Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello! I admit first I'm not a fully certified master welder or anything of that nature. I do light fabrication such as handrails etc... for a small construction company. I have done quarry/excavation repair/fab/build-up. I have 3g/4g GMAW certs, and have held some now-expired SMAW certs where required. My question involves the wonderful world of dual-shield FCAW.

I have a project coming up where we need to do some field welding. Generally, I call the "Old Man" and he takes care of it for me. Unfortunately, at the age of 86 and after burning for 72 of those years, the "Old Man" was inconsiderate enough to finally pass on on me. Now my boss wants me to tackle this project alone. I need to speed things up. I am fairly competent with dual-shielding, and can pass my tests next week, but will an inspector rip me a new one trying to run this on structural welds outside? I am willing to put up wind screens or do whatever else I need. I just need to get this job done as quickly as possible, am not comfortable or especially competent with straight self-shielding wire yet, and think arc just won't lay bead fast enough. Working in the shop the past several years has spoiled me.

I can try to break out the 7018 and shake off the cobwebs enough to get the tests passed, but the welding is going to be a choke point in this building and this is my chance to be a superstar and really impress the top brass so I need to make sure I am doing the utmost to finish this as quickly as possible. BTW, I hope to god you guys say this would work, as I already purchased the Miller eXtreme 12vs. Of course I have never been upset being stuck with another quality feeder, but my wife's patience with my tool budget is running thin.

Hi there,

I have heard of Carbon Dioxide (Co2) shielded wires being used in windy conditions. Because the co2 is heavier than air it has a better tollerance to wind. Lincoln Electric have a vast, vast range of dual shield wires woth the custome service to match. You can ring their helpline and talk about your situation. Or their website. Hobart also makes lots of different wires if you dont like Lincoln.

Mick

What exactly are you going to be doing the welding on? I have used a "dualshield" wire for years to make repairs on a lot of different things, mainly heavy equipment and have only had a problem with the shielding gas less than a handful of times. Has the contractor provided you with a weld procedure?
As far as the deposition rate for an innershield wire, it is comparable to an outershield not really any slower. Also, the extreme 12vs was designed primarily for innershield wires, hence the vs "voltage sensing" to help maintain consistent voltage due to operator fluxuations in wire stick-out. The extreme12rc is more suited for an outershield wire.
There are some very good outershield wires out there that are really easy to run. You may want to buy a small roll and practice a little with it. You might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to run.

The weld will be primarily a 6" pipe, 5/8" thick slotted and slid over a 1/2" plate, then connecting the plate to the structure with a vertical and overhead. Welds from the plate to the structure are to be 1/4" and the welds from the pipe to the plate are to be 5/16". As far as welding procedures go, we are the general contractor so we kinda get to write our own ticket, other than the fillet size, all the engineer or building manufacturer say they are concerned, as long as it s a 70k tensile electrode and rated to meet seismic D1.8 supplement, anything the field inspector is okay with is okay with them.

My plan is to use Esab Dual Shield 7100 Ultra E71-T1 in .045, or even larger. I think I can get away with running .052 or 1/16 electrode even. I got a few spools of different diameters, and the stuff runs like a dream. I worked the same site a couple years ago and we actually ran a lot of ER70S6 solid wire outdoors without much wind trouble, it is pretty calm.

I would run an innnershield, but I just am not comfortable enough with it to think I can pass a bend test and be fully confident in my welds by in the time I have before we start. I plan to change that immediately after this project, though. Any recommendations on innershield wires for structural joints would be appreciated. I've been playing with T-11 lately, and while I am not bad with it, I just don't think I can move as fast as with the T-1 outershield. At the quarry, welding was incidental so we weren't willing to make the capital investments in suitcases, so all of our welding was SMAW, now I see that was kind of silly. A suitcase would have paid itself off in two weeks.

As far as the suitcase selection goes, I had but one suitcase to buy so I had to buy for the long haul not just the next job. We run some quarries, and when I looked into suitcases and saw I could run a 7/64" innershield build-up electrode such as Lincoln's Lincore 33, I was sold. Anybody who'd built up hammers in a rock mill or buckets on a quarry load-out loader would understand, I'm sure. The true pain is, after this project, I'll probably be able to talk the wife into letting me buy a 12RC, but I didn't want to count on that so I bought the one I would probably be using the most. Even got the big Bernarnd innershied gun, that' thing is sweet!

Let me know if this all sounds okay, I may just be off my rocker a bit. I pride myself on knowing enough to be dangerous, but stopping and asking when I'm not 100% sure so if it turns out I'm an idiot here, I won't take it personally.

rankamateur wrote: Let me know if this all sounds okay, I may just be off my rocker a bit. I pride myself on knowing enough to be dangerous, but stopping and asking when I'm not 100% sure so if it turns out I'm an idiot here, I won't take it personally.

I can definitely relate to that.

Actually you are right on point. I mainly repair heavy equipment and I use the Esab Dual Shield 7100 Ultra .045 and 1/16". It is a good wire.
If you guys are calling the shots other than those that were stated, I would have no problem using the Esab wire. And with the welds being 1/4" and 5/16", I would also have no problem runnin the 1/16" wire size. That will save you loads of time.
Choosing the 12VS for your first suitecase feeder was a good choice. Especially for what you will be doing with it in the quarry. It will spoil you after a while. You will not want to run a stick electrode again.
Just curious, what machine are you using for a power source??
As far as the innershield wire, I have found Lincoln to run very well. Especially the NR-233. I had to lay down 5,400 ft. of 1/4" weld with that wire last summer and loved every inch. They were two 55 ft. diameter wastwater treatment digester lids for the city. You can see the 12VS and the LN25 in the one pic.
Well, Good luck and let us know how it goes. Maybe some pics.

It's good to hear I am not crazy!

As far as power supplies go, I have my choices. I already ruled out my old but faithful Bobcat 250NT. I love that machine, mainly because it was my first. I think I'm gonna take the company's Trailblazer 302. It's a great machine, runs good and is digital. We have some other generator/welders, but I'm going halfway across the country for this project and any machine that isn't "mine" (as in I generally run, and more importantly maintain religiously) got ruled out before I even started thinking on it.

How does that LN-25 run? The local pawn shops know me and I give them lists of items I am always interested in. One called yesterday and they have an older LN-25 that just came in, they're coming up with a price on it, I figure while I just bought a suitcase, I cannot reasonably pass on another if they are willing to part with it cheaply. It's an older unit, but I figure if I can test it and it runs good, I ought to buy it.

I hope to be trying some NR-233. I ordered a spool and hope to have time to practice with it and who knows, maybe I'll take a test before I leave. When we were trying some innershield before, we were burning Radnor's E71-T11 and while I saw possibilities, I just couldn't see me getting comfortable with it by the end of next week, when I should be leaving. This Esab wire was a dream, though. Worked with it two evenings, now I can run a cap weave on a 3G test plate, walk away and come back to find the flux in one piece next to it. I know when I was burning sticks, that was always a good sign.

Thanks for the advice. I got into welding at the quarry, then got asked to do some iron work on the road, then got asked to make some handrails in the shop, then two years later it seemed like I woke up attached to a Millermatic and everyone was calling me a "welder". Funny how stuff like that works out.

Oh, and wire has already spoiled me, I went to shake the cobwebs out arc welding, apparently after being in the shop a couple years, the cobwebs are a little heavy, I may have to test on that at the end of the week instead of tomorrow when I do the outershield.

My only suggestion pertains to wire size.

If you need to hire qualified welders (Okay, weldors, for British readers), the labor pool is larger for smaller diameter wires. There are far more people qualified to weld .045 dual-shield out-of-postion than there are for 1/16" wire.

Steve

Okay-I'm ruined. I tested with the dual-shield Monday, been burning it on our fabrications since. It was warm today, opened all the doors, hit the exhaust fans, other welders losing gas, shut the fans off, everyone complains. Set everyone up with a spool of Esab Ultra 7100, everyone's still at their benches and happy. The extra $ per roll/higher gas flow will more than pay for itself as in the summer we typically have to move all our benches back from the doors when we open up and hit the fans. Now, we're setting the two outer benches up with outershield and not crowding, work flows through better and we all stay cooler. Jimmy Cricket on a raft, how did I not find this earlier in my career? Guess it's not just for outdoors, those structural shops may be onto something...

Got in a roll of NR-233 today, hope to burn some of it tomorrow after I finish this run of rails/balconies. Who knows, may have the inspector out next week for more tests. THANKS FOR THE ADVICE, EVERYONE! MY BOSSES ARE HAPPY CAMPERS NOW!

Glad everthing is working out. Just curious though, what wire were you using before??
In all the plate fab shops I have worked in around here, we always used an outershield wire.
One thing about the NR-233 that you need to pay attention to is the stick-out. Try as much as possible to maintain the proper stick-out on that wire or you will have a headache real fast.
By the way, if you can post some pics.

Did you ever get a price on that LN25??

We were using primarily ER70-S6 with C25 shielding, as most of our fabrications are ladders, cages, small balconies, rails and stair stringers, mostly under 1/4". When we needed to go thicker, I'd hook up the Trailblazer and burn in with SMAW. We'd messed with some Lincoln innershield wires for non-structural welds in the field, but that was generally Home Depot wire that we just made holes disappear with, no serious joining. We're branching out a little now and trying to expand our horizons, hence the interest in outershield and innershield wires.

I forgot to call the pawn shop today on that LN-25, I'll have to tomorrow. As far as pics go, I start this job out in California in a couple weeks, I'll try to give you guys progress/detail shots. We're also doing all the add on stairs and cage ladders and whatnot. If we do our cages before I leave, I'll get some shots of that, as well. One of them has a 37 ft cage, oughta look cool set up on a couple of our 20ft rail benches!

I gotta say, I've jumped around a few trades, been a journeymen machinist, a diesel mechanic etc...Welding was always incidental to my work before but now that I mess with it every day, I'm really enjoying it! Other jobs, it seemed as soon as you mastered a few tricks and processes, it was all repetition. With welding, it seems the more I learn the more I learn I need to learn. I passed GMAW and FCAW 3G/4G, I hope to run my D1.1 SMAW 3G/4G tests next week. After that, what would you recommend practicing to bring more value into the shop? I know I need to work with TIG, my TIG welds look like a beautiful stack of dimes that have been kicked all over by a drunk, but I'm also thinking of practicing some pipe welds with SMAW and working more with aluminum/stainless on the MIG. Luckily for me, the boss man is my dad (yeah, I'm a bosses son, but the kind that goes salary and works 90 hours a week, not that other kind), so any tests I want to take are fine with him.

If we can find customers for end product, as well, that would be even better. Right now we're strictly supplying in-house demand, but as we streamline things and bring in new help, we're finding ourselves quickly overtaking operations. I imagine another three months, we'll be looking for outside work to bring in and hopefully spin off our fabrication department into another business in its own right.

Also, I gotta say I really like this forum. Some other forums I've posted in have gotten negative feedback as soon as I post, but this one it seems like everyone is polite, eager to help, and extremely knowledgeable. Next time I'm in Ohio, I owe you a beer!