Welding Tips and Tricks

Evening all,

Got a quick question for you if I may. I am loving my new 211 Autoset. How I have done without a welder all these years I'll never know. I am replacing the sheetmetal floor in my cargo van. I have somehwere between 16 and 14 gauge sheetmetal that I am butting up against 1/8 plate that was given to me. I have next to no overlap at all between the existing 14-16 gauge floor and the big 4' x 8' sheet of 1/8 thick piece I am trying to put it. I being the new welder that I am am having problems blowing through thin metal when trying to weld to a thicker piece. So far I've done ok learning to build the pool up and let it cool and slowly cose the hole back up that I created. I do NOT want to play this game over a 4 x 8 sheet trying to weld 14-16 gauge to it. Any tricks of prep work to either thickness of metal or ideas to make a good weld? Doesn't necessarily need to be pretty or need to be terribly grindable because the bead will be around the outside edges of the floor in the van.

Thanks for any help you may be able to give.

Sid

I frequently make welds like this; Pipes with shedule mis-match like sch. 5 to sch. 40, or 1/4" angle to 16 ga. floor pans.

I generally keep my arc on the heavier material until I build a puddle (feeding rod), then draw the puddle backward to the fusion point and briefly put the heat on the thinner material unti I see it tie in, then move forward on the thicker material and repeat.

Wow. I'm accustomed to doing this, but I find it hard to explain. I hope this made sense.

Steve

Hi there,

When Ive got to weld a thin piece to a thick piece, Have the welder set fairly low but not too low or you will not fuse into the thicker bit. Hold the wire in the thicker bit for the majority of the time and do a slight flick over to the thin for a fraction of a second, but sort of still pointing at the thicker. combine this with going forward. Do runs of bout 4" or so to avoid heat build up. Alternate around your job as much as practicable. Good luck. This will only work if you have good joint fit up. For any gappy areas you will probably have to spot it up. When spotting use the same technique but don't move forward until you stop welding, On, flick, off, move, on, flick, off, move and so on only move the wire to the end of the preceding spot and you will end up with a satisfactory bead..

Mick