Welding Tips and Tricks

Gidday

My names lou am new to the forum I tried posting on another thread but got no replies so thought id try starting a new thread and see how I go.

Not long finished my Trade as a mature age apprentice and have decided to become a certified welder specialising in Tig/Stick

My goal is to become a pipe welder and develop the skills to pass 6G and 6G restricted weld tests on the spot so i can get onto high paying construction projects etc etc

I will start with my 2G

Ive been practicing my 2G for about 5 weeks now n heres what ive been doing:

Method: I freehand root and cap & walk the cup for hot and filler passes

Material practiced on: 3 1/2 inch 6mm Mild steel pipe

Setup: Metal cleaned up to shiney 20mm from edge of bevel inside and outside of pipe; Landing approx 2mm, Root Gap 3mm, coupon tacked @ 120 degress in 3 places tacks no bigger than 12mm. Coupon is setup in a pipe fixture and purged with Argon.............No 10 Cup with Gas Lens been using 1.6 tungsten on root and cap 2.4 on the rest eg hot pass and filler runs.................Gasmark 12-14

Settings: Root & hot pass approx 106 amps, Filler passes and Cap approx 110 amps

At this stage i am totally nailing my root and hot passes peno is great and am consistently now getting at least 1mm of inside reinforcement Im feeding the 1.6 rod slightly north of the root gap for about 3 seconds then doing a slight back and forth motion with my tungston n seeing a slight keyhole before my next dab. I buff with a power wire brush between runs but dont touch the cap.

Ive been welding the rest out including the hotpass with a 2.4 tungston I walk the cup for the hotpass (the theory is that this will help me warm up for my 5G) and any filler runs then freehand the Cap.

My problem is I seem to be doing to many filler runs after my hotpass and Im getting a slight bit of overroll on the cap. By this i mean when you look at my cap the northen part of my bead has less reinforcement than the sourthern part of my bead

Passed my 1st Nik break n bend test but want to fine tune my 2G

Have just started practicing 5G @ this stage Setup is the same as my 2G will do another post on 5g soon

My teachers at TAFE arnt allowing me to weave or walk the cup on the cap they insist that i freehand Im happy to do this as I want to learn as many techniques as possible........................

Any tips or advise muchly appreciated particularly in regards to optimising the apprarence of my capping runs..............

Regards Lou

Hi, Lou,

It sounds like you're well on your way. On those 2G caps, gravity is the obvious enemy. Arc force is your friend. When free-handing, I tend to keep my tungsten pointed uphill 15-20 degrees to "push" filler where I want it, and get back off it quickly so it will stay where I put it.

Your school is shortchanging you a bit by insisting you always freehand the cap. The freehand vs. walk debate is about as significant as which end of the egg you break (shades of Gulliver's Travels), but you will encounter employers who will INSIST on one way or the other. Walking a cap is a different animal, as you no longer have the edges of the bevel to "feel" as you walk it; in other words your cup is now walking a convex surface and the feel is quite different. I suggest you find some time to practice it.

Steve

Thx Steve I really appreciate the feedback?

I totally agree with your thoughts. My teachers are very much old school (not that theres anything wrong with this) One teacher in particular stated that I could never consistently walk the cup without undercut. After watching guys time after time lay smokin hot caps on Utube i kinda took this for what it was and left it at that. I did start walking the cup but got so much resistance from my teachers that I went with stringers.....................I will progress to a weave and hope to weld a 2G out in 3-4 runs..............My Mentors are suggesting that I ramp up the amps to about 120 and start practising a weave in this motion ////////////// rather than straight up and down......................... apparently helps with the gravity effect. Also its apparently quite difficult to walk the cup in a pipe rack so all techniques are worth learning so that the best one can be applied to the job at hand................................or what the welding procedure dictates.

Im also going to stick with a 2.4 filler rod and electrode throughout as im making a few un neccessary changes to my setup as i make runs...........................we'll see how she goes

Ive only been at it for 5 weeks so am happy with my progress so far!

Regards Lou

Heres a few pics of where im at please be brutal im here to learn!

Hi,

I used a 1.6 filler rod on my 2g capping runs. It gives you more opportunity to watch the fusion and run a badass bead without over roll.

Mick.

Te information presented in this post is quite useful as it as provided information in the context of designing and approach of welding