Welding Tips and Tricks

I am new to hobby welding and I have yet to pull the trigger on a welder. The welder I am borrowing (trying before buying) is a older 115v Miller 140 MIG that is gas ready but no bottle and currently set up for flux core welding. I don't have anyplace like a garage or shed to weld inside and with the "smoke" from flux core wouldn't want to weld inside anyway.... so I would like to make a spot in the back yard to weld outdoors.

I have asked around and there is no place within an hour drive to take a class so that would mean $40 round trip, each trip, for gas plus the cost of course and materials, so I will be teaching myself. As such I have LOTS of questions I need answered BEFORE lighting up. So I will just throw them out. If you all have a few web sites with answers I have looked at a lot already but many are just some guy making a "demo video" without much discussion of PRE-WELDING safety issues and in some cases completely ignoring safety issues.

So here goes:
Is it safe to weld on relatively dry ground/grass? I know experienced welders can weld in fields to fix farm equipment but do they bring safety equipment to the field also?

I intend to make some welding screens to shield the neighbors from the arc light. I need as cheap as I can get that will do the job. Does it HAVE to be that special orange/green/blue/grey stuff sold from PVCstrip.com or can I just use a BoxStore tarp in a home made frame? Any other ideas?

I am pretty sure the current owner has some safety gear but not sure what stuff. I know I need gloves, autodarkening helmet, long sleeve jacket, and safety glasses. Any other MUST have stuff I should have??

I will be buying any tools I don't have and currently on my list is a bench grinder and an angle grinder. First on my list of "projects" is a "welding table" and some jigs for practice work. I know I will need some "vise grip" style clamps in different sizes. It would be nice to have all the stuff a welder needs on hand but I will probably have to buy a little at a time or "make do" with something else. Is there any other items you all consider a "must have before i start" item??

I am sure I will have more questions, and I hope to be practicing before long.

Thanks in advance,
dmac257

Hi dmac257, I will try and answer some of your Q's

dmac257 wrote: Is it safe to weld on relatively dry ground/grass? I know experienced welders can weld in fields to fix farm equipment but do they bring safety equipment to the field also?
Keep the grass short, generally you will be able to smell it smouldering and stamp it out. Garden hose nearby is a good idea.

I intend to make some welding screens to shield the neighbors from the arc light. I need as cheap as I can get that will do the job. Does it HAVE to be that special orange/green/blue/grey stuff sold from PVCstrip.com or can I just use a BoxStore tarp in a home made frame? Any other ideas?
Cheap tarps will cut out all the flash, but you can't see out either

I will be buying any tools I don't have and currently on my list is a bench grinder and an angle grinder. First on my list of "projects" is a "welding table" and some jigs for practice work. I know I will need some "vise grip" style clamps in different sizes. It would be nice to have all the stuff a welder needs on hand but I will probably have to buy a little at a time or "make do" with something else. Is there any other items you all consider a "must have before i start" item??
squares, scribers
I am sure I will have more questions, and I hope to be practicing before long.

Thanks in advance,
dmac257

Cheers
Mike

Thanks for answering my questions.

I have a framing square and a "quick layout" triangle square. Will add a couple more types of squares to the list. I have a scribe but at this point don't know what I would use it for in welding.. guess I will find out soon enough.

As for the welding screen was looking at taking a big tarp and cutting it in half to get two long pieces but getting four 6' X 8' tarps is actually cheaper than the big tarp. Is an 8' X 8' area big enough to work in or should I go bigger right up front. I figure 6' high should be tall enough so there is no angle of view to second floor windows of my neighbors. I am planning a big square with three sides tiewrapped at the corners and one corner with movable sides so they can act like a door to open and close with a short bungie cord to hold closed.

dmac257

You'll also need a good set of pliers with wire cutters, something like a really nice set of "linesmans pliers" will work really good, a hammer for knocking pieces into square, a small round wire brush like plumbers use to clean pipe,.... that will clean the mig nozzle of accumulated crap, and I highly recommend a set of those magnetic 45/90 degree clamps in various sizes...they are great for keeping things squarely in place especially if you're doing any upright pieces.

If you're looking at buying a small MIG I'd recommend the Hobart 210MVP (115v/230v). Jody has a great video on this machine. I hate MIG welding but it is what you do most at home, so this is the machine I purchased and am very happy with it. Welded some brackets on a buddies car a few weekends ago, worked great.

Other tools needed... as mentioned by delraydella, are wire cutters. They do sell MIG specific cutters, which I know as Welpers. They have a few handly little tools on them to clean the inside of the cup and other things like that. They cost about $15 but they will last a lifetime. A large and small wire brush with the wood handles (plastic melts...). Cleaning the material before welding is very important and a good habit to get into. Deadblow hammer. Don't want to be putting dents in your frames and other projects. And, every welder on this forum will most likely agree, clamps, clamps, and more clamps, of all shapes, styles, and sizes. Do yourself a favor, spend the money and buy good quality tools! They will last forever and it will be a much nicer experience using them.

RedIron is right, you'll need plenty of clamps, all shapes and sizes. C-Clamps, the vise grip quick release clamps and the sliding pipe clamps are ones i use on an almost daily basis. Just when you think you have enough clamps, you'll need one more for some job. Another really handy tool to have are vee-blocks if you ever do pipe or tube structures like fencing frames. They are expensive to buy if you go to a machinist tool supply, but you can make your own pretty easily and cheaply by cutting or routing a v groove in the middle of a piece of 2 x 4 or 5/4 pine. The v groove block will hold the pipe in place and make it a lot easier to line up and clamp down. I used a homemade vee-block to do pipe notching on a drill press and it worked a lot better than the cheap piece of cr** that they sell at Harbor Freight. A magnetic level, like a torpedo level, can come in handy, too.


Steve

iust would be essential that you first make sure that you are making the surroundings where you will be working on as fire safe as possible because this is one of the common mistakes welders make and this incident almost always happens to newbies that usually ends up in a fire accident, lucky if does not get into a big fire and get extinguished fast so it is best that if you are working on dry grass keep it really short as they might burn in the process and you may also produce a lot of smoke which might not be good for you and might irritate neighbors if they are sensitive to that kind of stuff.

V-blocks are a great suggestion.

For a simple butt weld on pipe, a length of angle and a couple of screw-drive hose clamps from the auto-parts store work very well for holding things good and straight on the cheap. If you can't slide the hose clamps off the finished piece, you can just unscrew them completely.

Steve S.