Helping anyone learn metalworking skills simply with minimal jargon.
My welding journey: - First learned to weld when I was 12 working at my Dad's auto repair shop - Started my first welding business in high school repairing railings and gates - Completed trade school in TIG, Stick and MIG - Former certified welder and AWS Certified Weld Inspector (CWI) - BS in Mechanical Engineering - MS in Welding Engineering from Ohio State University - Have several years of experience engineering critical welds on jet engines, heavy equipment and nuclear power plants - Will talk your ear off about welding every chance I get
Does it matter what color flux you end up with? With Forney I had a light brown flux and good weld. With Yeswelder I have a dark brown (almost black) flux and a good weld. Am I doing something wrong or is jus the difference in the wire?
Soooo in depth!!!!..I just bought one of these...n didn't want to see a review...I wanted to see a practical application...explained..AWESOME VID!! THANX
I just started practising when making saddlebag support for my bike. I rapidly tap the stick sideways expecting to just get a single flash. So my welding is like bz bz bz bz bz bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. That way I find how the electrode behaves while tapping instead of trying to get a good arc on the first tap and getting it stucked. I would recommend this method to the new guys because when you stick it 15 times in a row it gets frustating.
I don't remember which machine I was using in this video, but if it has the gas nozzle, it's also a MIG welder. Some people take it off when using flux core, but I don't like to do that because you get more spatter and debris on the diffuser.
Very well done and explained. Maybe a few more pictures of completed welds with descriptions. I just got My first welder yesterday and am excited to start doing this my self. I’m a perfectionist and am tired of relying on people that do half assed jobs. My soldering skills are among the best so I hope to translate that into welding. Thanks for the great videos.
Weld for a living & run flux core. Ran out of my fave cheapo brand wire late last week & had to go buy some locally - which I know to be a baaad idea.. Wandered in, bought 1 roll - their price for 1 roll is 6 times what I usually pay. Their brand wire is allegedly "Premium". Yeah. Right. Meanwhile, I ordered 15 rolls of my usual cheapo known good stuff online - hoping the 1 roll of "Premium" wire lasted till the 15 got delivered. How was the 6 times more expensive "Premium Brand" wire? Absolute crap. If that was your experience of flux core welding, you'd bin the process as being rubbish. Porosity off the scale, spattery, rubbish penetration, horrible looking welds. Courier delivered the 15 rolls of "cheapo" wire this morning & I gratefully chucked remains of the "Premium Brand" wire where it belongs - in the bin. Flux core is very much a black-art - I don't know anyone IRL who has run more rolls of it than I have, I burn roll after roll every week & none of my welder mates would come anywhere even close to having the hood-hours with flux that I have. I have my 10,000 hours running it well behind me. There's loads of machines in the workshop, I only like 1 machine for running it, the rest do my head in as they handle it badly, what brand wire you run matters hugely - with solid wire, it's nowhere near as important what brand (still important, but just not so much) and machine settings are key - there's other guys here who also run flux-core (badly, lol). If I borrow their machine & change it to "my" settings, they always ask wtf I did to their machine that it welds so much better. Black art.. They also tend to opt for 0.8mm or 0.9mm wire - I don't touch any wire diameter except 1mm - dunno what that is in the US - flux core runs best as 1mm due to the manufacturing process - 1mm is the optimal for metal to flux ratio to deposition rate. Below or above, those ratios go out of whack & it gets messy/slow/a pita. 1mm is the sweet spot for flux core - technical reasons I won't, but could, bore you with that relate to the extrusion machines that make the wire. 0.1mm makes a world of difference, believe it or not - it's all about tiny, tiny variables that make it either work great, or do your head in - Black Art. It's like why do Esab Sureweld 6013 stick-rods run so beautifully, while almost every other brand of 6013 on earth will do your head in - tiny but important variables. Most diy welders would be stunned at how good they suddenly became, just by being given good materials, a good machine, proper explanation of what settings matter & a decent welding mask compared to what they have to hand. Just my 2c. Or 20 cent. :-)
Great vid! I have this machine too and one is Monport laser as well, having experienced the efficiency and precision of the Monport Laser firsthand a few months ago, I can confidently suggest it as a stellar alternative.
I'm here to say the booger welds are ok for ....... my first project which was a welding trolley (ironically). 😅 you are brilliant Tim and such a help, thankyou.
I run my welder on a generator and it works pretty well. Your setup is pretty close tho. The setup that would work is very limited though. You'll only be able to run a 120v welder on it. For example my Lincoln Le31mp is a 120v 15a plug. Multiply Amps X Volts to get 1800. Now look at the wattage of your generator. That's awfully close to the required juice ro run your welder. If you were to run this on a Predator 9000, it would work because it's got 72500 running watts. That's plenty of power to run something requiring 1800 watts. Also I have a splitter that goes from 240 to 2 120s. This will keep you from tripping your GFCI on your generator.
It melts the two pieces to join them into one. The rod also has metal that melts and is added to the pool of metal between the two pieces for added reinforcement.
Yes, if you search for 'strip disc' on amazon, those wheels work pretty well. Wire wheels aren't too bad either. I'd also wear a respirator or at least a dust mask to avoid breathing in the dust from paint removal.
Except that you really don't. I've been building projects like this for many years, most of that time it was with cheap tools. $300 for an angle grinder, flux core welder and some basic mechanics tools can do the job. Either miter cut square tubing like my other build on the channel or just hire out the tube bending to a local shop. The tools I used on this are probably not more than $4k total, not including the CNC and welding table which you could do without on this project. My first kart build with my kids as an adult was done on two rickety wooden step ladders that I got for free.
Any weld I make with whatever process, I always focus on the size and shape of the puddle that is visible after the arc and before the freeze line of the slag. I can almost always “see” the finished weld in my minds eye even before the slag is cleaned off. The sliver of light at the sides of the puddle that reflect the arc means it’s blending well to the base metal, and the shape of the puddle where the slag freezes will be the shape of the weld at that point. When I started welding I wasn’t sure what to look at. I have shared that tip with co workers and it helped them as much as it did me. The molten puddle created is what it’s all about. If you can see what it is doing, you can know how the weld will turn out. If the filter lens is too light, or even too dark, you cannot differentiate between the puddle and the leading edge of the slag, or even the puddle and the arc itself.
Flux core welding should ALWAYS have shielding gas just like a normal MIG. (trust me on this one, but you probably need water cooled handle). NO, gas is the hardest to learn, because you learn how to control the melt and that's the whole point of welding.
Good Job Tim 👍🏼Your videos are great, they get to the point and no bullshit. Other welding videos are too complicated, too much info lost and confused.
I noticed they were no eye protection used ,or is it ok to weld without using special glasses but I really enjoyed the video,I have always used electric welding welding rods etc but first time useing this kind
Best advice I can give - I weld for a living - is buy good rods. "Good" is very subjective. What rod you run will make the difference between mint & struggling. As an example, I was welding all week on a customers big machine - customer supplied a whopper pack of 6013 rods, top name brand, expensive rods for 6013, cost an arm & a dick for the "Here's Loads" pack. I hated them from the first bead & spent the entire week running absolutely garbage welds/fighting the rods that have done my head in no matter what way I run them. Garbage. I doubt I ran 3 beads that I didn't have to reweld. It ain't me, it's the rods. If I had half a brain, I'd have ignored the cost/customer & chucked the pack aside, used different rods. In hindsight, that was pretty dim. Sunk cost fallacy/pleasing the customer & all that nonsense. I like 2 sorts of 6013 rods - Oerlikon & Esab Sureweld. I dislike every other sort of 6013 rod. Don't care what fancy brand name they have, they're head wreckers. I like Esab Sureweld 6013's best. Different league to the junk. They can make you look good even if you ain't & make you look brilliant if you're good. Almost never get to run 7018's or 7014's because everything here in Backarsistan is 6013's - sod all else is available without mortgaging the house for some & they look at you like you're insane if you ask for anything but 6013's. Oerlikon or Esab - preferably Esab. Thank me later.
