Welder Question

[marrt]

I would like to learn how to weld in order to create some of my own implements and for other projects. Without going into a lot of detail, I need a welder the will weld 1/4” to 5/16” mild steel. I wouldn’t be welding stainless steel, aluminum, or any exotic metals. I have never welded anything but am reasonable skilled and usually “self train” myself on most stuff. I assume, from what I have read here, that my least expensive option is an AC 225 stick welder (even though I understand it is much harder to use initially than a MIG or TIG). If I have a few extra bucks to spend, my next best option would by an AC/DC stick welder. Correct?

 

[rdbrumfield]

If you can come up with a DC welder you be much happier with it. A "buzzbox" AC is harder to master, but will do the job. You can get special rod for the AC. One thing abjout starting out with stick welding, it wil make you a better mig welder. You get better penetration with the stick. I still have to watch myself about getting cold welds with the mig.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

For the type of welding you plan on, either a 180 amp or 225 amp ac machine will serve you a long time.
I learned on a Linclon 225 Ac 40+ years ago, and can still go back to the same type machine and make good welds with it. Once you've mastered overhead welding with an AC machine most other techniques are a walk in the park. A lot of people who learn on DC machines never really learn to weld because they count on the machine doing the job.
MIG machines are convenient, and easy to operate, BUT, most people who rely on MIG make a lot of cold & dangerous welds. You can lay down a good looking weld with MIG that isn't going to hold anything. They are called hot glue guns for a reason.
An AC machine will force you to learn the craft.

 

[Green_in_MI]

You are correct. A mig weld can look very nice but not hold a thing. When I first started, my welds looked great but I could pry them apart fairly easily. My solution is to turn up the amps and move the gun slower. I only weld with gas now and that seems to perform better than non shielded wire. I test all my welds with the big hammer application. If it passes the hammer I use the piece. My grinder gets a lot of work cleaning up the mess though. I actually don't know the first thing about proper welding but my projects seem to turn out all right. I don't have time to take a class at the local JC but I am still going to use my welder. But I am not going to weld anything that I would risk someones life on either.

 

[pruntyc]

If you learn to weld with a stick welder, and you decide to move up to mig later. Then you will find out you are already a pretty good mig welder. Mostly because you will know how to weld. But if you learn on a mig, you will not be a very good stick welder, at least till you have done quite a bit of welding with it. I learned on a mig first, I know. Now I can do them both well, but it took a while to learn the stick, even though I thought I knew how to weld. Life is really a long learning process, and we never get to know it all, we just keep learning. 69 years old now, and wish I had another 69 to learn all the things I would like to learn yet. Oh well, just play on the tractor and enjoy life for a while longer.

 

[MossRoad]

I agree with the others. I learned to weld on gas, then stick, then MIG. I like gas the best, just because it seems like art, /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif however, I usually use AC stick. It works great.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

<font color=blue>I learned to weld on gas, then stick, then MIG. I like gas the best, just because it seems like art,</font color=blue>

That's the path I took, well, kinda, sorta./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Actually the first thing I welded was lead. I worked for the telco and back then we used lead for closures. If you want some pressure have a prestolite torch, a cylinder thirty inches long, ten inches in diameter, a days work forming it into place, and a couple of thousand copper wires inside protected only by paper insulation and some cotton wrapping from the heat. Now solder it together along a seam without setting your livlihood on fire twenty feet in the air with a stiff breeze blowing......those were the good old days.......

The problem I have heliarcing aluminum is I revert back to watching for the flow of the metal like I did with the lead.

Like David I love gas welding. My dad had insisted that I learn to weld if I was going to keep coming up with projects for him to weld up. Every week end it seems I'd come in with a project all cut out and fitted. He'd glue it together.

He started me welding on with an old Forney A/C machine putting together galvanized thin wall tubing. You learn to weld purely by faith. If you see a puddle you're nanno seconds from seeing your boots through the material you're working on.

I decided to use up some of the GI Bill on welding classes. They started me out on gas welding. Like David says, it's art. But probably the best thing about starting with the gas is you learn the process. You get to see what happens when it's just heat and material dancing at your command. After that when using any other welding process when you have a problem you can think back to the basics and figure out what's going wrong and then adjust accordingly.

I think the most fun is welding aluminum with the heliarc. It's clean and neat and everything works slower so you have time to appreciate the moment.

I make my living welding. But I think it'd be neat if everyone knew how to do it. The pleasure of making things is something so special everyone deserves equal opportunities at it.

 

[MossRoad]

You know, I've seen some of those lead cases in our building's phone closests... and I was wondering, how in the heck could you heat that thing up without cooking everything inside it... now I know /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Something about moving that pupple around with a flame, right /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Rockyroad]

Marrt-

I am no expert on the subject. I am a beginner who is also learning.

The only advice I can give you is this: I purchased the Lincoln "tombstone" AC/DC welder from my local Airco dealer. The price difference over the AC only was only about $100 if memory serves. I felt that the slight dfifference in price was worth the added flexibility. I have been practicing with AC and DC both. It has taken me a lot of time, but I am fincally able to run a bead that is passable. Lots of eye/hand coordination necessary. Which leads me to my next point:

I was having a lot of trouble with the regular cheap welding helmet. When I flipped the helmet down, I would lose track of where my hand was in relation to where I wanted to strike the arc. My solution (an expensive one) was to buy an Optrel instant darkening helmet , also from my local Airco dealer when they had them on sale. What a diffenence in my welding! I can see what I am doing right up to the point where the arc starts.

I also bought a good set of torches and I am practicing with gas welding (as well as cutting). I agree with the experienced guys who say that you learn a lot about the process itself when learning gas. I purchased a few video tapes off the internet, and that has also helped.

Last bit of advice: Buy name brands only that are supported by a local dealer. I bought a mongrel MIG several years ago at one of those local big box stores and now the company is out of business and I cannot get parts for it. Ingersoll Rand bought them out, but they no longer stock parts for the unit.
I will probably end up buying a Lincoln MIG this spring and give the old one to the teenager across the street who is starting to play with welding also.

Having said all of that, boy is welding ever fun! Hope you have as great a time learning as I am having.

PS - lots of GREAT advice from guys here on TBN who are pros and can steer us weekend warriors in the right direction.

 

[pruntyc]

I left out gas welding, that is about all I do anymore, when I do sometimes weld. I have a A/C under the house, and just leave it there and light up my torch, and have at it. You mentioned heliarc, I loved doing that, when I was working and something needed it, it sure makes the aluminum flow beautiful, loved to watch it as I worked. You got the old man thinking of the past, nice memorys though.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

WHarv, the absolute definition of fun is 3 days around the clock after a cable splicer poured parafin into a splice case with 4 1200 pair cables in the middle of an intersection of 2 4 lane highways. The splicer was absolutely sure the cable was paper insulated. Unfortunately, he was also absolutely wrong, it was plastic.
Naturally, the engineers wanted to try saving the cable in place first. Just as naturally, it was January and the temperature was in the negative numbers. That may well have been the beginning of my beleif there had to be a better way to make a living, other than hanging cable on poles.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I have a Miller 35 wire machine and I have welded stuff with it that was SUPER critical, like the bit on my trailer hitch that had to pull a 10,000 lb trailer. I have never considered the wire welders to be anything but a total-penetration machine; unless of course it was in the hands of some ham-and-egger who didn't know squat. I suspect that the no-penetration thing got started when the wanna-be welder kids went out and bought a 120V MIG that would fit in the WIRE COMPARTMENT of my Miller. How does GMC put it.........???Oh yeah,..."We are Professional Grade". Yew gets what yew pays fer.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I learned to splice in the Army in a combat zone. I thought I was the cat's meow cause I could slide my own tubes and twist and solder thirty plus pair an hour nineteen gauge pic. When I got out of the business I'd quit one telco twice and had been an independent contract splicer for years. With new technology I would drop into a MH and bend in, open, splice, and close, an eighteen hundred a day.

If you think following a wayward splicer was bad you should have been in my shoes when I was in my early thirties. I was responsible for seventy splicers in two states, more fun than man was meant to have since they outlawed polygamy and about as much pressure to perform./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

What is crazy was I was as passionate about splicing as I am about welding or just about anything else I do. I can remember standing in front of classroom full of wannabees and explaining to them that I could open a splice tell if it was done by a splicer or a connector mechanic no matter what process was used. There is a way that an someone does his work that reflects thought and pride.

That's true in everything. But I believe there is a secret to discerning both ends of that. You have to have a passion about something to identify someone else's passion in their thing. Then you can appreciate them both for what they are.

Just a perfectly unbiased opinion, /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif right?

 

[marrt]

With regard to the question of Gas vs an AC/DC welder, I have noticed that a lot of people suggest that one START on Gas because it will make you a better welder in the long run. That was also the recommendation of that dude who wrote the welding book a lot of folks recommend (Finch I think was his name). I have no doubt this is true. However, in my case, I don’t want to be a professional welder. I just want to do acceptable work. For some reason, I have the impression that gas is harder to learn than an AC/DC welder. I also imagine it heats up the material more. However, it would be nice to have a welder that would cut and weld.

 

[marrt]

Maybe I’m imagining this, but I thought I read somewhere that those auto-darkening helmets are dangerous to use over time. Apparently is takes a millisecond or so for the glass to react and during that brief time you are exposed. Apparently, it adds up. For example, the flash of one camera shot has no long term effects. But if you are exposed to that flash 100 times per day, then it adds up. Probably would not be an issue for the occasional welder however.

 

[Hoeman00]

CJ;
I'll second that 'Yew gets what yew pays fer.'
I've got a Lincoln ideal arc 250 w/ seperate
wire feeder.
Dad and I have built lots of things w/ mig
and never a problem.
But he also taught me to weld when I was 7
w/ craftsman buzzbox.
Stick has it's place w/ 7018 and hard surface
but wire for everything else.
We learned to gas weld as freshmen in
vo-ag class.

 

[Loges1]

Hoeman,
I'll second your second.
I also learned how to weld in Vo-Ag. Gas first then stick with a Lincoln buzz box. MIG was no problem after that even though it was a few years down the road.
Where the trouble starts is when someone uses a 110v muffler welder to paste heavier material together and it fails. Then all wire feeders are "junk". In reality if the welder(operater) works properly then the welder(machine)works properly. Now when I weld I crank up that big ol' Miller and burn 1/16" flux core wire and what I glue together stays glued.

 

[Rockyroad]

Maart-

I had not heard that about auto darkening helmets. However, what you say makes some sense. I don't think I will have a problem since I weld occassionally and the cumulative exposure should be minimal if there is any truth to this.

I do know, however, that it has helped my terrible welding greatly. I frequently have to weld broken prongs to the drum of my home made lawn aerator. I had a lot of trouble starting the arc in exactly the right place until I bought the Optrel. Now I can start the arc exactly where I want to and get it right without a lot of grinding to fix my mistakes.

I agree with "you get what you pay for" and for that reason bought a top end auto darkening helmet. The pros may not need them, but they are sure handy for us amateurs!

 

[EdDekker]

The auto-darkening helmets always block the dangerous UV wavelengths

The ANSI spec for auto darkening hoods requires the equivalent UV protecton to a shade 14 fixed lens at all times. The LCD only modulates the *visible* light levels passing through the lens. Permanent UV filters are bonded to the LCD to handle the UV. It doesn't matter if the LCD is working or not, the UV filters always are, just like a fixed shade (or better since you won't be nodding your head to shake the hood down as you strike the arc.)

If the LCD and electronics totally failed the worst that would happen would be your seeing spots for a while, but you will not be hurt.

 

[dourobob]

Thanks for that explanation. I am a "learning welder" - very early stages - and am considering an auto darkening helmet.
Are there specs that I need to look for to be sure I am getting the best protection.

Bob