Welding Tips and Tricks

These are pictures of a t joint i welded today. I used a miller 252 with 75/25 and lincoln 0.045 flux cored wire. Both plate were cold rolled 1/2". The machine settings were 300 ipm and 30 volts.

After welding all 3 passes on each sides i let it cool then sectioned twice and polished them. I'm concerned with the penetration.


Help and advice welcome

Did you go off the chart on the door or your own settings? That looks like a braze rather than a weld. Could you see the bead burning in while welding? I have a 252 and she welds great so I am curious.

I dont have a ton of experience with flux so i was just playing around. I was more concerned with keeping the vertical plate vertical and then decided to see what the penetration looked like. what settings would you have used for that material using .045 flux?

Big worm...sorry I thought you were using MIG. I have almost no experience with FCAW. Bill Beauregard has a 252..he could probably help you.

Are you dragging the torch or pushing it? Typically, flux core of that size should have very good penetration characteristics.

bigworm40 wrote:These are pictures of a t joint i welded today. I used a miller 252 with 75/25 and lincoln 0.045 flux cored wire. Both plate were cold rolled 1/2". The machine settings were 300 ipm and 30 volts.

After welding all 3 passes on each sides i let it cool then sectioned twice and polished them. I'm concerned with the penetration.


Help and advice welcome

We're you using a dual shield wire or a self-shielded wire?

Dual shield.

This is a single pass I just made changing the machine settings to the welders recommend specs for 1/2 material but this was hot rolled.

I agree, something looks off. Should not have that lack of fusion in the root and it barely fused that bottom part.

Specifically which Lincoln wire are you using?
There are several dual shield wires to choose from and some have a little different wfs and voltage settings.

That's the box.
when I look at there chart it doesn't give specs for thickness.

Volts might be a little high for that WFS, but the listing says 150-180 amps - which should be enough to make a pass
(maybe too low actually)

Have you tried higher settings, like in the 200+ amp range?

What technique are you using?

I run 25v, 300ipm on my 1/2" plate.
Try running it in the 25-27v range.

That is poor penetration.

bigworm40 wrote:These are pictures of a t joint i welded today. I used a miller 252 with 75/25 and lincoln 0.045 flux cored wire. Both plate were cold rolled 1/2". The machine settings were 300 ipm and 30 volts.

Those are clearly in the ballpark for the proper spray-arc settings for that joint, with .045 dual-shield. I would think a 90/10 mix would suit those settings better, but a gas change is not needed. I would suggest dropping to 275-280 ipm, and being careful to hold a dead-square wire angle (no push, no drag) with no more than 1/2" stick-out (almost [or even actually] dragging the nozzle on the metal), and checking it again.

Dual-shield is so much like stick-welding that it's easy to under-fill due to the challenge distinguishing the puddle from the flux, so be sure you're focusing on the puddle and not the arc.

Steve S

did you try lowering your wire speed with mig the more wire you run the colder it will in turn be as there is so much more material going in and also make sure that your staying in the leading edge of the puddle very important on thicker material especially when ones worried about proper fusion