Welding Tips and Tricks

I have been looking at pictures of other peoples welding carts and I was told ages ago that its best if the welding machine faces down to allow the feed of the wire to come out easier. I have seen other trolleys face the feed upwards. I am now thinking that depending on how high your machine ir in relation to your work area will dictate if your machine is angle up or down, or does it really make any difference??

I think most tilt the machine up to make the display easier to read. You don't have to squat down to adjust it if you can see it reasonably well from a standing position. Same thing if it was overhead. It would be facing downward.

That's very logical
I never really understood what I heard about it being angled for better wire feed. Anyway, that was an easy one.

Angling wire down will have the same effect as rolling Your cylinder around to mix up the gases.

mcostello wrote:Angling wire down will have the same effect as rolling Your cylinder around to mix up the gases.

What, you are not supposed to do that??
-Jonathan

A guy once told me I needed to shake a fire extinguisher up first or it wouldn't put a fire out.

Hell, I had a helper convinced the 300-bar Helium bottles weighed less when full.

He SWORE he could tell an empty from a full one.

Steve S

Otto Nobedder wrote:Hell, I had a helper convinced the 300-bar Helium bottles weighed less when full.

He SWORE he could tell an empty from a full one.

Steve S

that one got me for a second.

stevenopolis wrote:A guy once told me I needed to shake a fire extinguisher up first or it wouldn't put a fire out.

I have heard that over time fire extinguishers with powder in them can settle in high vibration environments and not work unless they are shook up. Mainly in something like a vehicle environment.

pmccloud wrote:

stevenopolis wrote:A guy once told me I needed to shake a fire extinguisher up first or it wouldn't put a fire out.

I have heard that over time fire extinguishers with powder in them can settle in high vibration environments and not work unless they are shook up. Mainly in something like a vehicle environment.

When I was a safety manager, I always turned the fire extinguishers over a few times while inspecting them each month. I felt that it fluffed the dry chemical material ...now the gas charged extinguishers aren't going to care one bit if they are fluffed or not...LOL

cosi wrote:That's very logical
I never really understood what I heard about it being angled for better wire feed. Anyway, that was an easy one.

what they may have meant was that the wire feeder needs to be angled towards the work so that you don't have to bend the whip way around and kink the liner when trying to use it. The straighter that whip stays, the happier it will be and will live a lot longer. I've seen people wind the lead all up around the machine and then wonder why they have to keep replacing the liner and sometimes the entire whip. The one that came on my Hobart Handler over 15 years ago is still on the machine and hundreds of pounds of wire have been through it in it's life.

Otto Nobedder wrote:Hell, I had a helper convinced the 300-bar Helium bottles weighed less when full.

He SWORE he could tell an empty from a full one.

Steve S

Oh that's just mean

....I'm going to use that one on a shop teacher I know.....