Here is my first project since i've bought my Lincoln 140 Electric welder....



HAHAHA =(

But anyways i have some questions....
I notice those are some of the ugliest welds i've seen in my life.... Is it possible to make it look nice with a 110V welder?

or should i just not even waste my time with wire feed and get gas?

If anyone has some pics of good electric welding for inspiration that would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks guys

 

The gas isnt the problem you got to start welding some scrap together just focus on your welds before building something. Slow down the wire feed.

 

what do you mean should you buy gas? yes you need shielding gas to get at least decent welds. take a welding class.

 

Why is that always the response people on this site give? I've never taken a welding class in my life and I'm the foreman of a welding shop. I annihilate people that have "welding degrees" on a daily basis.

I would give a beginner any flux process over solid wire. If the arcs lit it might stick. Solid wire is a crap shoot for fusion in the hands of a novice.

OP. You do not need gas unless you intend on butt welding 16g or thinner. It's not your machine...at this point its you. You just need more practice and some guidence. Find a mentor of some sort and keep practicing. Solid wire is about the easiest....no check that..it is by far the easiest process to make really pretty but shitty welds with. Lack of fusion anyone? You need a lot more volts in your set up. I'm pretty sure you have the polarity set correctly. It should be DC neg for flux core and DC pos for solid wire. Look on the inside cover of your machine. There should be a chart that tells you which way to hook up the leads.

 

Yeah welding was alot harder than i thought. That was my VERY first weld attempt and i know it came out horrible. I do need to slow down wire feed and turn up the volts but i was working with one metal that melted very quickly and one that seemed to have a hard time melting. Ill be sure to practice on alot of scrap metal.

 

I really hate asking this.. but what is flux process? Is it using gas to weld through my machine? I was told my machine was capable of using gas and that i should just buy it cause it was wayy better than wire feed..

Also are you saying that wire feed should actually be making nice looking welds but not solid? If so then i guess its my horrible skills at welding..

My machine provided me with 2 wires to use one was copper and the other one i'm not sure what it was... Should i be using a certain type of wire towards a certain type of metal because one might be more stronger than the other when it comes to bonding?

 

There are multiple types of wire feed processes.

Flux core is a wire feed process(this is what you are doing now). it's a hollow wire a flux inside. When you burn the wire(during welding) the flux protects the molten wire from the atmosphere by creating a cloud of nasty *** fumes and then it forms a coating of "slag" over the weld when it cools. It's that nasty brown **** you have to chip off afterwards.

Solid wire is just that. A solid piece of wire. The molten metal is protected from the atmosphere by a shroud of inert gas that flows through your gun and over the weld. You will have to buy/rent/lease the bottle of gas, the regulator to run this process. This is generall refered to as "mig" or "solid wire".

The wires I was refering to are the Positive and Negative leads from your machine. You gun is one lead and the ground is the other lead. They need to be switched inside the machine depending on which of the above processes you are using.

 

don't worry about it bud. People ask stupid *** question in this forum all the time. At least you admit you don't know whats going on and are trying to learn. I would just start googling/searching until you have read enough to get a handle on the basic terminology of welding. Our advice will make more sense then.

 

Yeah should probably search before i ask some questions though haha. Gonna head down to Home Depot tomorrow and see if i can get a bottle of gas from there. Lots of good info and very understanding appreciate it!

Thanks!

 

http://www.millerwelds.com/resources/tools/#books

get the GMAW book

 

Find a welding supply place. Home depot wont have that gas. if they did it would cost 3 times as much as it should. look for airgas, purity, gases plus. there are some other ones too.

 

One thing that helped me is that u want to create a puddle and once u do u drag/ pull it but move slowly... And listen to the noise when welding it has to sound the same when welding

 

i welded this at work today.. small brace for a landing leg on a chassis.. poorly prepped..just turned and burned 1/4" mild steel

this was at a 90 degree ish overhead position.... using a older miller machine with your run of the mill C-25 gas and .035 wire

i could have put more heat in it, but its not going to the moon so who cares

 

Hope depot is great for any type of welding supplies whether it's mig/tig welding, I purchased a used machine which came with no supplies, had to buy my own. They have good reasonable prices too.

 

HD has jack **** for supplies