welder, anybody can pull a trigger.

 

[dstig1]

Here is a fillet weld on 3/8" thick material. Made with Lincoln's .030" L-56 Mig wire. 29-volts. 224-amps.

Cheater! That was spray, not short circuit! :dance1:

 

[Shield Arc]

No that weld was done with C-25 gas. The wire feeder was turned all the way up. Done with just pure horse power.

 

[RickeyS]

Now Shield. Even though you used 75/25 you know it was spraying.lol look at the bead.lol it sprayed for sure it was so hot. But to be honest when I inspect welds I have more failed spray than short circuit. We call short circuit monkey welding out here. Spraying is definitely harder than short circuit, especially on thinner materials. We spray all positions even though they say you can't. We use the L56 also. It is an awesome wire. When my personal welder gets in I will use it too.

 

[Shield Arc]

Here is a .035" Mig weld I did with my 1966 Lincoln SA-200. No CV box, done on CC, with C-25 gas.

 

[LD1]

I'd try running a grinder disc or flap wheel instead of the wire cup to get to bare metal. May or may not help but worth a try.

Settings dont appear too far off but I am not used to running 030 wire. Running 035 on the miller I would be around 25v and 400-500ipm given the thickness you are welding.

I could give you settings for my linde 225 but they would be pointless as its a tapped machine so the numbers really mean nothing, and a 1-10 for wire speed

 

[STx]

I think you're losing your shielding gas and welding with too much wire out. If I have a gust come up during a weld or I forget to turn the bottle on, my welds will look like that. You need to get the gun a little closer to the work and make sure that your gas isn't getting blown away. Also, if you can get a bottle of C25, I think you'll be happier with the results.

 

[kencunningham]

I have only ever welded with a mig welder, never struck an arc before i got one. My two cents is get the metal cleaner than you have it. Grind down to clean metal, that rust still sitting in those pits isn't gonna make for a good weld. Second, make sure you have a good clean spot to put your ground clamp on, if you have a bad ground then you will have a hard time making a descent weld. Third, technique , a cursive e or z pattern will help with looks. As for the amount of stick out, you should get a pc of scrap and vary your distance and find what works best, then apply that to your project. Getting the right amount of stick out and holding that while moving down the weld joint is only going to happen by practice. If you have shaky hands then rest one hand on top of the other while rolling the bottom hand to provide forward movement, kinda hard to explain, but if you try it and make practice passes before actually starting to weld then you will soon have this down pat. Hope this helps. O, and if it was me, i would go up to 035 wire.

 

[OkieDave]

Do you mean 224 inches/minute? I'm not sure how to figure amps on my 252.

 

[Sodo]

I'm building a smoker, and I welded the hinges on this afternoon. I'm not particularly happy with the quality of my welds, and I was hoping to get some feedback from the more experienced members.

Background info: the pipe is 3/8", the hinges appear to be made of 1/4" material. Yes, the pipe is rusty, but I wire-brushed the weldment site thoroughly (knotted wheel on a handheld grinder). MM252, .030 ER70S6, 24.3V/500ipm (recommended setting), 25CFH of C25.

Back to the OP's problem.

Miller's machine settings recommendations should produce great welds. There's quite a bit of variation in settings that can be accommodated by other techniques and experience, but for beginning, just use Millers settings. you have PLENTY OF TIME in the years ahead, to try settings other than Miller's. For now you have bigger fish to fry (the hand).

The wire brand is fine, the wire size is fine.

My guess is that welding outdoors the wind blew your C25 gas away at those moments of porosity. Or you're cussing too hard, try cussing out of the corner of your mouth.

Ranging betw 1/4 & 3/8 stick out is good.

The metal is clean enough for a good weld.

You clearly need better control of your welding hand. See this pic, this is what you want to do. Draw this with a pencil, on paper, then follow it with your MIG gun - with 3/8" stick out. To get a feel for it. Practice a little on the paper with your MIG gun, find ways to support, or rest your hand to get better control. Then practice welding on scraps. You can do this in about 1/2 hour of actual practicing.

I can tell this exercise will be difficult for you because you went STRAIGHT to the finished article (the smoker) right off the bat. But you asked for advice and here it is. (maybe for the next smoker?

Your J pattern may end up a little "tighter" than I've drawn. This J pattern was due to a "Shield Arc tip" (that I read on TBN a couple years ago) and was the single biggest improvement to -->my welding<-- that I can think of. Whether it's actually what he meant by "a series of little Js" I don't know but this is how I do it now. I'm just a regular hobby/maintenance welder I git er done.