Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello All,

I sure appreciate those that make this forum possible.

A little about myself. I am a marine mechanic with my own small shop. I also plow snow in the winter. I am hopeing to be able to self teach my self to do some basic and minor welding and eventually some light fabrication. I also hope to someday find a class or two to take to help me along in ths endeavour. I did get some mig welding experience way back when I was an auto tech.

I am thinking of purchasing the lincoln 210 MP. It seems like an affordable,versatile starting place for a beginner.

The very first job, after much practice and experimenting, I need to do is to reattach the bracket for the upper front diff mount on my chevy truck. I was thinking that cleaning the area and making vertical passes up each side with the mig function. I would then also add a couple of gussets where there is the clearance.

Would the mig function be proper?

Do you all think this machine would be proper for useing on the occasional plow frame, trailer, and such? It sure would be nice to make some of these non critical repairs in house. Maybe even be good enough some day to justify better machines and more challenging work.

Any way, I am off to search these forums to hopefully find the answers.

Make sure to checkout all videos Jody just recently done just before the end of the year on MIG welding basics. These should be a good place to start learning

http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/mig ... asics.html

forget to put link in doh

You can't go wrong with the Lincoln 210mp.

And if you got skill, you can weld any thing with the mig and stick side of the machine.

My dad used to do a lot of repairs for local off-road enthusiasts who regularly tore up their trucks. I remember him welding several differential cases and brackets, etc. with 7018 and having good success. Just my .02 worth. I am sure properly done mig would work as well. This was in the '70s and my dad only had a stick welder.
-Eldon

If you can clean the metal decently, mig should be just fine. If you can't clean it to well, I would probably use flux core wire. I switch to flux core if I can't get grind down to bare metal completely. Sometimes cramped locations make it difficult to grind completely. Acetone helps clean off any oils or grease. That will help out alot.