I had to learn as I went along, it is my cousins welder and had to teach myself, I have had someone show me TIG welding, and I can do that sorta, so I do know some things.

Basically, I'm trying to figure out all the settings, I was getting some nice looking beads with my gas at about 30-33, wire speed (i think) was 7 out of 10, and the heat setting (i think) was at 3 out of 4. This would make the best welds without any splattering and crap. The welds looked pretty good except for some white **** that would form around the weld, What was that, and what should I do to fix it? Thanks, any other tips are appreciated

 

Nobody knows what the white stuff is?

 

how did u clean the metal ?

 

Where I was just laying beads, I didn't clean it at all. When i do the downpipe I'm going to grind down to shiny metal with an angle grinder and then whipe it down with rubbing alcohol (acetone). Do you think it was just contaminants from the metal? If so, that is an easy fix

 

Sounds like its possible!

 

is it galvanized or aluminized pipe? like conduit? anything that looks like a guard rail needs to be ground allllllll the way down. the smoke from that white **** is pretty bad for you.

what gas is in the welder? someone will disagree, but with the expense of gas, i dont weld anything that isnt structural or for a customer with that much flow. if its just for play, thats a waste IMO. also being winter, you might be welding indoors. if youre running Co2, there is a percentage of carbon monoxide coming off of the weld, so get a fan and dont breathe that crap.

heat = penetration = good. turn up the heat as high as you can, but still safely below the burnthrough point. from there, alter the wire feed so it sounds like bacon sizzling.

 

Thanks for the tips, it was aluminized. The gas if free for me, so I'll use it Tonight I get to do my first downpipe welds, so hopefully all goes smoothly. I did some practicing on some extra pieces I cut off and I was able to get decient beads going, only problem areas were where I would start and stop, which sucks because I couldn't do more than about 1/6 of the pipe at a time since I'm working on my garage floor

 

do you have an auto darkening helmet? if not, theyre worth their weight in gold.

the more solid tacks you use, the less warpage you will get. i would have about 6 on a round pipe i wanted to look nice. maybe just my personaly preference.

if you post a picture of the problem you are having it would be easier to see what you need to work on.