Welding

[craftypiggy]

I am looking to start welding and have no idea about the differences in type, what different types do etc..... I don't know if a Tig,Mig, Arc welder would be best as I know literally nothing about them. It would be for welding mild steel, aluminium(possibly).

Any help or advice appreciated.

Cheers, Lloyd

[stuartc]

CP, for general purpose / part time welding get your self a MIG welder.

With different wire/gas for the machine you can weld both mild steel and alli.

get your self a proper mig welder, not the "no gas" types, when requiring to weld alli thee can get a small bottle of gas for about

[kevin j]

try an evening class at the local school or community education. whateer equivalent you have over there. Then you get proper exposure to all the various types, deicde what type of projects you will use most, and make your deicisons.

I'm just an old farm boy who can do about everything with a stick, but would sure like to learn MIG and Tig. Stick is the twin shock version of welding. Works fine if you don't know there is anything better.

k

[t-shock 250]

Good TIG welding is like art, if you know someone who has a TIG set make sure you are very nice to them. Some engineering places charge

[hrc2002]

Finally its pretty easy to pick up basic MIG welding in about half an hour, TIG is more difficult, but reasonably easy for anyone who can gas weld already.

I've had a go at it before, Its easy if its going to be hidden away from view as you can make a right mess off it and get away with it.

If your going to be welding aluminum...Im guessing its going to be bike parts(?) then it will be on show.

I have a lot of welders in my family, I always see it as something like your not a decent welder if your not going blind.

Its takes a hell of a lot of time to be able to weld to a good, trading standard, and wouldn't really say its something you can learn in a weekend.

I think of it as someone spray painting something...anyone can do it as long as they have an index finger, but not everyone can make it look good.

Good idea to start young though, me and my Dad made a bike trailer with MUCH welding involved, its a handy thing to learn.

[jesster]

I've done basically every type of welding, including forge welding, and i'd say that MIG is definitely the way to go. With a 210V MIG welder you can weld up to 1/2 inch fairly easily. To adapt a MIG welder for allu. requires a different gas and a spool attachment or different liner and wire. It takes a bit of work, but ts not too bad. Make sure you learn on mild steel before even thinking about attempting to weld allu.

Another way to go is a gas welder. It wont weld yery thick metal (1/8" if you are patient) but it is a starter for TIG welding and its nice to have a torch around.

Until you have mastered gas welding and understand properties of metal, dont bother with TIG. By far the hardest way to weld, and it costs far more to operate the machine, as you use up gas, filler rods and tungsen electrodes far faster than you use gas and wire on a MIG welder. And the added difficulty of TIG welding really takes away from the fun of it until you can actually do it wihout sticking your torch to the metal every 5 seconds.

My final test for TIG welding is to weld 2 pieces of alluminum foil together, as well as steel, chrome-moly, titanium, tungsten and copper. At the rate im going though, that wont be for a while

Edited January 11, 2005 by jesster

[alan bechard]

I will throw my 2 cents in here.

Do not worry about buying the welder at this point.

Kind of like saying I like Motorcycles, lets go buy one and you do not know if you want to MX, Roadrace or ride trials.

The Vo-tech type approach is almost always the best, but I have no idea if that type of schooling is available too you or in your area.

If you hunt and ask everyone you know, I bet you can find someone that welds and has equipment that would gladly trade out you doing some grub work for a bit of education time.

Right now my next door neighbor comes over and helps me with work in the shop for an hour, and I then work with him for an hour on welding skills.

While I was in Germany, I would do grunt work for the local blacksmith (cutting a gazillion 1/2" metal ballusters by hand comes to mind) in trade for Forge time and an experienced hand looking over me while I tried to learn a bit of the art. Some of the best learning time I had.

[craftypiggy]

Thankyou all for your great response, I think what I am gonna do is go to a few welding company owners who my dad knows and ask as you say if they could teach me some skills of welding for me doing some graft in return(no sexual comments here please )

Thanks again for your response,

Lloyd

[dirtrider]

I wouldn't be without a set of gas bottles myself. I have both gas and MIG in my workshop and over the years I have used both extensively in restoring classic cars to sometimes national concourse standard.

If I had to choose between them I would I would keep the gas anytime. It's by far the most versatile. You can weld mild steel, even thin 20 gauge, providing you take care to control the distortion created by the heat (Butt welding and planishing with a hammer and dolly as you go.)

You can also with practice weld aluminium very effectively. The main problem is controlling the heat so that the ali does not simply melt away.

Gas welding is very satisfying skill to learn and all the time you are in control of what you are doing eg the amount of filler rod you use etc. I've welded classic car wings with double curvatures and afterwards the repair is barely visible. When skimmed with a smidgen of filler or better still lead it's impossible to see the repair.

An oxyacetylene heat source is also very useful in the workshop for freeing up seized nuts and bolts, for bending metal, tempering etc.

I also use it for brazing which is much better than welding for frames. (as used by Eric Cheney etc )

MIG is OK for heavier work eg constructing a trailer, or if you're not too bothered about the appearance of the finished product.

I'd like a TIG but can't justify the expense.

[marky g]

The guy who does my Ali welding told me his welder cost him

[29r]

Just for starters , you might want to check this out .

Pretty cool !

http://www.cobratorches.net/

[jesster]

I've seen one of those torches in use before, they are pretty neat and quite comfortable to hold. Much nicer than the traditional torch set.

Lloyd, if you have a connection to a welding shop, thats a great place to start. You might have to pay a bit of money for the use of their equipment but most tradespeople are great as far as lending a hand to teach after-hours.

And HondaRS, the TIG is restricted for welding the super-light stuff. I'm not sure how exactly, but the machine we use can run very low voltage and amperage, and we use a different torch. I'm not sure if that is all you have to do, maybe a different gas as well? I'll find out.

[alan bechard]

I had a Dillon, which became Henrob, which is now Cobra apparently, and it is kind of like a shopsmith. When you watch the guy Demo it, they are the neatest thing since sliced bread.

But when you sit down and try and use it, it is just a bit different. I could never get the feel of it.

The most impressive part of the demo was the guy trimming his fingernails with the cutting torch.

(Also had the Shopsmith by the way)

While I am not the best welder out there by any means, I am around some very fine welders, to include the EAA / NASCAR Lincoln welding instructors. It really depends on your definition of foil.

Common usage, If you can weld two soda cans together in the middle, you are about as good as you are going to get. Not a factor of the machine at some point, more a factor of hand control.

FWIW, my welders are a Millermatic 250 MIG with Spoolgun, A Millermatic 130 Mig, A Miller Trailblazer engine driven unit, A lincoln Square Wave 255 with watercooler TIG, various and assorted Victor and other torch equipment. My wife just wishes that it all paid for itself, but it is some darn handy stuff to have in the shop!

[charliechitlins]

Gas welding is very satisfying skill to learn and all the time you are in control of what you are doing eg the amount of filler rod you use etc. I've welded classic car wings with double curvatures and afterwards the repair is barely visible. When skimmed with a smidgen of filler or better still lead it's impossible to see the repair.

An oxyacetylene heat source is also very useful in the workshop for freeing up seized nuts and bolts, for bending metal, tempering etc.

I also use it for brazing which is much better than welding for frames. (as used by Eric Cheney etc )

MIG is OK for heavier work eg constructing a trailer,  or if you're not too bothered about the appearance of the finished product.

I'd like a TIG but can't justify the expense.

Don't forget cutting....

A gas cutting torch is an amazing tool.

I've been getting by with gas alone for 20 years.

Some day I'm sure I'll buy a MIG, but I only get a treat with that kind of price tag once every few years, and there always seems to be something I want more (247 Cota).

And gas welding is just very cool. You get intimate with the material and the process...and there's actual fire...much more like blacksmithing.

The ability to braze is also indispensible to me...joining dissimilar metals, repairing cast iron, filling in dents, dings and pits....brass can run a bead like a weld or flow like solder.

I also think that gas welding is more like 'real' welding, meaning that the understanding of metal that you gain from gas welding will make you a better MIG welder. I don't think it would work anywhere near as much so the other way around. It's like learning to play acoustic guitar befor electric.

Of course, 'gaining understanding of metal' with a torch, sometimes means melting a hole in something and ruining it.

Although, I have also seen very experienced TIG welders step on the pedal and blow a big hole in a piece of metal that contained some little mystery that couldn't be known!

My advice: Get a gas rig this year, and a MIG next year!

[charliechitlins]

You can weld mild steel, even thin 20 gauge, providing you take care to control the distortion created by the heat (Butt welding and planishing with a hammer and dolly as you go.)

Dirtrider,

Could you explain this process?

I once saw an old body man doing this. He (probably erroneously) called it 'hammer welding'.

It as a long time ago, and I didn't know enough to ask the right questions about what he was doing.