Welding Tips and Tricks

I'm a 70+ year old retired NCO who has started to play with a Lincoln MIG 210MP welder. I'm doing mostly small projects, i.e. flowers, bottle trees, etc. A lot of my pieces stick to the table and need jarred loose. These are not welds hitting the table but the bottom of my projects touching the table. Only using mig at this time, 75/25 Argon, and .30 wire. Sure could use some good advice on how to stop this from happening. Appreciate y'all's help.

If the pieces are contaminated on the bottom where they need to ground out to your table that might be your issue. If the ground has to go through rust,mill scale,paint, powder coat or anything like that there will be a significant arc and that's where you might have sticking problems. That would be my starting checkpoint.

HUGH

Welcome to the forums! Any way you can attach your ground directly to your weld piece?

You can wrap a bare, copper wire ground around it if you can't clamp to it or clamp it down tighter. A good idea that I got from Jody.

http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/welding-ground.html

You can also put a piece of aluminium or copper sheet on your bench on which you place your work piece. This will eliminate any arcing going on between the bench and piece.

PAM Cooking spray on the table top, or the piece will also prevent sticking or MIG spatter. Those little BBs will knock right off afterwards. You can buy "Anti-spatter" spray too from your welding supply shop.

Thanks for the info. A lot of my work is way too small to ground directly but the idea of a separate copper wire going to the piece could probably help in some instances. Really thinking about covering my table with a sheet of aluminum or copper to help correct the situation. Also figure to bring my ground clamp from welder closer on the table to my work. Appreciate all of the input.

oldeshooter wrote:Really thinking about covering my table with a sheet of aluminum or copper to help correct the situation.

BE aware, of the sheet is thin, it may buckle due to heat, essentially becoming a PITA for laying your work on it. If its too thick, it will suck the heat out of your piece. Just saying... There are always considerations in welding something-

I use an old piece of 1/4 inch aluminum on my steel table.

NCO?
What branch?

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@ oldeshooter - we also run a Lincoln 210MP, mainly for MIG process with .030 wire with C25 shielding gas, and for training humans with DC TIG. Excellent machine.

Recommendations:

* Integrate a 12” x 24” x 1/4” Aluminum plate to your welding table for all Stainless Steel work. Connect work lead directly to the plate, if direct-connect to the work piece is impractical. ~ $45 in material cost.

* Integrate a 12” x 24” x 1/4” Stainless Steel plate to your welding table for all Aluminum work. Same work lead and direct-connection protocol as described above. ~ $100 in matl cost.

Obtaining a solid ground is critical for all welding, especially with GMAW-S (ie. MIG - short circuit transfer). And, materials to be welded need to be clean:clean. Surface contaminates removed and devoid of all mill scale. Tip: if primarily building with 3/16” thick and less, source CRS (cold rolled steel) over HRS (hot rolled steel) from your local steel supplier. The co$t delta between the two material classes from our local supplier amounts to approx 10% greater for CRS.

Note: the above material combinations are grounded in metallurgy. That is, selected based on the “delta” between their heat of thermal conductivities which aids in injected heat (going into the work piece) and joint fusion.