Welding Tips and Tricks

Just the guys that weld for themselves. How often do you weld to keep staying good or as good as you can be?
I find that if I haven't welded for a while it takes a couple pounds of rod to get decent again. Tig well I probably will never get like some of you.

Even when I weld daily, some days, you just ain’t got it, others you do. If I haven’t welded in a couple of weeks, it takes a few pieces to get my sh!t together. Any time I have to weld something that must be right, and pretty, I run practice beads to get dialed in. I’m just not good enough to do it out of the gate every time.

Same here, I have to really hyper-focus the second the arc is struck if I want to maintain some kind of reasonableness to the weld bead. Not having a lot of projects due to work sucks, but oh well, you can't have both money and free time, lol.

Amen! Weld at work and at home. But an off day is just normal. Gets worse if you keep switching process and metals. I sometimes need a good week straight to get back in a good groove.

Same here. Thats why i hate 2 or 3 piece jobs, by the time you finally get a really nice weld the jobs done and you feel like grinding off the first couple welds

just tell the customer, "these welds emit a lot of UV-A and UV-B rays long after the weld is finished, if I were you, I'd paint these right away, and never look at them again, for your safety."

Well I don't feel so bad then. But then again I haven't post many pics of my work.

77cruiser wrote:Well I don't feel so bad then. [emoji38] But then again I haven't post many pics of my work.

Lol that's why I don't post pics of my wire. I know it sucks, I only do it 2 or 3 times a year, everything else gets tigged


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Lol that's why I don't post pics of my wire. I know it sucks, I only do it 2 or 3 times a year, everything else gets tigged.


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77cruiser wrote:Just the guys that weld for themselves. How often do you weld to keep staying good or as good as you can be?
I find that if I haven't welded for a while it takes a couple pounds of rod to get decent again. Tig well I probably will never get like some of you.

I take a night class 1 day per week down at my local CC. I try to get out to the garage at least once a week in addition. I find the classes to be worth it big time. I've been doing it for a year and a half now and it is unlimited material and gas and about 4 hours of hood time with no prep work. I normally only go through about 3/4 rods of 308L and 3/4 rods of er70s-2 per session. At some point I will jump over to AL as well, but at the moment I am focused on steels.

I find that it normally takes me about an 30/45 mins to get warmed up, get my arc tight, get my head out of the puddle (lol). I'll run a great little 5 piece coupon that covers a good number of joints and try to run it in different positions. I posted a drawing here if interested: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13813

I'm probably not even "decent" compared to the folks around here, but I have a fantastic time while I am having a go and to me that is what its all about.

Since I'm not a pro I'll throw out a couple of half way decent looking bubble gum jobs.

Looks good, what machine are you using?

LtBadd wrote:Looks good, what machine are you using?

Mid 80's Dialarc.

77cruiser wrote:Since I'm not a pro I'll throw out a couple of half way decent looking bubble gum jobs.

I knew it! You're from the future! Busted! Y'all time travelers messed up and now we know you're here in our time!

Do this as a hobby. when I mess up on a weld, I just grind it off and re-weld it until I'm satisfy. In fact, this gives me more practice. so far I've built a welding and torch cutting carts, and they haven't failed yet.