Post Your Welding Tips and Tricks

[david58]

TACK IT CROOKED... Hold the piece you are tacking at a slight angle away from the side you're tacking. When the tack cools, it will pull the piece straight. Also leaving a nice gap, which is a good thing.

[helowrench]

Always wear a long sleeved shirt........................

Or deal with the sunburn, like on my left arm, because I forgot


Rob

[david58]

OK we are finishing welding the floor pans tonite. On the bottom side the P O had welded a hitch. I had cut it off at least a year ago leaving two big holes. Jason is tacking it and he gets a bird-nest. I was wondering what was going on he had welded both pans in on Sunday never had a problem. He takes and cuts off the tip about 1/8 of an inch. The Welder liked it very much. When he was thru welding I told him, while holding the cut off piece of the tip that is a good tip and he was like huh so I repeated myself. He said oh now I get it. So I went on to ask him how he came across that tip. He said one day at work he was welding some 7/8 plate and went thru a box of tips in like a half hour so he ground some off one and noticed it lasted longer. After a couple times grinding he cut the tip off and never had to change the tip again. He also said the thicker the metal is the more you cut off. Just goes to show all this technology we have that common sense is still needed.

[david58]

Changing the tip-to-work distance while welding prevents burnthrough when there are discontinuities in material thicknesses or joint gap.

[fusername]

what kind of welding are we talking about here exactly? I would assume mig, but assuming with structural work, it'll bite you.

[david58]

RELAX YOUR HAND
WATCH THE PUDDLE
Correct rod angle
Correct travel speed
Correct amps
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

[slowtwitch]

When your done with your gas mig welder, DON'T FORGET TO TURN OFF THE VALVE ON THE BOTTLE. You'll save some bucks.......now how do i know that

pete

[volkenstein]

An easy way to tell whether you've pre-heated aluminium enough is to rub it with pure soap. Soap turns black before the melting point of aluminium leaving a decent safety margin but still hot enough.

I don't know about everyone else, but I've had to make a lot of custom tube-to-AN fittings. I bore out the AN fitting pipe entrance a little bigger than the pipe, groove or knurl the pipe and try and cut an internal groove into the AN fitting. With the proper flux and heat (brazing here) the pieces are both mechanically locked and sealed (well, a little bit more!) as well as brazed together. Cutting a concave surface helps the braze puddle up nicely I've found.

BTW, I'm an amateur...I never let my CIG (Commonwealth Industrial Gases) brazing book out of my sight!


Volkenstein

[INSAYN]

Welding tip 101.

Don't pick up recently welded part with bare hands.

It's HOT!!!

[Bugfuel]

if you must weld upside down under a car, wear ear plugs.

(ouch).


Jan

[Theo]

I welded some rust replacement panels in the old single cab and used a couple of strong magnets to hold them in place while tacking. This worked great and it was very simple to line everything up.

[rexr]

Welding tip 101.

Don't pick up recently welded part with bare hands.

It's HOT!!!

REALLY HOT!!!!!

[turbowd57rag]

An easy way to tell whether you've pre-heated aluminium enough is to rub it with pure soap. Soap turns black before the melting point of aluminium leaving a decent safety margin but still hot enough.

Another way is to "soot" it up with just Axcetelene (sp) torch, then heat it until the soot burns off

Pete