I agree, 7018 is a pain in the azz to learn uphill. It just takes time and a quality electrode. Uphill is tricky because one can't go too fast nor too slow. One can't long arc it either. Once you understand all that, and after burning about 20lbs of electrode, it will just click for you.

How heavy is this robot that's sitting on top of its base structure your trying to make? It it's big and heavy, I'd definitely recommend you using a bigger machine, such as a Lincoln 180c or miller 211 or Ironman 210. If you can get your hands on a stick welder and know how to use it, that may also ...

Yeah I've had a few tight places I had to get into with mig but couldn't. So, as long as the WPS didn't exclude SMAW, I would be forced to use stick in some of tight places to get the job done. That was the simplest way to go. Then after coming out of the tight squeezed corner area, I'd go back to m...

Just toss them out when your dumping your old paint cans in the trash. :lol: :lol: :lol: I always loved what George Carlin used to say about recycling and getting rid of our waste: "How can we be polluting the soil by dumping our waste, when we had to mine for it just to make it in the first pl...

I think the OP stated the obvious in his post. He started the weld off with paint (contaminants) on the surface. Who knows what else existed on that joint near the beginning of the weld. An oil based paint really jacks up 7018, unless its completely removed. Any paint on the surface regardless of pa...

Hmmmm, how do we know folks are really using a mig process and not actually tig? I think it's a conspiracy and until I actually witness someone doing "mig like tig" live or on video, I'll believe that it's really tig and one is claiming to be using mig.

These are the reasons why I have "Miller Killer" decals on all of my Lincoln equipment!