I wanna learn to weld!

[exdos]

I've been hobby welding for years, and it is my favourite hobby, and can do Arc, MIG and TIG (a bit). The welding method used depends upon what you want to fabricate. I've made a lot of structural things (hydraulic galloping treadmill for horses, farm equipment, large barn doors etc.) as well as repaired all manner of stuff and found Arc to be by far and away the best method for these things, because you can get real penetration of the weld into the metal, but it is unsuitable for thin tube and sheet metals, where MIG is the better method. For the bigger sizes of welding rods used with Arc welders, you are pushing a domestic power supply to the limits though. I've used MIG for welding stainless steel exhaust modification and thin sheet and tubes for sculptures etc. and occasionally use it for the odd aluminium repair, with untidy results but effective joints. I don't have TIG equipment and did a course for it years ago but it gives the nicest result for parts which are on view, such as bike frames, and aluminium constructions etc.

As said by others, practice, practice, practice is the only way to become good at welding. Buy a big angle grinder with cutting and grinding disks and some scrap plate/sheet, rod and box section and with your imagination you can fabricate absolutely anything, and your unsuccessful work can be consider to be sculpture for your garden!

Make sure you always protect your eyes with a self-darkening mask otherwise you'll get "arc eye" and always protect your skin with suitable clothing otherwise you'll get "sun"-burn on exposed skin. You'll end up with burns all over your body from splatter from arc welding and make sure you don't weld in a location where you might cause a fire from splatter or dropping very hot metal.

Enjoy!

 

[Ethicsgradient]

MIG .. its not the way to go .



I am coded welder ,I build custom stair bannisters , structual items , furniture and improve upon manufacturers equipment used in the civil engineering world . there are a few rules and guidlines that apply to all welders . MIG is easier to use but harder to get a strong structural weld with , a MIG weld can look fantastic but have poor penetration if your settings are not spot on for what your welding . MMA can look like s**t but still be strong , but it is harder to learn . Apprentices who come to me are not allowed to even touch the MIG till they can lay down a decent MMA weld . MIG is where the "you get what you pay for " aspect most comes into play .A good mig is 3 phase , has twin rollers on the wire feed , is liquid cooled , is using a gas sheild and can punch over 300 amps so spray weld is possible, anything less is ...well inferior and not very nice to use , not that mig is ever very nice to use , its the worst way of welding ever invented in my opinion . Mine runs 500 amp cost me £5000 and will spray weld all day with 1.2mm wire . Spray ability is important as it is spatter free and gives the mig the ability to be as good as a MMA weld on material over 5mm thick . For light metals short circuit welding is okay , thats when you hear the hobbyists crackle noise from the work tip and sparks and splatter is flying everywhere , excellent welding technique for starting fires in your surrounding area , but not good enough for anything that is of load bearing structural use unless you really know what your doing . MIG.. everyone gets excited buy it , everyone seems to think its the nuts draw welding , think they are great welders cos it looks good , put it in the lab and its a fail under test . Positional welding with a mig tends to be more difficult too and they go through , tips , shrouds , gas which all costs money ... it has it uses but it costs alot to get just decent machinery . . And it a horrible , burny , sparky annoying way to weld . I have far more scars and burns from MIG than any other welding . I use it because if I need to weld 50mm plate to a 45t processor ,, it will do it faster than any other method .

MMA , this is where you can go budget and get away with it, modern inverter units have now got cheap as tech does , a small suitcase inverter unit giving out around 200amp will plug straight into your house on normal 3 pin plug , it will run like a dream with a lovley steady current , will probably come with anti stick and hot start . All it will ever eat is rods and electricity You can get away with the metal not being perfectly clean like it needs to be with mig and even if it looks a bit splotty chances are its still gonna hold, it wont shower everywhere with sparks , and is just a much nicer way to weld . Many modern inverter units will also take a Lift TIG set up so you can have a play with doing that too and is by far the nicest most civilised from of welding and very good for welding very thin metals if you get good at it . I personally use a GYSMI 200 for in house staircase work and weld in all positions and it just plugs into the customers house sockets so I can just move around the house with no power worries .

This is good advice from someone who knows: thumbsup:

Most of the welding i do is TIG and that can be difficult to pick up especially as cheap units will be scratch start. But i have such a cheap unit at home. It will only do AC but that’s probably all you want? I doubt you will be wanting to any aluminium welding to start with. My little welder will do MMA as well and is actually rather good at that. MMA sounds like the way to go for you its cheap and you don’t need bottles of gas. Tig is excellent and great for thin wall stuff (most of the work i do is 1mm wall thickness cryogenic work) so you just can’t weld it any other way. It is also the nicest looking weld. But only once you have some experience.

Is it one of the little inverter units? , I have been amazed by mine.. Tiny little thing and it really performs well, I have a huge big oil filled Lincoln unit that now just never gets used even in the workshop.. Got a guy coming to take it away as I don't see the point in feeding it the electricity anymore .. I bought one of the slightly larger inverter ones a 250amp 3 phase, pick it up and carry it with one hand.. Unlike the old Lincoln that needs the forklift to move it.. And the little one will run 5mm hard face rods at 200amp with a 100% duty cycle. Big ole Lincoln would get hot at that workload.. Little inverter never bat's a light.

 

[Ethicsgradient]

And when it comes to auto darkening shields... Not all sheilds are created equal. There is a reason some cost £30 and some cost £1000. I have an SWP eliminator for a general beater that gets the kick around treatment it was around the £100 mark and has the appropriate chip settings and reaction time. And it's good enough for use... Obviously I then have the Aristo tech with full positive air feed and stuff.. But that way over the top for a hobbyist.

 

[andyfanshawe]

Hi Mike.
How did you find the euro torch conversion? I'm tempted but it performs too well and don't want to jinx it!! Advantages?
I bought a sealey mig welder a year ago that had raving reviews, but sold it 2 weeks later because it was really irritating. Just couldn't get used to it at all.
Think I bought the clarke welder about 1990, which makes it 27 years old and I haven't had to change any parts whatsoever. In fact I'm looking for a second-hand one as a back up.
What happened to yours?
Andy

Euro conversion was easy and effective. Handy to have "standardised" parts/liners etc.

I think the welder is still in my dad's shed, battered but still works. Do you want it for spares? FOC of course.

Mike

Hi Mike.
Thanks for the offer. Brilliant. I'll take you up on that.
Will have to visit for a quick chat soon.

Andy.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all the updates. It seems that welding is much like many things in that everyone has strong opinions in varying directions.

I've been speaking with various people over at the welding forums and it seems that general consensus is that this comes highly recommended...

https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/mig151en-turbo-no-gas-mig-welder/. (id be buying gas)

That said I'm tempted by a small inverter machine as a starter for 10 but still swithering .

Thanks again for all the advice and suggestions. It's much appreciated

 

[Anonymous]

This is the other thing everyone is raving about over there...

https://www.aldi.co.uk/workzone-140-amp-inverter-welder/p/076597143942300

Having spent some more time thinking about I want to achieve its likely I'll only ever make some hanging baskets and some random sculptures from scrap. Nothing more really. It's just a little fun so this is probably the best option for me.

I really appreciate all the info about top end machines and equipment but it's just way out of the range of what I ever want to do. Nothing I make will ever leave my house and it'll probably be picked up for an hour or 2 every couple of weeks.

That said, I do want to learn not just tinker so I'll aim to be the best nut and bolt sculpture maker in the land

 

[GuidoK]

^if you want to weld on cars like you said in your OP, an mma machine (like that aldi inverter) is totally useless, unless you're only planning to weld on ladder chassis.
Welding on cars is 99% done with mig and only done with TIG if the weld must be optically pleasing (like on a custom made manifold/exhaust or so)

An inverter/MMA however is useful when you want to weld thick pieces of steel in a construction that has to be strong.

For the best looking welds (aesthetically pleasing), TIG is the way though. But TIG is a fairly complicated process that requires 2 hands for welding.

 

[Ethicsgradient]

Thanks for all the updates. It seems that welding is much like many things in that everyone has strong opinions in varying directions.

I've been speaking with various people over at the welding forums and it seems that general consensus is that this comes highly recommended...

https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/mig151en-turbo-no-gas-mig-welder/. (id be buying gas)

That said I'm tempted by a small inverter machine as a starter for 10 but still swithering .

Thanks again for all the advice and suggestions. It's much appreciated

It's not really an opinion thing with welding. You can have an opinion on what type of welding you enjoy doing, but no room for opinion on what's the best for a given task. It's a process that has various ISO BS and AsMe numbers attached. The level I work to sometimes involves strict adherence to code and process. Steel from recognised source traced and stamped, machine certified, me certified and the method statement followed. Type of weld, number of runs, process used, type of wire or rod used etc etc. No room for opinions just what is the best form of welding for the material and the use it will be put to. No matter what or how good the person thinks they are it is impossible for a little 240v mig to match the welds my mig machine can lay down.. It just can't be done.. Okay on my absolute lowest settings it can maybe keep up for a while, but as soon as I switch mine up on to spray mode the little machine is left standing. It's just an amps and physics fact.
For hobby at home first time playing around learning how to control a puddle, maybe making a fence or some nut and bolt sculptures.. Just general dicking around now and then... Inverter MMA.. At least you actually learn to weld then.. MIG.. It's just a mastic gun and teaches very little unless your going to go code and really learn how to drive one.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks. I was more meaning opinion when it comes to how much to spend and what's a "decent" machine.

As you suggested I've gone back to basics and starting simple, then may choose a more appropriate method if I decide to change what I want to weld.

Short term as you say will be messing around with basic things at home and will leave touching cars until much further down the line.

Thanks again

 

[Ethicsgradient]

The one from Aldi looks like a rebadged Parweld which is probably a rebadged something else. It will work just fine as all those small inverters unless your buying a premium brand one seem to all be much the same case and internals.