I am pretty new to welding and have been of acting laying beads down, have been getting pretty decent. Right now i am working on a project right now that i am using scrap 2" sch 40 pipe, probably wasn't the best choice but had a bunch laying around. Anyways I am having hard time having my welds look any good. When welding it does seem to wet out but the bead looks kind of big and maybe cold. I am using .030 wire, 260ipm, and 18v...the metal is I believe.154 thick. I think I should maybe crank it up a bit. I was pulling. Maybe traveling too slow. For the butt weld I had a slug in it and left a gap and the other weld was notched and had a gap as well...hope no one has nightmares from the pictures
Any recommendations on how much I should crank it up? Was also thinking about going to .035 wire. Also would it be ok to grind it down and just reweld it. I figure won't be wasting material. Would I be able to see any pack of fusion by grinding down the weld? Thinking about grinding a ring on where the original gap was and then go at it again.
Cut the stem off above the weld, notch it, and weld it again. Bumping up to 0.035 wire require even more heat. For 0.030, increase your voltage half a volt and test it again. Then bump by .2v until it welds hot enough.
The best way to test the penetration is to cut a ring, then cut that into sections. Polish and etch itand inspect.
Ok I'll give it a go this coming saturday and post of pictures. In the mean time I made up a cruxiform out of some 1/4" plate and have been practicing vertical up but having a hard time not getting the puddle to drip. I have done some flat work on it. Would be able to see a heat shadow on the back be a good indicator of every running good or would that be too hot?
Haven't had a chance to mess with it yet. It's just scrap pipe that I'm using to make a stand so nothing critical. Don't have a machine to do a roll out lol. I may just grind it down and use a 3/32" 7018 on it but I really want to to get better at wire feed processes. I've been researching settings and watched jodys video about wire speed and voltage. I compared it to a bunch of calculators such as miller and Lincoln's and they are way different. Wire speed for 1/8" thick steel. Showing 200 vs 280-300.. Seems way off for one to just be set a bit hot or even just personal preference. How do I go about this for figuring out parameters?
I usually side with the time consuming method of trial and error. Adjust one setting at a time by large increments
. just so I can see what effect it has. Then turn that one back to the starting point and adjust a second one the same way. Repeat until all variables are tried, then go back to the starting point on everything, and start making small adjustments one at a time till I get the desired effects.
