[JeffDarby]

Hi Folks,
I hope this post finds no one suffering with arc eye... something we all have had once and don't want to go back there. I was making a mess of a 44 gal drum and chimney on my incinerator today, trying to weld up thin gauge steel, thats what happend...should I be able to weld thin steel together? or is the flux cored doing me no favours?? I'm so rusty i should colapse.

[weldin mike 27]

Flux core welding, by nature has a more penetrative arc than a comparative solid wire. That alone will make thin stuff harder. On thin stuff, try to keep the joints as tight as possible, attempt overlaps as opposed to butt weld and do small "stop start" spots to keep the heat out of the pool

[JeffDarby]

Thanx for answering me, I thought the flux cored was working against me as well as being rusty, tried the start stop method, short runs, filler placed into the gap!...thats probably the biggest problem here, your brain say you can still do it but it's not until you get punched right in the snout do you realise your near on 60...lol's my gap is way too big, looks like the oxy will come out tomorrow as ive got to get this flue sucking right.

[JeffDarby]

done n dusted...when all else fails break out ole school...the oxy took care of business, do they still teach oxy-acetylene welding any more?, we were taught it was going obsolete 20 years back.

[weldin mike 27]

Good stuff. Oxy welding and brazing is cool, but not enough us taught about it to learn the advantages. Back in the day, you were taught about the reasons for using the process. Now they just weld whatever and if it goes wrong, it's unweldable.