Welding Tips and Tricks

Hey there,

Lets hear some stories about your favourite welding and related operations. Personally I pretty much like all the Welding stuff that I do. Running hot and flat MIG and Flux Core, Tig for weld repair/ tie off of Auto welds. Where I work every thing can be rotated to get into flat/horizontal position. Top choice would have to be Multi run/ multi layer MIG fillets and butts. 30 volts +.

What really burns me is porosity. Grinding it out. Especially when I lay it down. And when it comes back after grinding out.

What are your stories?

Mick.

i like most of the welding i do but there are times that we have to weld some real rusty pourus junk ,some of the cast stuff i do really drives me crazy somtimes very thin and useally at least 40 + years old ,overhead rust welding, arc is always fun .........

welding can be either the funnest, coolest thing, or the most frustrating thing, never at the same time, but definately one or the other.

The thing that I find most frustrating about welding is fitting honestly. Its not hard, just painstaking to get your fit up 100 percent perfect. Once that hood goes down your in your own little world though, and all the worries of the day just slip away, till you burn through and bang your head against the pipe. :p

Seriously though, whats cooler than welding, least as far as the trades go?

Just curious mike, I have like no mig welding experience, how thick a steel you burnin goin 30 + volts? sounds hot as 9 hells.

Hey there,

When we use the welder that hot, its on steel upwards of 8mm to about a max of 25mm (1"). The fillet size is 8mm. With 1.2mm wire (.045) The thickest butt weld I have done is a 1" thick single bevel. They took about 15- 20 runs. Get this though- those butt welds were supposed to be full ultra sonic tested but for years they stopped testing them. Only when one showed up with lack of fusion after machining the sh*t hit and they checked the specs. Back to full U/T. That was after I stopped working on that project so I don't know how my welds went. All good I hope.

Cheers for writing on the topic i put in. I like to hear other welders stories.
Mick

What I like best about welding is spending a minute or two under my hood, raising it, and seeing a beautiful result. What I like least is raising my hood and seeing dog shit. (Everyone has had that day!)

My least favorite welding job was cutting old coal cars down (at a rail yard) in to rock cars. Dual-shield on old rusty hopper cars filled with coal dust for a crappy wage.

My favorite job? That's a little tougher, because I really like to weld. My current job is high on the list because the pay is great and the work is fairly easy, but I think my top job for sheer enjoyment of the work was a shop job doing vacuum-jacket SS piping.

Steve

Otto Nobedder wrote:What I like best about welding is spending a minute or two under my hood, raising it, and seeing a beautiful result. What I like least is raising my hood and seeing dog shit.

I definitely agree with that. I like about 90% of the work I do. The other 10% goes along with the business of repair. I mainly do heavy equipment repair and the worst part about it is that everthing is either covered in grease, hydraulic oil, concrete or dirt. Believe it or not about 1/3 of my time is spent cleaning and prepping the metal. Then after that, it's all good. Especially the portable line bore jobs. Premium rate and half the work.
I do miss the days in the shop when I could work 8 or 10 come home and not worry about anything. Having your own business isn't like that. There is always something to do. But all in all, I wouldn't do it any other way. (other than getting burned every other day)

I would say, that one of the worse possible welding jobs that I have encountered, was overhead welding in a confined space on a galvanized barge. Slag balls down the neck all the way to the underpants and crotch area, just man up and take the pain. The fumes were horrific, even with a ventilation system in place. It's one of those jobs that makes you wonder why the hell you are a welder and whether you will be one again tomorrow.
Another job that comes close is pipeline work, standing waste deep in water, winter time, in a hole welding up an elbow. Don't touch the electrode! Lol.
The upside of welding, is that it gives you a great sense of accomplishment and gives you the freedom to design and create useful machines and equipment and come up with easier ways of doing labor intensive jobs. I worked on offshore oil rigs, in my younger days, and the pay wasn't too shabby either. I really liked laying out a job and hanging steel onsite for high rise buildings and shopping centers. The best job I ever had, was in Mine maintenance, where they say, "I don't care how much it costs, just fix the bloody thing!" Caa Ching!

Believe it or not about 1/3 of my time is spent cleaning and prepping the metal.

Whats that old fitter sayin, for every 10 minutes a fitter works a welder welds for 1? :p

Kermdawg,
That's it. We spend all that time cleanin', preppin', fittin', two, three, four hours. And then......... 20 minutes of weldin'. And that's if you do your own welding. I was a fitter in this one shop that wouldn't let me weld anything. All I could put down was just enough to hold it together to get it from my station to the weld-out station. He would tell me "I didn't hire you to weld, I hired you to fit".

Before I started fittin and weldin, I would see the fitters and welders on the job site, and I could never understand why there was 5 fitters for every one welder :p

The guy I'm working with couldn't read an ISO if his life depended on it, but he's perfectly happy to fit his own welds. I have a lot of time in fetching parts, laying it out, and match-marking everything, so he has about 3 times more hood time than I have on this job. It's actually working out pretty nice, though. I'm confidant the layout is correct since I've done it all myself, and he's one of the best welders I've ever encountered. We are getting a lot of work done, and actually making their regular shop hands look bad.

I mentioned on another post what a helpless pain in the ass the guy I'm working with is in every other aspect of his life. He came in on Amtrak, and I'm his ride to work. I commented about "adult day care" to the boss. I was being facetious, but he said he'd try to get me a raise just for putting up with the guy.

What I love about welding are those days that every arc you strike seems to turn to gold. No matter what it is you're welding, you seem to set everything right, and you feel like you couldn't jack it up if you tried. The worst is dirty material and bad fitup, no doubt. I might mig, stick, tig, braze and silver solder all in the same day, and when you have 100 different guys cutting and fitting up their own parts, it can get real ugly! I definately agree though, when that hood goes down, all is right with the world.

I am not a professional welder, but would like to become one. I have been welding and fabricating since 1983, and have experienced many materials, welding techniques, and welding processes. I can't say I like any process over another, as each has its purpose.

When I lower my hood, and begin welding I am totally focused on moving the molten metal where I want it to go. I can think of nothing else. At this time, my heart rate lowers, I relax and expect to see a good solid weld when finished. If not, I clean the weld and begin again, but most of the time the weld is good. The process of actually making the weld is what I like most, although working with all of the cool tools that I have accumulated over the years comes in a close second.

Just recently I welded on metal that I thought was ground clean, then I learned what welding on metal that had been previously powder coated was like. Welding this surface produced a bad weld, so contaminates in the weld/weld pool are the things I dislike most.

Wob

Getting good enought to show off is the best part about welding. When you can't wait for people to be looking over your shoulder or for your work to be tested and you weld something and know it's good. That's the best part for me.
The worst part... grinding!!!!!!! I hate grinding!!! Anytime I see backstraps I'm PO'd.

Best part of welding is when you make your job easier. Nothing beats throwing a bead down with 7018 and as your watching the front of the puddle you can see the slag peeling off of the back side of it. The worst part is cast anything that gives you nothing but shit because you have no idea what the hell is really in there.

I would say, that the jobs i liked the most had the best working conditions and pay.

It makes a big difference, whether you go out for lunch at a local resturant, as opposed to eating a half frozen/half heat spoiled ham sandwich.

Or whether your able to ive in a nice house, or vice versa.

But the thing I liked the most was all the people i met, and all the things you get to see that seem extraordinary to some, but are run of the mill to you.

My best day ever was welding joints on a new building, right on the virginia beach oceanfront board walk! Wow, girls girls girls! I worked about half the day with no shirt, until I just couldnt stand getting burnt anymore lol!

I am also think same as shouldershot.

Things I like:
Making things that others cannot.
Fixing things that were considered a total loss.
Making things that my mind comes up with.
Buying new equipment.
Getting new tools that make welding easier.
One word....TIGFINGER
Learning new ways to weld or better techniques.
TV shows about welding. Especially the car shows.
All the attention I get from women when they find out I can weld. (not sure I believe that either)


Things I hate:
Running out of consumables. On a Saturday.
Picking up Gas...those 320 CFT tanks are heavy and a pain in the U KNOW WHAT to lift.
Picking up hot metal with my bare hands.
People who bug you for free welding.
Fires.
Explosions
Electrocutions
Seeing equipment that I want but cannot afford.
Questions on why I like and hate welding....just kidding....maybe.

" Gid day "mate just blowing the froth off a cold fosters . What I like the most about welding : Is being independant /owner operator and doing the best job possable,and watching that metal flow. Dislike getting to the job ,and finding the customer has tried to repair it with JB weld on aluminum or stainless steel....I always tell them "this is going to cost extra"

red racer wrote:" Gid day "mate just blowing the froth off a cold fosters . What I like the most about welding : Is being independant /owner operator and doing the best job possable,and watching that metal flow. Dislike getting to the job ,and finding the customer has tried to repair it with JB weld on aluminum or stainless steel....I always tell them "this is going to cost extra"

G'Day Mate,

Fosters is for the Chinese (They love it) Real Aussies drink Bundaberg Rum or Bundy for short. Except it sends some people a bit crazy.

Mick

Rum! well you learn something new every day,I'll have to hunt a bottle up @ one those big booze joints around here ....phx. az. Take care......R/R

Being able to do something that no one around you can do themselves. Finding a site like this that makes your skills improve drastically over night. Finding little things the next day that you didn't think about before and finding it improves your ability a little but makes your job so much easier. Making a jig to hold parts for you and thinking that the stand your boss is going to buy you won't work as well as what you made.

I really hate welding something and finding out that the weld is spoiled and trying to fix it and it winds up worse than if you tossed in the scrap bin. That blows.

red racer wrote:Rum! well you learn something new every day,I'll have to hunt a bottle up @ one those big booze joints around here ....phx. az. Take care......R/R

Hi there,

Check this out. I hope somehow you can find a bottle. You'll either love it or want to use it to clean the oxides off your aluminium before welding. LOL

http://www.fodors.com/community/austral ... the-us.cfm

Cheers again.

Mick

I really hate when someone else finishes your work buy sanding it down smooth and winds up burning through the sheet metal after you did a really nice job. I also hate when the guy bending up your parts can't be bothered to bend them right and the gap is too large to weld up properly. Making you work harder on filling it but also harder on the guy sanding the parts down.

Hi,

Thats one of the things that makes me really mad. When you bust your arse to do a really nice job and you get lumped in with the rest of the crowd who can't be bothered doing a good job. Or simply don't have the skills.(I have tried to help). ARRRRGGGHHHHHHH.

Mick