Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello. I'm a new member and first post. Thought I'd give other beginners something to make them feel good about their welds. This is a 3" pump suction. 1mm thicka and I assume 316, well i used 316 rod. I lost control of the puddle a couple of times and blew a hole which I then filled. This is the limit of my current abilities, actually found it hard going. Cheers to the welding community, I've used advice given to others to further my own mediocre skill..

Welding pipe and tube is difficult, you always have to adjust the torch angle as you move, keep a good line of sight, and feed the filler. There's a lot going on while welding pipe, and I'd say you did well.

The smaller diameters are more difficult so if your practicing use the largest dia you have.

yeah stainless kicks my butt. especially with small tube.
fittup makes a huge difference. good tight fitup makes it so much easier.

on the one above i would setup the back purge a bit better as its got a lot of heat tint inside.
you don't really want to be doing post cleanup on the inside of the pipe.

set up the back purge better? would if I could, but alas..... I don't know what I am doing.
i didn't have much going in there as I was running low and didn't want to risk not finishing. probably a reasonable number of things I could have done better. such as remember to connect the earth lead and not electrocute myself.

ACUTTA wrote:set up the back purge better? would if I could, but alas..... I don't know what I am doing.
i didn't have much going in there as I was running low and didn't want to risk not finishing. probably a reasonable number of things I could have done better. such as remember to connect the earth lead and not electrocute myself.

been there!
thats one reason i stainless is a pain for me to do. argon is expensive here.
then the time it takes to make up covers or bungs.
however nice clean weld well worth the time and effort.

Thanks. Though im sure it could have been done alot nicer.