Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello all,

I guess this is supposed to be a bit about myself and what I do so here goes.

I'm a radiator technician if we want to get fancy with the work titles, More commonly I'd be know as a 'radman' I work at my family owned shop that's been in business since 1924 (Have a old leather bound ledger book upstairs that goes back even further)

I've been working down at the shop now for coming up on a decade (Came here the day after I graduated highschool) I have zero post secondary under my belt and zero formal weld instruction at a school etc.

I've been recoring old style copper brass radiators for about 5 years now and have definately got soft soldering down pat, can silver solder or braze just about anything no matter how rotten it is (We live in a lovely rust belt of southern ontario)

Now I've set my sights on learning how to weld with both MIG and TIG. I've gotten pretty sufficient at steel MIG for my shop's needs and am getting better with aluminium TIG (Still struggle with steel TIG oddly enough)

Bulk of my welding work will be rework so to speak re using original tank assemblies and fitting them to new cores.

Feel free to ask me any questions if anyone has any about radiators and cooling system components etc and I'd be happy to help if I can.

Welcome from Stokes County, North Carolina. I suspect that some of the others will be along soon. At least with winter starting doing more welding in the next few months will be warmer than snowshoeing or pond hockey.....

Welcome to the forum, play with the settings on your mig, once your happy with the way it's running and importantly with mig the sound, write down wire speed, voltage and thickness of material you were welding and position, so you have a starting point for finer tuning. this method works well for mma, tig too....last of all practice makes perfect.