Welding Tips and Tricks

Greetings, fine people of Welding Tips and Tricks. Haven't been here in a while. Hope everyone is doing well in spite of the general disintegration of human civilization.

I have a welding question. I decided to get myself a quick-attach adaptor for my old tractor. I'm sure many people here know what this is. It allows you to change attachments on a front-end loader with a realistic level of difficulty and time expenditure, instead of the old pin system, which basically doomed everyone to using the same attachment all the time.

I can't get a quick-attach bucket to fit this thing in a reasonable amount of time, so I am going to have to convert my old Kubota 60" LA681 bucket. It has two sets of ears on the back, and the loader's pins go through them. It also has a long piece of angle iron welded horizontally across the back. I have to cut the ears off flush with the bucket, and I'll probably have to cut some of the angle iron off. Then I'll have to weld 3/8" plate onto the bucket for the front-end loader to attach to.

The tractor's lift-to-max-height rating is 1500 pounds, and it is supposed to be able to pop stuff out of the ground by rotating the bucket with a force of up to 2500 pounds. This gives you an idea of how strong everything has to be. It's a 37-horse tractor, so basically a large compact.

Anyway, I can MIG fairly well. I am an atrocious stick welder, but I can manage to use stick if I have to. I have 6011 lying around waiting.

Is there any reason not to go with MIG? It would get me through this job a lot faster.

Here is a video of a guy converting what looks like the same bucket. He removed the angle iron entirely, which seems to be a mistake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyFm3ITxHWE

as long as you have a suitable machine, mig is fine. if in doubt do a test piece and either a break test test or etch it to check your weld.

and yes the worlds gone to complete crap.

Prep and weld it right then it's fine. Eg. proper beveling, multi-pass where neded, etc.

Eg. nice video's on basically using MIG (and sometimes dual shield) on massive excavator and other mining rigs stuff from CEE Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HANEJww4j8M

He uses a lot of MIG as he often uses automated welding setups for building up worn-out bores and such, which would be a bit hard to do with stick...

The OEM QC bracket is welded with MIG I'll bet. So - parameters correct, your skill level OK, weld procedure right.

All is well.

Thanks for the help. I would have been fine with paying $900 for a new bucket, but we now live in a world where shortages have even hit cream cheese. I tried to buy a quick attach adaptor from one company, and they told me I was looking at three months. Oddly, Amazon had it and was able to get it here in a week.

I couldn't get the mount plate I wanted for the bucket, either. I had to get a solid plate, and now I'll be cutting out about half of it and setting it aside as scrap for future projects.

I have two MIG's. A Lincoln PowerMIG 180C and a Harbor Freight Titanium 200 Unlimited. Guess I'll max out the Titanium and do a bunch of passes.

If your Titanium will run Dual Shield, that would be my choice, 0.035 wire should be fine. If not, Flux Core at 0.035 in that machine. As stated, clean both sides of all parts to shiny metal, bevel prep, and tack and insure it’s straight, then weld it out. Probably should do 3 passes if it’s fillet weld for insurance, or single pass both sides at least. Only your eyes will tell you if it’s properly welded.

I was going to grab some 0.35" wire and use C25. I have never even tried flux core. I believe I have the flux wire that came with both of my machines.

Will flux give me a better result? I don't mind doing lots of passes. I have nothing better to do.

By the way, 11 pounds of solid wire cost $95 at Tractor Supply and $25 at Harbor Freight. I wonder where I should shop.

Chips O'Toole wrote: ↑Mon May 30, 2022 7:53 pm I was going to grab some 0.35" wire and use C25. I have never even tried flux core. I believe I have the flux wire that came with both of my machines.

Will flux give me a better result? I don't mind doing lots of passes. I have nothing better to do.

By the way, 11 pounds of solid wire cost $95 at Tractor Supply and $25 at Harbor Freight. I wonder where I should shop.

stick with solid.
the flux core that came with the machine is most likely gasless flux core.
gas flux core ie dual shield is a different animal. you also need the right gas, plus there is a learning curve with it and projects like that are not the best place to try something new.
plus i doubt you will use enough of it to make it worth while.

MIG solid core it is, then. The responses have been extremely helpful, so thanks, all.

Chips O'Toole wrote: ↑Mon May 30, 2022 7:53 pm I was going to grab some 0.35" wire and use C25. I have never even tried flux core. I believe I have the flux wire that came with both of my machines.

You should spool up those samples and give it a go. Flux Core has heaps of uses, especially for heavy equipment repair and general “farm welding”. Not needing a gas provides lots of benefits to welding outside or in unprotected environments.

Will flux give me a better result? I don't mind doing lots of passes. I have nothing better to do.

Yes, and No. It is a different wire and it runs DCEN not DCEP like solid wire. FC runs much hotter and because of the EN nature, has better potential for penetration that solid does, all things equal. The only real downside to solid wire is the first 1/2”-1” of your weld is cold. That’s the nature of short circuit EP wire. Experience and proper technique overcomes that.

It’s been my experience that tuning FC wire for good welds and then welding heavy steel is a lot easier than solid wire. And you can weld with in all positions where solid has a practical limit downhill (as a general rule).

C25 is the proper gas for Dual Shield if you opt for some that wire too. Your box will run it fine on the MIG C25 setting. You may need to tune feed speed and voltage from the door panel to best settings.

That is great info, but I am reluctant to try to learn a new skill on expensive parts.

cj737 wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 2:58 pm

Chips O'Toole wrote: ↑Mon May 30, 2022 7:53 pm I was going to grab some 0.35" wire and use C25. I have never even tried flux core. I believe I have the flux wire that came with both of my machines.

You should spool up those samples and give it a go. Flux Core has heaps of uses, especially for heavy equipment repair and general “farm welding”. Not needing a gas provides lots of benefits to welding outside or in unprotected environments.

Will flux give me a better result? I don't mind doing lots of passes. I have nothing better to do.

Yes, and No. It is a different wire and it runs DCEN not DCEP like solid wire. FC runs much hotter and because of the EN nature, has better potential for penetration that solid does, all things equal. The only real downside to solid wire is the first 1/2”-1” of your weld is cold. That’s the nature of short circuit EP wire. Experience and proper technique overcomes that.

It’s been my experience that tuning FC wire for good welds and then welding heavy steel is a lot easier than solid wire. And you can weld with in all positions where solid has a practical limit downhill (as a general rule).

C25 is the proper gas for Dual Shield if you opt for some that wire too. Your box will run it fine on the MIG C25 setting. You may need to tune feed speed and voltage from the door panel to best settings.

not quite that simple.
some gasless fluxcore is not meant for multi pass welds.
will also need larger diameter wire as fluxcore has less metal for the diameter. do you have bigger fluxcore rollers?

some dual shields require CO2, which is good as its cheaper. so you have to check the wires gas requirements. (i think there is some that work with c10).
they often only come in the really big rolls which don't always fit the smaller machines. they are made for big machines doing big production. often only available in the larger wire diameters. for me common size is 1.2mm, 1mm is available, 0.9mm is very rare.
then there is welding technique. worm tracks is an issue.

its a lot of set up and new skills for one job.

Can't recall whether I posted this elsewhere.

I ended up using MIG with 0.035" solid wire, and it looks good. Lots of passes.

I should really get up to speed with stick.