I'm trying to lay a pretty bead when welding up these pipes (charge and exhaust), and it seems more diffucult than welding thicker materials or welding tubes to flanges. Recently (just now) I tried basically doing a nice good tack one on top of another, and it comes out looking pretty good. I don't have any pics, but the welds remind me of when I saw bailhatch's mild steel manifold pictures.

Anybody else do it like this? Any tips or suggestions? Thanks.

 

What welder are you using? Wire type? Voltage/feed settings? Tube thickness?

 

I have a lincoln weld pak 100 which is a 110v 88amp @ 20% duty cycle with 75/25 mix. The wire is .023" steel, voltage for this app I use either 1/2 or 3/4 and wire feed ranges from 4-6 out of 10. The tube is 16ga alumized steel.

Its hard to lay one long bead that looks good. It ends up like one long deep dead looking puddle. I know this works but I'm trying to get the appearance a little better, so perhaps I can show them off instead of grinding everything flat before I paint. Either way, I need to practice more and any other advice I can get I'll try.

Thanks for looking.

 

I'm curious if laying repeated tack welds is weaker then a continuous bead? I have tried this same method and it seems like the metal oxidizes as soon as you stop the weld. I would think this would contaminate the next weld? It does look better doing it this way however.

The method I use is to move in a U-shape back and forth as you move down the tube where you want the bead. However, I think if you want pretty, you'll need a TIG and lots of practice. I am in no way a welding expert, or even any good at it.

 

I've noticed with my mig if you angle the gun the opposite way you normally would (IE: wire going out away from what you've previously welded) it makes it look alot prettier. The opposite of this, angling the wire feed towards what you have already welded tends to end up with it looking like the flat dead puddle that "works" that you described.

The only problem with this is it doesnt feel nearly as natural as angling the feed towards what you've previously welded. Might try that if you understand what I'm talking about.(not sure I described it well)

 

[QUOTE=TurboMiata]I've noticed with my mig if you angle the gun the opposite way you normally would (IE: wire going out away from what you've previously welded)QUOTE]

I believe this is called a pushing technique, and is hotter (more penetration) than pulling the weld.

So far from my practice I think I'll stick with the tack tack method, until hopefully pretty soon I can get it to where it looks decent. Thanks guys.

 

you know im doing the same thing. please anyone...help

 

jj, you know I'm not saying I got a whole lot better since I posted this, but the main thing is practice. Explaining and discussing techniques might and hopefully helps a significant amount, but you gotta practice. Every time I gotta weld some things up, I get a whole lot better at it, and it becomes a lot easier.

It's a pain sometimes prep'ing and fitting the metal, but just practice. Make some u bends out of straight pipe and a chop saw, play with the voltage, play with the wire feed, play with your technique, push, pull, circles, straight line, zig zag, slower, faster, regulate the gas so its enough but not wasting it, blah blah blah just weld. Good luck

you can always just put a fat hot bead on the seam and grind it flat if you don't like the way it looks

 

[/QUOTE]I believe this is called a pushing technique, and is hotter (more penetration) than pulling the weld.

So far from my practice I think I'll stick with the tack tack method, until hopefully pretty soon I can get it to where it looks decent. Thanks guys.[/QUOTE]

It is acually cooler because the bead is ahead of the heat insted of behind it.

 

Yea I've since read up on this, I was just assuming since it makes a wider bead and it looks like it's hotter. Shows what I know =]. Thanks

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by eastbay92cx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">circles, straight line, zig zag</TD></TR></TABLE>

try 1/2 moons

)_)_)_)_)_)_)

 

On many thinner materials, you may find that making any sort of pattern like moons, circles, etc, it slows your overall travel speed so badly that you will go too slow and burn holes in the metal.

You can also play around with the position to weld it in. Try laying the pipe down on the table and then weld a spot from about 1 oclock to 3 oclock (welding downhill), then roll it and try it again. When doing this, don't worry much about the gun angle, but you want to pull (angled slightly uphill).

I agree with the statements about the appearance...it's not really going to look good unless you go with tig. Sure, you can improve with mig, but it has its limitations.

 

I've bee using the HOSTESS swirl for over a year with some good results...Loop loop loop

Rich

 

I'm gonna have to give some of these patterns a try. I use the hostess swirl when arc welding but untill I get some gas for my MIG its just frustrating.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by G2turbo_terror &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm gonna have to give some of these patterns a try. I use the hostess swirl when arc welding but untill I get some gas for my MIG its just frustrating.</TD></TR></TABLE>

i was reading somewhere that that is a common misconception made by many welders. They are used to doing swirls and patterns from stick welding, but with mig you don't have to, as it just slows you down and doesn't necessarily provide a strong weld. I am all up for just blasting away 90% of the time with mig. Just run a bead, and sacrifice the looks.

just a question for engloid why i am at it, what do you think of spray transfer? i am pretty sure it wouldn't work for this application because the tubing is too small, but i am still interested in it in general.

 

I have the same welder, it seemed like when I turned down the heat to the lowest setting that is when I at least started to see the half moon shaped pattern, all the other times it basically looked like it ran all together.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by snoochtodanooch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
just a question for engloid why i am at it, what do you think of spray transfer? i am pretty sure it wouldn't work for this application because the tubing is too small, but i am still interested in it in general. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Spray arc...it is sometimes called too... It's great, but usually the heat range you have to weld in makes it such that it's best used on thicker materials. The advantages are that it will give less spatter (often none at all) and good penetration.

I prefer to use 98%Argon and 2%Oxygen, but there's other gasses that you can use with it. I'm pretty sure that the C25 people so commonly use can be used for spray transfer.

 

even with tig it is hard to weld thinner metal to get that COIN roll look. Try Coin rolling 16g mild steel. it'll look decent, but not like 10g mild steel roll cage bars. I've seen a good welder do 16g coin roll and it looked decent.....then he does the a thicker steel and very nice coil rolls....

all comes down to experience too...

check out the nice welds on LUVFABS manifolds... i haven't seen any welds better then theirs(well at least the manifold I have from them)...only laser/computer weld look as or better then theirs...