Welding Tips and Tricks

Hi. Haven't bought a single tool yet, but have spent 6 weeks in "Youtube University", and found Jody's channel to be the most professional and informative. Way better than a night at the Holiday Inn Express! Am about to pull the trigger on a Mig/Flux Core machine, PPE, and some metal to start practicing on. Looking forward to learning more from Jody and y'all. Howdy from central Texas.

Good luck! I am starting out too and for now I plan on using my dad’s old stick welder to get my feet wet. It would be nice to try some newer tech but it is hard to beat free. [emoji16]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Welcome. Before you pull the trigger, please post the machine you plan on getting and your budget. You might be surprised on what good advice you can receive if you ask and look around. Welcome from South Texas.

stick welder is still the best to learn with, especially if self taught.

I took a welding class and found out I’m really bad at stick. And I’d really like to do it well. The instructor allowed me to work with oxy/act and it was fantastic. I found my welds looked best with blacksmithing work. For me o/a is the most versatile process. The point is sometimes it’s good to try a different path than everyone else.

Central Texas is a wonderful place with lots of great metalworkers there. If you can, hang around their shops. Not only blacksmiths but also hot rod shops. They welcome visitors and it’s good inspiration.

Why do you say you were bad at stick? I think it's pretty forgiving so long as you don't try to weld too thin of a material compared to the rod diameter. Out-of-position is another story though, but not too bad if you use the right technique with the right rod.

I agree that stick is a good starting method. Thanks for the question. Since my class was about 20 years ago, the technology has changed with digital controls etc. But I think I still have an instinctive reaction to the spark and it causes a flinch. The outcome is stuck rods or now, tungsten. I tried stick for hours, striking like a match, tips, advise. So I’m working on it by concentrating more. A good comparison is driving a stick shift car. The way I learned. Some people have a real problem with the coordination and keep stalling.

l8trdude wrote: ↑Fri Dec 24, 2021 6:51 am I agree that stick is a good starting method. Thanks for the question. Since my class was about 20 years ago, the technology has changed with digital controls etc. But I think I still have an instinctive reaction to the spark and it causes a flinch. The outcome is stuck rods or now, tungsten. I tried stick for hours, striking like a match, tips, advise. So I’m working on it by concentrating more. A good comparison is driving a stick shift car. The way I learned. Some people have a real problem with the coordination and keep stalling.

sometimes its just bad gear.
a mate brought his welder over as he was having trouble with it. i was having trouble getting rods to light with it. voltage to low, just cheap junk.
also can happen when you have poor connections.
more common issue is cracking/breaking the flux. then you will always have issues until you trim/burn the rod down enough past the missing flux.

with tig, i had a lot of issues to start with that was simply due to a crappy lift arc. got an HF start machine and that made things a lot easier. my current machine has a decent lift arc which i use a fair bit because its HF start is a bit crap.

get a good working setup, then its just practise. just like learning to drive a manual. i much prefer people to learn in a manual. just like stick welding, a bit harder to start with but it teaches good habits.

Agreed, nobody is just going to jump into stick and run it well, some people can get passably decent a whole lot faster with mig than you'd think, especially if the machine is set right. But stick, you've just got to burn about 20-30lbs of rods running bead pads and filling up T joints before it'll really come to you, but once you have, anything else doesn't feel totally alien as you'll be used to adapting on the fly to things going haywire.

Some rods, and some stick welders suck right from the factory, and some are garbage because they're in the condition they're in, the best way to tell if its you or the machine/rods is to take it to a community college/welding school if possible and ask them to try it out, assuming it's portable in any sense of the world, or do your best to find a semi competent welder who can tell you.