Welding Tips and Tricks

Hi all, I have been following jodie and the crew for awhile on youtube and love the videos and website. Went and purchased a mig, tig and a couple of secondhand stick welders. New to welding but am loving having a go as I am near 48 and have never tried it before. Look foward to reading up on posts and getting info on my new (sport). Buzz.

Buzz,
Welcome to the forum!! We would love to see pics of your progress as time goes by!
-Jonathan

welcome
certainly sounds like you jumped in with both feet.

I am also a new member from OZ . I have been following Jody for a couple of years also and have bought disks, tig finger , a must have Tig finger has saved my bacon several times, alloy does get hot!!!!!
I have been welding for over forty years on stick only . Well until a couple of years ago when i bought a mig. From there i went on to get a bigger machine that does ACDC tig, stick. Also has a plasma function, not tried that one yet.
My stick welding is up there but mig and tig have a little way to go.
The mig is gassless as well. Not by choice but $ . Gas down here is like Gold.

Welcome Aussies. I'm from Bendigo Vic myself. 15 years in the trade.

Mick

Thank you all for the welcome. Yes I think I have jumped in with both feet. I am in the central highlands in tas dave. I bought a unimig kmm 180 mig which I am running with fluxcore to get the feeling of to start with. Staight off the bat it was into jodies vids because I was thinking I suck at this. Found a video where he shows how to set the polarity (negative to the power block). Still getting some gorilla welds but seat time will hopefully fix that. Yes gas is dear here dave and then they make you pay rent on the bottles (daylight robbery). Im not on the grid up here and the generator takes 3 litres/hour so have to watch the budget, but im loving it. So thanks all for the welcome and yes I will post some pics of my progress not matter how butt ugly they are. Like they say, you are never to old to learn and you have to start somewhere. Cheers all. Buzz.

Hey guys.

Bendigo is nice enough. Stable work for me, so here I stays. (Not many new jobs though. )

I'm considering a 2.2 litre disposable gas kit, or our local plumbing supply has "buy your own gas cylinders " now so I'm looking into that too.

Mick

Hi mick. I bought a chinese ac dc tig from ebay. Havent used it yet and I got a 1 litre bottle of argon from repco. Cant buy our own bottles down here because boc etc... have the market wrapped up and legislation about bottles being pressure tested. An E size bottle is about $18 a month to rent which is not so bad. 75/25 ar co2 is about $56 to refill with straight ar at about $80 odd. Im still on the steep learning curve but would eventually like to knock out an aluminium toolbox or shooting dog box or two, and maybe a trailer if I get the $$together. One thing I have found is that our local nubco sells inch by inch rhs for $24a lenght of 6.5 metres and bluescope steel (read bhp) on the same street sell it for $15. Shows me that I have to shop about.

Its all over the shop hey, I don't buy any new steel, make do with scrap from the local merchant. As for the gas, its all about research. Find out what is out there, and shop around. The joint I was talking about was Cameron's plumbing. Don't know if they sare in Tassie. You can buy bigger 2 litre disposable gas cylinders off ebay. 90 odd bucks with the special regulator.

Mick.