Welding Tips and Tricks

I'm getting ready to mig weld an 18 gauge steel sheet patch about 2 x 4 inches over a hole in the back of my van. I was wondering if its okay for me to be standing in the van while I make the weld? I will ground the van some how, but since the patch is on the floor of the van, I'm not sure how close of a ground I can make.

Also, I plan not to use any gas, as i'll be renting a MIG welder that has some settings for welding the 18G with no gas. Is not using gas okay?

at the risk of being insulting, do you know how to weld?
i suggest learning how to before fixing vehicles. sheet metal is quite hard to weld well.
while gasless mig wire is an option, i would not be using it.

tweake wrote:at the risk of being insulting, do you know how to weld?
i suggest learning how to before fixing vehicles. sheet metal is quite hard to weld well.
while gasless mig wire is an option, i would not be using it.

Get outta my head, Tweake...

Gasless mig wire burns quite a lot hotter than solid wire with gas. My welder has suggested settings down to 18 gauge as well but i highly doubt it would be possible to weld at those settings.

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forget about the wire with no gas, how about the van WITH gas(oline)! If you're anywhere near the gas tank, fuggedaboutit. Sorry, but you left out so many details, we have to assume you have little to zero experience with this type of thing. JBWeld or leave the real welding to an experienced welder who works on automobiles.

Lighten up on him guys - first off welcome to the forum dopefreerain.

Fair point on the fuel tank - please make sure the patch you intend to weld is well away from that & fuel lines or wiring looms - the vehicle does not need to be " grounded " just ensure the earth clamp is as close as practical to the patch & disconnect the vehicles battery - if you have any bolted in brackets / lights / bulkheads / seats brackets close by then clean a bit of one & use this for earth - I do agree if you have zero experience you should practice on something before the actual patch - also if this patch is in anyway load bearing such as seat / belt mounting etc then really you want someone else with experience doing it ( I also think the cost to rent the welder for a day will be more than getting someone else to do it on such a small patch ) if you are determined to go ahead you can use flux core wire but as previously stated it's kinda hot for 18 gauge - you can get slightly smaller diameters of it which helps but my advice would be make the patch of something thicker so it takes more heat without burning away - another option is when you rent the welder get one of the little throw away gas canisters & use solid .023" wire - this will go go way easier - good luck & keep some water handy to put out any small fires caused by paint / body coating.

Also gasless mig produces highly carcenogenic and toxic fumes. You don't want to be inside the van when welding with it without forced or filtered ventilation.

JayWal wrote:Gasless mig wire burns quite a lot hotter than solid wire with gas. My welder has suggested settings down to 18 gauge as well but i highly doubt it would be possible to weld at those settings.

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I called a gas shop, and the smallest tank of argon/co2 I could get was going to cost me at least 100 dollars, with a 200 dollar deposit on the container. The same guy also told me gassless burns really hot and I'd basically have a miserable time welding what I want to do without gas.

Oscar wrote:forget about the wire with no gas, how about the van WITH gas(oline)! If you're anywhere near the gas tank, fuggedaboutit. Sorry, but you left out so many details, we have to assume you have little to zero experience with this type of thing. JBWeld or leave the real welding to an experienced welder who works on automobiles.

This is an excellent point, luckily nothing near the 35 gallon fuel tank!

noddybrian wrote:Lighten up on him guys - first off welcome to the forum dopefreerain.

Fair point on the fuel tank - please make sure the patch you intend to weld is well away from that & fuel lines or wiring looms - the vehicle does not need to be " grounded " just ensure the earth clamp is as close as practical to the patch & disconnect the vehicles battery - if you have any bolted in brackets / lights / bulkheads / seats brackets close by then clean a bit of one & use this for earth - I do agree if you have zero experience you should practice on something before the actual patch - also if this patch is in anyway load bearing such as seat / belt mounting etc then really you want someone else with experience doing it ( I also think the cost to rent the welder for a day will be more than getting someone else to do it on such a small patch ) if you are determined to go ahead you can use flux core wire but as previously stated it's kinda hot for 18 gauge - you can get slightly smaller diameters of it which helps but my advice would be make the patch of something thicker so it takes more heat without burning away - another option is when you rent the welder get one of the little throw away gas canisters & use solid .023" wire - this will go go way easier - good luck & keep some water handy to put out any small fires caused by paint / body coating.

Hey there, thank you for the warm welcome. I was planning to practice welding a few other pieces before I did anything in the van. I picked up a 10ft 10g piece of 3 inch flat bar steel to practice on. I haven't welded before, but have always wanted to learn, so this seem like the perfect opportunity. I've been doing a bunch of research, online videos, recorded university lectures etc. Where can I get disposal gas cans!? That sounds like exactly what I need. So you are saying its okay to be standing on the floor of the van while welding the same floor? This would be similar to say someone welding the floor of a truck bed while standing in it. I think I can sand down the paint in a spot and clamp on the ground to the body of the van wall near the floor.

dopefreerain wrote: Hey there, thank you for the warm welcome. I was planning to practice welding a few other pieces before I did anything in the van. I picked up a 10ft 10g piece of 3 inch flat bar steel to practice on. I haven't welded before, but have always wanted to learn, so this seem like the perfect opportunity. I've been doing a bunch of research, online videos, recorded university lectures etc. Where can I get disposal gas cans!? That sounds like exactly what I need. So you are saying its okay to be standing on the floor of the van while welding the same floor? This would be similar to say someone welding the floor of a truck bed while standing in it. I think I can sand down the paint in a spot and clamp on the ground to the body of the van wall near the floor.

no problem standing on the floor while welding, tho a few precautions need to be taken. don't grab the live end and have somewhere suitable to put the torch down.

frankly imho your better off buying a welder and getting a tank of gas. the simple reason its not a simple job to learn to weld. most people tend to think mig is easy which is not the case, its quite complicated. you will go through a tank fairly quickly.
those disposable bottles are expensive and you would need a lot of them.

i typically recommend learning to arc weld first. its slightly more difficult but it teaches you all the important stuff you need to know for mig, which people tend to overlook. its simple to operate and no need for gas. you can do a variety of jobs with them including panel work.

dopefreerain wrote:

Oscar wrote:forget about the wire with no gas, how about the van WITH gas(oline)! If you're anywhere near the gas tank, fuggedaboutit. Sorry, but you left out so many details, we have to assume you have little to zero experience with this type of thing. JBWeld or leave the real welding to an experienced welder who works on automobiles.

This is an excellent point, luckily nothing near the 35 gallon fuel tank!

But do you now see how a simple question turns into a very lively discussion due to the 100 different variables there are to be taken into account. I didn't want your post to be the post made right before you went ahead and did it anyways and end up blowing yourself up. We're not there to see what you're doing or not doing, etc, etc.

Can it be done with gasless flux core wire? In the hands of someone experienced, yup. Is it difficult? 10 on a scale of 1-10. Hazardous inside a van even with the doors wide open? 10 on a scale of 1-10. Even with a respirator, you'll smell the fumes not just from the flux core wire, but from paint and whatever else was used around the patch panel. Don't matter how clean you get the area. The sparks and blobs will fall EVERYWHERE there is paint or where this is something to burn and emit gasses. You'd need clean, forced air ventilation.

tweake wrote: no problem standing on the floor while welding, tho a few precautions need to be taken. don't grab the live end and have somewhere suitable to put the torch down.

Just to be clear, when you say don't grab the live end, you mean don't grab the piece that I'm about to weld yes? (because the current from the welder is about about to go through the piece to the ground) Also, when you say "somewhere suitable to put the torch down" what exactly do you mean? Also, I would love to buy my own welder and tank, but I just graduated from college, and I plan to bum around in my van for awhile. I don't have a permanent place to store all the stuff. This is why I was trying to go the rental route.

Oscar wrote: But do you now see how a simple question turns into a very lively discussion due to the 100 different variables there are to be taken into account. I didn't want your post to be the post made right before you went ahead and did it anyways and end up blowing yourself up. We're not there to see what you're doing or not doing, etc, etc.

Can it be done with gasless flux core wire? In the hands of someone experienced, yup. Is it difficult? 10 on a scale of 1-10. Hazardous inside a van even with the doors wide open? 10 on a scale of 1-10. Even with a respirator, you'll smell the fumes not just from the flux core wire, but from paint and whatever else was used around the patch panel. Don't matter how clean you get the area. The sparks and blobs will fall EVERYWHERE there is paint or where this is something to burn and emit gasses. You'd need clean, forced air ventilation.

Yea right on, I am all about being safe. Yea this flux core idea sounds bad. I think I might be holding off on my welding ambitions until I find a place to live and can purchase my own gear.

dopefreerain wrote:

tweake wrote: no problem standing on the floor while welding, tho a few precautions need to be taken. don't grab the live end and have somewhere suitable to put the torch down.

Just to be clear, when you say don't grab the live end, you mean don't grab the piece that I'm about to weld yes? (because the current from the welder is about about to go through the piece to the ground) Also, when you say "somewhere suitable to put the torch down" what exactly do you mean? Also, I would love to buy my own welder and tank, but I just graduated from college, and I plan to bum around in my van for awhile. I don't have a permanent place to store all the stuff. This is why I was trying to go the rental route.

you do not want to be part of the electrical circuit. in some cases that can be holding the part, but often its holding the torch/gun. arc welding tends to teach you to be careful as its live all the time. mig a bit safer but plenty of cases where guys will put the gun down and hit the trigger, which makes it live and shoot out wire. might waste some wire or it digs into your leg and you become part of the circuit and get a good zap.

for the amount of use you want to have, hiring a welder is probably very expensive. most hire tools i have dealt with never work properly and that just sucks if your trying to learn with it.

if you don't have a place to store anything then i suggest finding someone who has a welder.
are there any night classes or welding school around?

honestly you really need a place for it. it ends up being a lot of other gear that goes with it.
i never bothered with welding until i bought my own house and had a garage to do it in.

Just going to throw this out there.

1. A picture of the "hole" in the van would be really helpful for folks here to help you with advice. Don't worry we only judge a little .

2. My personal advice. Welding is a journey not a destination. The more you do it the better you become. Welding just for a few days here and there on flat bar is not going to help you reach your destination. Even TIG welding on 18 gauge without some serious chill is going to be pretty hard. An experienced welder will know how to do it only from fucking it up a shit load while learning.

3. I would take your desire to learn how to weld and go for it... but I'd not try to relate the job at hand and the desire to learn. Go and learn how to weld at your local CC or trade school (CC is cheaper and pretty great value IMO) and have fun with it. Take your van to someone who can help you out. Once you figure out which process you like, start investing in equipment and go from there.

I enjoy TIG and stick welding so I only need a tig/stick machine. If you find you like MIG then you'd need a completely different machine. Watch Jody and other folks videos on youtube and study up. You will enjoy it but expect it to take time. If it ain't hard it ain't worth doing right?!

There is no ground involved in what you plan to do. Ground is the actual earth. We deliberately connect the equipment grounding system to the earth. We include the frame of any electrical machine, many hand held tools, pretty much all conductive materials you might come in contact with. They are said to be equipotential, meaning there is a good conductor better than your body should anything become electrically live unintentionally.

We also connect at one point in each building one of the transformer leads in the electrical system.
The two leads from your welder are not intentionally connected to earth, or grounded utility line conductor. We want the electrical current produced by the welder to return only to the welder. Kneeling on the floor of a van attached to the work clamp while touching the live parts of the MIG gun or stick stinger might give you an electrical shock.

You will wear non conductive boots, pants, maybe knee pads, or kneel on a pad. Wear gloves. A MIG machine might produce 30 Volts, not likely to harm you if you did get a shock.

Stick welding you WILL get a shock sooner or later. It won't likely harm you.

Oh boy this guy is a total noob. Ok OP take it from a former noob that started welding on his ride, take the gas out of the gas tank if you are anywhere near lines or the tank or engine bay. It will keep you calmer while welding to know your not on a rocket to heaven or hell. At harbor freight they sell fluid pumps and 5 gallon tanks. Also if you have no patients don't attempt this because what you want requires many small tack welds and lots of grinding bondo. Check out thesamba.com for how the germans do panel repairs in this fashion. Noone can stop you from doing it like an as but many people die from being ignorant. If I could go back in time I would take every percaution I could ie hearing protection, ventilation, eye protection, ect. At the risk of harping get an auto darken mask atleast to protect you and if you cant see in the van through that poor lighting just tape a mini mag light to your gun. Oh and use a particle respirator that shit is hella toxic and I have sucked up my fair share but have not had to pay the toll yet.

Just my $0.02, but welding sheet metal is not easy to do properly, easy to blow through the material.

Just about everyone repairing auto panels is using tig these days. For frames, exhausts or other repairs, mig will work well.

I would encourage you to get a welder to learn welding, but have someone do this repair for you. The better way to go if you want to do it yourself would be to place a piece behind the hole and epoxy/jbweld it in place and add bondo on the outside to flush it out.

Normally the way a weld repair is done on sheet metal is to cut out the area you want to replace, so you have clean lines, weld the perimeter and grind it smooth. This is most commonly done with tig at low amperage. This type of welding is not easy and is not a job for mig, IMO.

The bondo route is not a bad way to go and has been done in body repair for years.

dopefreerain,

Well, I stand corrected...Although most people I know are using tig for body sheet metal, here's a guy from doing it with mig and I would say XLNT advice. Just stumbled across this today and he's using mig for 18 ga.

yd5MPtc88zA

Cheers,
Alan

TraditionalToolworks wrote:Just my $0.02, but welding sheet metal is not easy to do properly, easy to blow through the material.

Just about everyone repairing auto panels is using tig these days. For frames, exhausts or other repairs, mig will work well.

I would encourage you to get a welder to learn welding, but have someone do this repair for you. The better way to go if you want to do it yourself would be to place a piece behind the hole and epoxy/jbweld it in place and add bondo on the outside to flush it out.

Normally the way a weld repair is done on sheet metal is to cut out the area you want to replace, so you have clean lines, weld the perimeter and grind it smooth. This is most commonly done with tig at low amperage. This type of welding is not easy and is not a job for mig, IMO.

The bondo route is not a bad way to go and has been done in body repair for years.

I ended up on disabilty after 35 years in the autoglass/autobody industry and am not aware of any production shops using tig welding on cars. I know they do in the custom field.

The aluminum bodied cars that requite welding was done with spool guns because the HF AC welding is very bad for the computers.

We did start using silicon bronze wire on the newer high strength steels used in cars today.



Randy

TraditionalToolworks wrote:Just my $0.02, but welding sheet metal is not easy to do properly, easy to blow through the material.

Just about everyone repairing auto panels is using tig these days. For frames, exhausts or other repairs, mig will work well.

I would encourage you to get a welder to learn welding, but have someone do this repair for you. The better way to go if you want to do it yourself would be to place a piece behind the hole and epoxy/jbweld it in place and add bondo on the outside to flush it out.

Normally the way a weld repair is done on sheet metal is to cut out the area you want to replace, so you have clean lines, weld the perimeter and grind it smooth. This is most commonly done with tig at low amperage. This type of welding is not easy and is not a job for mig, IMO.

The bondo route is not a bad way to go and has been done in body repair for years.

I ended up on disabilty after 35 years in the autoglass/autobody industry and am not aware of any production shops using tig welding on cars. I know they do in the custom field.

The aluminum bodied cars that requite welding was done with spool guns because the HF AC welding is very bad for the computers.

We did start using silicon bronze wire on the newer high strength steels used in cars today.



Randy

RandyLittrell wrote:I ended up on disabilty after 35 years in the autoglass/autobody industry and am not aware of any production shops using tig welding on cars. I know they do in the custom field.

You obviously didn't do NASCAR work in your 35 years. Pretty sure they use tig. I have a section of tig on an old '46 Chevy Pickup, it's the way I got it.

TraditionalToolworks wrote:

RandyLittrell wrote:I ended up on disabilty after 35 years in the autoglass/autobody industry and am not aware of any production shops using tig welding on cars. I know they do in the custom field.

You obviously didn't do NASCAR work in your 35 years. Pretty sure they use tig. I have a section of tig on an old '46 Chevy Pickup, it's the way I got it.

Nope, sure didn't. But you had said most welding was done on cars with mig, you didn't state nascar to start with.

The OP was asking about his van which is not in nascar and was also why I mentioned tig welding on cars with computers.

Just trying to get accurate info out there. 99.9% of welding on cars is done in a production shop.

Not trying to argue with you, just trying to help others out.



Randy

RandyLittrell wrote:Nope, sure didn't. But you had said most welding was done on cars with mig, you didn't state nascar to start with.

No, actually I said that most AFAIK used tig. I think that was a slip on your part though, I understand what you meant.

When I watch Jay Leno, the repairs on his cars were also done with tig.

Look, not trying to debate with you Randy, I'm sure you know body work better than I do, but I plan to use tig to some repairs on my '46 Chevy Pickup as I don't have mig and would rather isolate the heat than using stick. I've seen 1/16" stick being used similar to the mig video I posted above, to basically tack along the seam, but I would rather have something I can weld the entire seam rather than using what looks like a bunch of spot welds.

RandyLittrell wrote:Just trying to get accurate info out there. 99.9% of welding on cars is done in a production shop.

Again, I believe you and don't think Jay Leno is a production shop, just that he has repairs done to many of his cars. Not trying to argue with you either. I don't know $#!T from Shinola as a disclaimer and honestly don't really enjoy working on cars, especially old ones with rotted and rusted fasteners and body work.

I will say that the welds I've seen from most noob mig welders would not be something I want on my van.