thanks guys

 

Yeah, after practice you'll learn how to place your arms in which your hand won't shake. Heck, after some expereince you don't even look at the rod, you look right at that pool and arc and you forget about everything. Wait until you try a 7018 rod. They are mostly for applications in which "looks" are considered important they're awesome to weld with. It's not much of a penetration rod though such as a 6011. Just focus on welding. Remember, make sure the metal/equipment your using is clean. For example, the copper splash shield on MIG guns can get caked with crap and can cause a restriction in gas flow causing dirty looking welds. Also, the settings of the machine can make a large difference in weld quality. It's all in time my son. I'll let y'all know in the future how my contest will be coming along, it's not until a couple more months
Philip S.

 

well, I got some more practice in, and learned a few things........ended up catching my pant leg on fire, thank god for military boots!, saved me ankle from getting burned they did!

I was able to burn out a weld while laying down another bead, pretty neat thing to see.

 

So, are you doing gas welding now? If so, that practice will greatly help you when it comes time for TIG welding.

 

i like setting stuff on fire.....people around me don't think it's so sweet......aluminum isn't that hard to weld, if you get a chance to do it every now and then....welding's the easy part, the hard part is learning, and remembering all the heat treats, when to use what filler, what temp, how to cool something down, ect......i think my favorite expression for an ugly weld came from a guy i work with who looked at a joint and said "that looks like an angry beaver chewed it together"........welding is cool, but breathing and seeing is too.... a lot of the guys i work with that are only in their thirties and forties have had it affect their sight already(even with the proper equipment, **** happens) and i've almost blacked out after welding some stuff that i shouldn't have(galvanized[duh], painted, dirty) but i keep doing it......life is a terminal illness.....have fun........

 

i am prety much a novice welder and it is a very handy skill to have. i just picked up an off brand mig welder a couple of years ago and learned along the way. i really dont know if my welds are structuraly sound or anyting like that but they work for what i need to do. the bigest thing i have found is a clean surface if a must. grind it, sand it, wire brush it or whatever you have to do to get it clean and then it is easy. even over head is easy if it is clean. i tried with a stick and never could figure that out. how hard is tig welding. can a person figure it out like mig or would some classes be required?

here is my most recent work.

 

Someone could learn how to TIG on their own, classes would help, but nothing that a message board couldn't help with.

For TIG welding:
Keep the tungsten out of the welding puddle and it will not get contaminated.

To TIG you want to bring up the amps with the foot pedal and get the metal melted, and then stick in your filler metal and move on down the line.

TIG welding is pretty much like gas welding where you melt the metal and add the filler, but with a tig you can control how much you want to melt the metal and therefore how much penetration you want. And when you get really good(I have not) at it, it looks like art.

I'm no expert, but your MIG beads on that cutout look nice and smooth where it connects to the downpipe. Cant tell about the penetration, but it looks a lot better than some of the welding I have seen.

 

OK, tonight we had to lay our weld beads laying halfway on top of the weld bead previous. Not exactly on top of each other, so for the welders, we had to follow the shadow line or the top tow line of the previous weld. Whew! My **** was looking like a crack-ho for a minute there........I had weld sitting directly on top of weld, UGLY!
Then I got my **** in one sock and laid down about 8-10 nice beads about 3 weld sticks wide sitting just a hair north of the shadow line, PRETTY.....I'm glad I got it right, otherwise I was headed for the instructors table...........

 

[QUOTE=parish8]i am prety much a novice welder and it is a very handy skill to have. i just picked up an off brand mig welder a couple of years ago and learned along the way. i really dont know if my welds are structuraly sound or anyting like that but they work for what i need to do. the bigest thing i have found is a clean surface if a must. grind it, sand it, wire brush it or whatever you have to do to get it clean and then it is easy. even over head is easy if it is clean. i tried with a stick and never could figure that out. how hard is tig welding. can a person figure it out like mig or would some classes be required?

here is my most recent work.

[QUOTE]
Give me a day or two. I will post some pictures of my MIG, STICK and TIG welds. They must be good because my welding instructor uses them as examples for other students Parish, the welds look pretty good. Yeah, the hardest thing about TIG welding if you haven't had instruction is basically setting the machine. So many dials it can make your head spin, however just tell me what machine your using and I'll try to be of some assistance!

 

Dude, with as much instruction your getting your welds will be looking great really soon. As for me, I wanted to learn bad, but my teacher kept saying, "Oh,next semseter I'll teach you". I got really mad and just went out in the shop turned on the machine and hoped for the best. I had to learn to MIG,and stick on my own. However I had instruction on TIG, didn't want to screw anything up.