Welding Tips and Tricks

Hey everyone,

Obviously I'm new here and also brand spanking new to welding. Not exactly sure what motivated me to want to learn, but always thought it was a fascinating and admirable trade.

I intend only to learn as a home hobbyist in my garage and work with MIG and flux core. I will work out of my garage, which is what it is first and foremost...otherwise the fiance will have words with me, haha.

For my birthday, my fiance had purchased a little 90 amp flux core and MIG unit that runs off 120 V power from Canadian Tire. It came with a cart and auto darkening hood, which was pretty awesome. I finally got around to using it just this week while I'm taking some time off work. I built a little dumbell rack, which has been awesome!

My next project will be a dual purpose welding / workbench 30"x54" at 40" table top height.

I will have a ton of questions for you all. I care first and foremost for my safety particularly garage safety and respiratory safety, so I'll start with that in another forum.

Thank you for reading and Happy New Year!

Andrew

Duey1083 wrote:For my birthday, my fiance had purchased a little 90 amp flux core and MIG unit that runs off 120 V power from Canadian Tire.

Welcome,


If your fiance loves you, they will understand that you need to return it and upgrade to get either a real MIG/fluxcore wirefeed welder, or a beefy stick welder, as those 90A are generally good for practically nothing from a wire-feed perspective. If they do end up understanding, then you know they're a keeper

Haha, that's fair...but I need to install an upgraded circuit before I can even use my welder at its max settings. Unfortunately my garage was wired with 14 AWG and 15A breakers.

Also unfortunate, but I think I'm way beyond my return date as I've already used it to weld the dumbell rack (first project). She's a keeper anyways, since she supported me in getting into the hobby in the first place!

Anyways, the thing is supposed to be able to weld 3/16" material at max settings using flux core, so that will likely be good for my needs now.

Welcome