Hey guys I wrote a thread a few weeks ago about some concerns I was having welding mild steel as it was my first time welding with mild steel and I was having probloems. I havent done much welding since than but finally got some smaller filler rod like everyone suggested and was finally able to do some welding today. So here are some pics it's my 3rd time welding mild steel and probually my 6th or 7th time welding all together. Take a look and see what you guys think It's about 1/8 inch thick and welds are made with a combination of both 1/16 and .045 filler rod. Most of the pics are just me running beads on a 1/8th thick plate However one of the pics i tryed to butt-weld to peices together no bevel. Machine set to 85-90 amps for all welds. I took some pics of the back side aswell so i could see if the welds are to hot and if on the butt-weld if i had good peneration

 

Hate to say it but cantseeshit with those pics.

From what I can see, you're spacing your dips too far apart. Dip more often. Also, while I'm certainly not the proffessional, I think you're using waaay too many amps. I would expect something in the range of 60-70 being plenty for a simple butt weld.

 

I took thoes pics with my iphone becuase they came out better that way than with my digital camera. I'm not sure how i will but ill try to get better pictures. As for the butt-joint I'm useing a diversion 165 so I just set the machine in the 1/8 range and that put me at 85-90 amps. Is that not ok

 

Anyone else have any good information on how the welds look or if I'm doing something wrong or not. I'm gonna try and do some more welding and try to get more picks.

 

dude your not bad, keep at it, practice makes perfect. looking pretty good though!

 

Not bad for just starting out. Keep practing and you'll be fine

 

Thanks to everyone who replyed. adickted2boost or Ackperformance any advice for me. Anything your seeing that I'm doing wrong that I could improve on ? Anyone with any advice feel free to chime in

 

lookin good. First thing is that beads are almost NEVER going to look good on a flat piece of steel. The only suggestion i would have is to try to keep the same arc position. Move-stop-dip. Not sure how long you have been welding but i teach every once in a while and it takes people weeks just to get to that point.

 

It looks pretty good. AS mentioned, keep your dips closer together.
If you want nice looking beads without tons of heat, always use 1 size smaller filler rod than you think. The idea is to keep the melting rate high, never freeze the molten puddle. You don't even want the filler additions to disturb it.

 

Here, I ripped off a quick example.

You can see that even though the .045" filler was used with less amps, it still had a high melting rate as the puddle did not wander with filler additions.
It also put less heat into the material by far.
The 3/32" filler would almost freeze the puddle every time I added it, even though I had alot more amps to use. I was dipping s gently and as often as I could, yet it still wandered a little. The 1/16" is in between the 2, better than the 3/32", but not as smooth as the .045" and still more heat input.
Hope this helps visualize the theory.

 

Ya that dose help a lot thoes beads were all made with .045 and 1/16 filler rod. at about 85-90 amps. Is that to much heat ? when I was welding the butt-joint i tacked both the begining and the end of the joint and than started welding and it came out ok i'm not sure how good the peneration was as im a complete noob but i did notice it warped pretty badly. I'll try and get some welding in soon and ill try to keep my dips closer and post them so you guys can see.



civicjason- Ive had my machine for about a month and this was probually my 6th time welding ever. Probually around 8-10 hours or so no clases or anything just watched a lot of videos and read a lot lol.

 

Finally got to do some wedling since the last group of pictures I posted. This time tryed to do some butt-joints. 1/8inch thick with a bevel on both sides useing .045 filer rod and machine set to 60-65 amps i believe I foegot to look before i changed it lol. They came out pretty good in my opinion for my first time. However I still had a litle issue with them warping it warped very little but still warped. I tacked both front back and middle to try and keep it from warping. what do you guys think.