Welding Tips and Tricks

After the Mig like Tig topic, I just couldn't resist.

Here's one of 14 welds on an access ladder for top-manway vessel entry I slapped together. 250DX wide-open (310A), 1/8 308 rod.
Mash the pedal, push the rod, and move the torch.
Less than 1 second for this 1 1/2" weld.



Steve S

Steve,
I get it, move as fast as a MIG gun. What other topic are you referring to? Guess I will have to give this a shot too.
It appears that the weld is cracked on the end? Or am I seeing things?
-Jonathan

Superiorwelding wrote:Steve,
I get it, move as fast as a MIG gun. What other topic are you referring to? Guess I will have to give this a shot too.
It appears that the weld is cracked on the end? Or am I seeing things?
-Jonathan

There was a topic for a bit that Jody started on MIG welds with spaced ripples to resemble TIG welds.

No, the weld isn't cracked... It's a camera illusion of the shrinkage line in the weld. I should have wire-wheeled it for the camera, but it just struck me funny and I grabbed the camera.

I'll dig up that other topic.

Steve S

Steve,
Got you. I do remember that topic and have tried it myself, although I don't know how successful I was at it.
It is funny how things look different through a camera lens!
-Jonathan

Yeah, now that I've looked at it, I'll have to wire-wheel it in the morning, just to be sure it is a camera illusion, and it's not cracked. It wasn't at my last inspection, but...

Here's the other topic:
http://forum.weldingtipsandtricks.com/v ... ed+Ripples

Steve S

At this rate switching all machines, tools and fasteners to a left handed Whitworth thread system and pissing into the wind will become fashionable.

Antorcha wrote:At this rate switching all machines, tools and fasteners to a left handed Whitworth thread system and pissing into the wind will become fashionable.

In this case, there was a TIG machine set up at the bench I was using. In the time it would have taken to bring MIG across the shop and switch it to 308, I had this welded out. Only after did I notice that it looked a lot like I'd MIGged it.

Actually, I "MacGuyver" things at work all the time. We needed a pair of pneumatic vibrators when replacing the perlite insulation in a trailer. The boss hesitated (to put it mildly) when he saw the prices, so I re-purposed a pair of broken needle-scalers for the job. Now, they rarely throw any broken tools away, and I have a nice junk pile to scavenge when I need to get creative. It's a lot of fun having a job that lets me do that.

Steve S

Well I went out to the garage and tried to see how fast and smooth I could TIG like MIG. I was not so successful, but I figured it would make for conversation. I set the Diversion on 180 amps and used 1/8" 308 SS only because I don't have 1/8" ER70S-2 in the garage. Anyway I think I will give this a shot with one of my other machines, more amps equals more speed
-Jonathan

Looked the ladder over today. No cracks, so just some funky camera artifact...

Jonathan, remember I was at 310A on 1/8"... I probably didn't need filler, but the rungs would be sunk in pretty good...

Steve S

Steve,
Glad everything is fine. Yea I briefly thought about my lack of amps and thought I would give it a go anyway. I think I will try it on a 350MP and see how that works. If that fails I can go to the beasts...780 amps baby Although I think I would be in the TIG torch market if I tried that.
-Jonathan