Welding Tips and Tricks

While I've grown up my whole life with a millwright and generally overskilled father, It hasn't been until the last few days I've taken an interest in welding.

I've been trying to weld up some suspension bracing for my car so as to save money on the expensive aftermarket products. I've made a set and it didn't turn out too badly, my welds aren't total crap like one might expect, but they are certainly not that of a pro.

Now, my biggest problem is getting used to handling the welder, it definitely requires dexterity. What I'm doing is basically welding some square tube and some flat bar together.

The flat bar is either welded onto the ends as a sort of cap, or onto the sides. The flat bar is the mounting tabs.


Heres my question, what's the best way for a novice such as myself to get around the steel and keep the bead looking pretty? I'm having most of my problems with joining two beads together. such as when welding around the outside of the square pipe. the pipe 1.25 x 1.25, so I weld along one side, then have to turn the piece over to get each side, but how do I join the welds around the corners to look nice and more importantly achieve good penetration.

At this point I honestly have no idea what kind of wire is in the welder, but it's copper in color, and the old man has been using this stuff for years. He probably knows what it is, but it's been working just fine with the metal I've had so far.

I'm also not sure of the exact model of welder, but it's a miller, and has 6 voltage settings which are changed by pulling a big yellow plug out of one socket and plugging it into another socket if that helps.

Thanks in advance.

What's the best way to join two welds together, both on a flat plane, and on an outside corner?

If I want to weld around square tubing, what's the best way to get around that corner and join that bead, around the corner, to the bead on the other side?

As far as welding around the corners of the tubing, I like to make a single pass, stopping when I become uncomfortable(and hopefully this is near the end), then I reposition myself, start where the weld puddle seems to dip into the metal and become a "crater" wait for a puddle to form and then contenue.

Another thing I like to do on awkward welds is trace the length of the weld, focusing on direction, speed, and angle before I flip my sheild down. This seems to help give me a mental image of what i need to do before i need to do it, and not after.

Dont let it kick your ass man,

-Rick

Thanks for the tips.

Not letting it kick my ass, I'm not a bad welder and my beads do actually look pretty nice, they also seem to penetrate very well, but I'm trying to make some money from these welds, so they also need to look good.

I think my biggest problem is I want to move a little slower but turning the voltage down and slowing wire speed doesn't help much and results in more problems. I need to learn to work at the speed of the welder or something. The welder is set great for the metal I'm weling.

Joining and ending beads gives me the most cosmetic problems.