I give up!

Alarion

Alarion

Joined
Nov 26, 2001
Messages
1,375
Ok, it's all about wleding.
Brazing? No problem.
Soldering? Can do that while sleeping and drunk.
But STICK WELDING completely escapes me.
Can't do it for my life. I tried everything short of human sacrifices.
Various angles between stick and material and stick and gap, various gap sizes and angles, brushing, sanding, using different sized sticks, variuous current settings, praying the iron gods, cursing, and an unwarranted amount of swearing and calling saints to stick together the two parts.
It won't weld. :rolleyes:
Welding material just coalesces into drops on the two sides of the gap. If I go slower, it just coalesces into bigger drops, or I cut through the materials to weld.
It's just old, plain IRON, no exotic stuff. Iron.
What I have to do?
Is there any ritual I must fulfill? Purify myself under a waterfall for six days? Just tell me, oh thou who know, and I'll follow your advice.
Right now my stick welder is an expensive way to eat up juice and iron sticks... and my time in purgatory when I die is already long enough due to failed previous attempts.
:( :( :(
 
I only got welding to work well once, but don't htink you realy wanna use my method. cuz only did one thing different, and I have no idea how it's connected, but it was lots of fun. :)

Take a half full gas tank from a DJ mail jeep.

Pour half the contents onto the driveway, with the mail jeep in the puddle

Get bored with sparker for oxy torch and see if you can light gas on the driveway

Wait for the tires to start putting out the acrid smoke that rubber always gives you and this smoke fills jeep

Finally get hose untangled from swingset and put out fire.

Use compressor to blow nasty rubber smoke outta DJ body.

Wipe grass off yourself from rolling around on ground laughing.

Then get back to the welding.

Works for me. ;) :D
 
I used to work in a machine shop, and when we needed something iron welded the welder pre-heated the piece of iron before he welded it. I think that the pre-heating helped the weld stick. Make sure all your surfaces are clean. Maybe a different type of welding rod would work better?
 
This is something that is impossible to tell someone how to do simply by typing something. There are too many factors involved. First of all, you say iron. What kind of steel are you talking about? Mild steel or high carbon? If it is high carbon or is also sometimes called cold rolled, you need a welding rod that will work on this type of steel, such as low hydrogen. If it is mild steel, you don't need the above rod, but it can also be used on mild steel. You need to make sure that the rod you are using is made for the type of current that you are using. For example if you are using AC current, make sure the welding rod is made to be used with AC. If you are using DC current, make sure that you are using a rod made to be used with that current. Also if you are using DC current, make sure you are on the right polarity. One basic thing, when you have a gap set between two peices of metal that have been beveled, you need to have a "lands" on the beveled edge that forms the gap. If you had a chisel ground edge on a knife, the "lands" would be like taking a file and blunting the edge to where it was 1/16 in. to 1/8in. The wider this lands is the more heat can be absorbed. What you were describing about the metal running down, is usually referred to as grapes, by welders. When this happens it is usually due to too much current, moving too slow, or too wide a gap, or a combination of the three. There are two styles of welding, uphill and downhill. I'm not going to attempt to tell you how to set the amount of current and how to judge the speed as you move along. I hope this helps a little. Oh, by the way, just in case you try to weld on cast iron, this is something that takes some experience to know how to do. Some one mentioned pre-heating the metal. This is only necesary on certain high carbon steels.
 
Walt2 nailed it....

There are a few basic fundamentals that need to be followed. Also, choose the rod for the type of work..ie material AND postition. By position, there are rods specifically for flat welding, vertical welding and inverted welding.

So:

1st- pick the rod for the task
2nd- set the welder up for the rod
3rd- practice a bit on scraps to get the feel and to set the wleder power

4th- smile!

It really helps to get a basic shop practice book on welding...From high school weld shop for example. Read it once, then go into the shop with the welder and read it again as you practice. Then practice and re-read to answer questions as they pop up. Understand the principle and how they affect what is happening...such as DC straight polarity -VS- reverse polarity. Also make notes based on your welder, rod type, material and setup.

Welding will soon be a joy as you lay beautiful bead after bead...with silky smooth precision.

Finally, like grinding a blade, welding takes craftmanship to master the hand/eye coordination. Practice practice practice.


sincerely,
Rob
 
I am from the more is better school of welding, completely self taught but I suspect the DC polarity situation to be the problem.
 
I used to work as an electrician fixing welders not using them So the other guys would have the aswer. However just a tip I picked up from the welders I love to pass on is if you need to build up a gap, if you put a piece of copper behind the metal your welding and spanning the gap. The weld will not stick to the copper but it will hold the molten weld up in place so that you can put layers of weld
on top of each other and fill the gap.

I have done a heap of practice on scrap metal. But I think if you have a book to compare the pictures of the lines of weld you will learn quicker than just practice alone. You can see what too many amps looks like or to slow looks like etc.

Good luck.
 
Thanks everybody.
Will get a book asap.
My welder is an AC welder and I was trying to weld mild iron, not hi-carbon steel.
I don't think I was going too slow, as if I went any faster the drops just become smaller, but remained on both sides of the gap anyway.
The current was set so low that if there was ANY imprecision the arc extinguished or the rod stuck to the metal. I don't think I can lower it any more. The gap was about 1 mm and I was using 2 mm rods.
 
If you are welding cast iron, you will need to preheat to prevent cracking later, then use a nickel rod made especially for cast iron. If you are welding mild steel, then a rod like 6011, 6013, or 7014 should do a good job. Check Lincoln Electric or
Hobart Welding

Hope this helps.

Steve
 
Two suggestions

1. turn up the heat. If you can see drops you are way to cold. AC welders are notourisly hard to start.

Scratch the rod to get it going, (like a brush stroke) Use a piece of scrap to start,if you don't want chicken tracks all over the workpiece.

2. Buy your local weldor some beer and get him to let you watch him a while. Works in this country anyway, might be wine over there :D
 
I found a local vocational school that had a 7 week evening course. It was time well spent. You will be a better welder than trying to get it from a book or trial and error.
Dan Farr
 
By your description of seeing the drops of metal falling, it sounds like you are holding too long an arc. In other words the end of the rod too far away from the metal. The longer arc you hold the hotter it is and the shorter arc you hold the colder the puddle of metal is. You didn't say exactly what type of rod you are using. If you are using one of the 70xx rods, do not run these rods downhill. Flat, vertical, horizontal or overhead only. You said that you are using an AC welding machine. If you use any of the 70 series of rods, use the 7016. As some one else suggested, if you are welding mild steel, you should use the 6011 which is an AC/DC rod. Do not try using the 6010 rods on an AC machine. Most people, when they are learning to weld have a tendency to turn the machine up too high because they are inexperienced in holding a constant length arc and have problems sticking the end of the rod. Relax!!!!!! Don"t get up tight and start fighting it. If you find yourself getting tensed up or aggravated, back off for awhile and try again. As I said before, it is hard to tell someone how to weld by typing something. I spent 42 plus years doing brazing, soldering, welding(stick,tig,and mig) as well as cast iron and I always had better luck by being able to show someone how to do things when they didn't have any basic knowledge. Main thing is practice, practice, and more practice.
 
I already managed to get better results reading a book on welding. It seems that, for fear of making the mistake of setting the current too high, I kept it too low, and the result were "cold" weld attempts.
I turned the current on, and now the weld is going far better.
For the sticks, I fear they are the "only stick there was at the hobby store" type of stick :)
I'll try to get proper sticks asap :) but the one I have seem to work fine for mild iron (after all they were sold for welding mild iron :D)
I'll have a word with the guy in our firm machine shop too.
They've got a MIG/MAG welder, but I think his advice can be good anyway :)
 
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