Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello, my user name is racer25b and I am new to this forum. I am retired and have a little experience welding as an amateur stock car racer at a small dirt oval 30 years ago. I now work on building/rebuilding old cars in my spare time which requires a lot of welding. My welding skills at this point are not very good so I hope to greatly improve them by watching the videos and reading posts in various forums. I look forward to the interactions that I will have with this group in the future.

Welcome to the forum! Watch Jodies videos and you will learn and you will learn from the best. Good luck on your cars

Welcome to the forum, if you have any questions just ask someone here can help.

welcome to the forum.
racers brake things welders fix things
craig

exnailpounder wrote:Welcome to the forum! Watch Jodies videos and you will learn and you will learn from the best. Good luck on your cars

Thank you Exnailpounder. I have learned a lot already by viewing several of the videos. Now I need to practice some of these techniques. I can see the weld puddle well in the videos but not so well at all when welding. Do you have any tips on seeing the puddle better when welding? I will try to find information on this at this site although I struggle with using computers . Best Wishes Racer25b

racer25b wrote:I can see the weld puddle well in the videos but not so well at all when welding. Do you have any tips on seeing the puddle better when welding?

Welcome to our little asylum, Racer25b. All puddles are not created equal. Some are easier to see than others. 7018, for example, is one of the easiest I know to see. 6011 ain't bad, but not like 7018. A good helmet can make a difference as well. I used to have trouble seeing the puddle until I got a Miller Digital and put cheaters in it. 'Twas a difference of "night and day" compared to my old passive helmet or the cheap Horrible Freight one at work. If you need reading glasses, cheaters in your helmet will probably help a lot. Some of the guys here swear by the Speedglas helmets and say that the view is better than any other. I haven't had a chance to try one of those yet.

LDB

ldbtx wrote:

racer25b wrote:I can see the weld puddle well in the videos but not so well at all when welding. Do you have any tips on seeing the puddle better when welding?

Welcome to our little asylum, Racer25b. All puddles are not created equal. Some are easier to see than others. 7018, for example, is one of the easiest I know to see. 6011 ain't bad, but not like 7018. A good helmet can make a difference as well. I used to have trouble seeing the puddle until I got a Miller Digital and put cheaters in it. 'Twas a difference of "night and day" compared to my old passive helmet or the cheap Horrible Freight one at work. If you need reading glasses, cheaters in your helmet will probably help a lot. Some of the guys here swear by the Speedglas helmets and say that the view is better than any other. I haven't had a chance to try one of those yet.

LDB

Thank you for your comments on seeing the puddle better. I should have mentioned that I also struggle most of the time to see where I am on my work pieces. I may stray off the joint that I am trying to weld because it is so dark that I can not see it. I believe that I have a pretty good helmet but maybe need a new lends and to use reading glasses. I will look on line to find the manual to make sure that I am using the correct helmet settings. Thanks again for your help with this issue. Racer25b

racer25b wrote:

exnailpounder wrote:Welcome to the forum! Watch Jodies videos and you will learn and you will learn from the best. Good luck on your cars

Thank you Exnailpounder. I have learned a lot already by viewing several of the videos. Now I need to practice some of these techniques. I can see the weld puddle well in the videos but not so well at all when welding. Do you have any tips on seeing the puddle better when welding? I will try to find information on this at this site although I struggle with using computers . Best Wishes Racer25b

What kind of helmet do you have?

Auto-darkening or fixed shade?
What shade do you have it set to, or what shade lens is in ?

Is your clear lens all dirtied up, from spatter?

~John

Welcome to the show.

Watch all of Jody's, and you'll be a pro in no time flat.