What's up guys, I'm 16 and this is my first set of welds with 7018 rods in my welding class. Sophomore class, first year of welding. I already padded a 4x6 piece with a 6011 rod, here is my first 7018. I am now working on a better one this is alot tighter which I will also post pics of.

 

This is a good start.
Stick with keeping the welds tight together.
They seem a bit cold. Should be 125 amps for 1/8" at least.
It's great practice to get a feel for the flow, but start doing
fillet welds on top of eachother in the flat/horizontal postion.
The starts are a little wonky. Strike it like a match, don't hit it
like I see so many do.
Make sure to wear a mask/respirator.
Keep on truckin'.

 

do lap and t, then multipass T. ( 3 pass)

i did the same thing in highschool, even did some overhead and vertical up/down, its a pain.

 

Always remember when sticking 1 inch of rod equals 1 inch of weld too. so you should only use about half or a little less of that rod with a 4x6 plate. Stick welds if done correctly can look absolutely beautiful

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 9bells &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">This is a good start.
Stick with keeping the welds tight together.
They seem a bit cold. Should be 125 amps for 1/8" at least.
It's great practice to get a feel for the flow, but start doing
fillet welds on top of eachother in the flat/horizontal postion.
The starts are a little wonky. Strike it like a match, don't hit it
like I see so many do.
Make sure to wear a mask/respirator.
Keep on truckin'. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, I'm at about 120 amps. I also found out about the match striking method, you will see it on my next padding poject. I'm in my US1 class now, I go to welding for my 6th period, so by the end of this week it will probably be finished. I started on it yesterday, and my first 3 passes are so much tighter and started alot better. I'll be sure to post more and thanks all for the time to post.