Welding Tips and Tricks

Despite being a decent hobby welder for over 10 years, I took a MIG welding class at Lincoln electric about 2 years ago. I purchased a powerMIG 350 welder direct thru them at dealer cost. The welder sat unused until today. I needed to repair a gas pedal on my son’s go-kart and I haven’t MIG welded in two years. I wanted to run a few beads before I started the repair. I got the setting off on the first bead, but this is bead #2. Not perfect but I am happy with it for a second bead after two years away from welding.

Steel was a scrap lawn mower blade, my guess is .125 thick. WFS was 155 and voltage was 18, .045 wire.
I am really hoping Jody gets back to using the PM 350 soon and showing all the features. There are so many It will take forever to figure out on my own.

I am mildly handicapped and will not be changing wire until the big spool is gone. My hope is to pick up a 120V MIG and set it up W/0.023 wire just for sheet metal. Along with an inverter based AC/DC TIG.
I have the TIG torch set up for my power MIG. Unfortunately it is lift start DC only. When I took the one week TIG class @ Lincoln I had an outstanding instructor that set up a powerMIG 350 for me to practice on.

That's a perfectly passable weld, for pass #2 after two years, especially considering the crud that gets beat into a mower blade.

As for Jody and the PM350;

Often, when Jody evaluates a machine in his videos, it is on loan from a distrubuter or manufacturer, and you're limited to the videos he's already made.

To my knowledge (memory), I've never used that machine, so I'm no help...

Steve S