Welders? Any welders on this site?
- Thread starter flushcut
- Start date
- Replies 1K
- Views 62K
That really sucks the guy got hurt doing this stuff, i guess i take it for granted working around it all day but it is nasty stuff. I mean, i obviously did something dumb to get cancer by age 38 
I've never ran much of the innershield stuff, but dual shield is amazing. You can straight up pour metal in the flat position, and stack it out of position like you are running big low hi non stop. I've done multiple 48" pipe welds in position solo in a day with that stuff before. The company i used to work for ran it in the field all the time, sometimes with a normal stick root, sometimes with a hardwire root in the shop or field if we had control of the process. From my understanding the bigger iron jobs they sometimes roll with the wire feeders, but remember stick can hold its own if you run the big rods.
My little chipper winch thing is a perfect example of why stick welding is still used today. It's being made from pipe that's been sitting outside for 20 years, sitting outside for months while i pick away at it, and if it needs to be modified no big deal, it'll burn away a bit of paint and rust no problem. It's common that we'll cut a pipe to tie into it, and it has so much hard water scale, product, rust, and mud in and on the pipe, with stick you can cut it, hit it with a wire wheel, and then do an xray weld right there with water or fire running out of it.
You can torch a bevel, smack the sharp edge with a hammer to even it up and form a small land, use a file to ream the resulting burr on the inside, and weld without a grinder. That's how fitter apprentices were broken in, once they knew you could do welds that could pass xray, on non xray work they would make you run 1 setting on your heat, and no grinder. You ran 1/8 inch 5p with 3/32 7018, or 5/32 and 1/8 on 6" and up. You do an uphill bead, scratch the slag off with a handful of rods, maybe hit a bumpy tie in a couple times with the file, then light up a low hi and damn near burn thru the whole fill pass so it burns out the slag that might have not totally been cleaned. Learn to do that and you'll almost never have a bad weld, because each pass is cleaning as you go. On downhill it's basically the same, but you are running super hot, and are whipping up and down as you go, in order to agitate the puddle and dig out the slag on the sides of the root pass, called wagon tracks. That's the true advantage to using stick for repairs, and what i mean when i say it's forgiving for real world conditions, because each pass will dig in and pull light impurities out in the slag.
When you have to weld like that, in tight spots, up in the air, in a ditch full of water and mud, a ventilated hood is an absolute nightmare. Even when I'm working in a fab shop, a normal hood is perfectly fine. I use a pancake for almost everything except heavy mig welding, and it's like it's not even there. It doesn't even have a right side to it at all, because you normally would have your right shoulder down if you are right handed when welding horizontal pipes. If my right ear is by the fire I'll turn my hat bill to cover it, and here we go.
Fumes are a concern, and you need to know what you're doing or you can get really hurt. But then again, i used to do a bunch of confined space and tank repair, where you are doing safety checklists everyday so you don't just straight up get killed, and blowers are a mandatory part of that experience to provide breathing air to even be in a space. In some confined spaces simply using a cutting torch will poison you with carbon monoxide, argon or other welding gases can asphyxiate you, product can burn or ignite with you in there, etc. Often even with the safety gear and procedures there's the understanding that you might not be able to be pulled out if stuff goes wrong, and as hard as it is the hole watch cannot go in to attempt rescue because he will likely also be a fatality. I guess everything is relative to one's own experiences.
I've never ran much of the innershield stuff, but dual shield is amazing. You can straight up pour metal in the flat position, and stack it out of position like you are running big low hi non stop. I've done multiple 48" pipe welds in position solo in a day with that stuff before. The company i used to work for ran it in the field all the time, sometimes with a normal stick root, sometimes with a hardwire root in the shop or field if we had control of the process. From my understanding the bigger iron jobs they sometimes roll with the wire feeders, but remember stick can hold its own if you run the big rods.
My little chipper winch thing is a perfect example of why stick welding is still used today. It's being made from pipe that's been sitting outside for 20 years, sitting outside for months while i pick away at it, and if it needs to be modified no big deal, it'll burn away a bit of paint and rust no problem. It's common that we'll cut a pipe to tie into it, and it has so much hard water scale, product, rust, and mud in and on the pipe, with stick you can cut it, hit it with a wire wheel, and then do an xray weld right there with water or fire running out of it.
You can torch a bevel, smack the sharp edge with a hammer to even it up and form a small land, use a file to ream the resulting burr on the inside, and weld without a grinder. That's how fitter apprentices were broken in, once they knew you could do welds that could pass xray, on non xray work they would make you run 1 setting on your heat, and no grinder. You ran 1/8 inch 5p with 3/32 7018, or 5/32 and 1/8 on 6" and up. You do an uphill bead, scratch the slag off with a handful of rods, maybe hit a bumpy tie in a couple times with the file, then light up a low hi and damn near burn thru the whole fill pass so it burns out the slag that might have not totally been cleaned. Learn to do that and you'll almost never have a bad weld, because each pass is cleaning as you go. On downhill it's basically the same, but you are running super hot, and are whipping up and down as you go, in order to agitate the puddle and dig out the slag on the sides of the root pass, called wagon tracks. That's the true advantage to using stick for repairs, and what i mean when i say it's forgiving for real world conditions, because each pass will dig in and pull light impurities out in the slag.
When you have to weld like that, in tight spots, up in the air, in a ditch full of water and mud, a ventilated hood is an absolute nightmare. Even when I'm working in a fab shop, a normal hood is perfectly fine. I use a pancake for almost everything except heavy mig welding, and it's like it's not even there. It doesn't even have a right side to it at all, because you normally would have your right shoulder down if you are right handed when welding horizontal pipes. If my right ear is by the fire I'll turn my hat bill to cover it, and here we go.
Fumes are a concern, and you need to know what you're doing or you can get really hurt. But then again, i used to do a bunch of confined space and tank repair, where you are doing safety checklists everyday so you don't just straight up get killed, and blowers are a mandatory part of that experience to provide breathing air to even be in a space. In some confined spaces simply using a cutting torch will poison you with carbon monoxide, argon or other welding gases can asphyxiate you, product can burn or ignite with you in there, etc. Often even with the safety gear and procedures there's the understanding that you might not be able to be pulled out if stuff goes wrong, and as hard as it is the hole watch cannot go in to attempt rescue because he will likely also be a fatality. I guess everything is relative to one's own experiences.
Al Smith
Mac Daddy
I don't tell anybody how to weld but were it me I'd stitch it back together with a fast freeze rod like 6011 and cap it off with 7018 .7014 would work though . If it's flat work and you have a gutsy enough welder 7024 really lays down the metal .They make a 7028 which is the iron powder version of 7018 but I've never seen any smaller than 3/16" .You really need a heavy machine to lay that down ,like 400 amp running at around 300 . A long time ago while working as a welder it was not uncommon to burn 50 pounds in an 8 hour shift .It's a wonder I have any lungs left .
pantheraba
More biners!!!
A bit for this thread. Up till now Alex hass done a lot of his cutting with a side grinder on big metal. It's a nasty job. He just got this and is loving it. He said he cut out the whole side of a conex container yesterday at the fire burn building training area.
Attachments
flushcut
TreeHouser
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #581
I would have used 6010 for the root but my welder doesn’t run them that well. And I had a 30ish degree bevel with 1/4” land so about half penetration. And considering the trencher had 1/4” attachment plate originally and the new one is 1/2”so plenty of beef. All in all it was 1/2” plate to 1/2” plate fillet. It was for my nursery friend and he wants me to rebuild his tiller this spring. Just wait until you see those pics. I tried putting a bandaid on it last fall so he could finish out the season but that thing is beat to piss.
Kyle, sorry for derailing the redneck builds thread.
Question for you here. Have you ever messed around with pre-heating before striking up an arc? Say oxy acetylene or MAP gas? It's a practise used on aluminum because it sucks up so much heat. I've seen instructional videos where the bead is noted to be bulge-ier at the beginning of the weld and others where a weld ends with undercut or dropout due to over accumulation of heat. These vids were usually stick, perhaps mig.
On a hunch, out n the cold, I preheated a 90 degree butt joint with MAP gas, not red hot but a fair ways, and used abut 3/4 max on my mig - laid in like butter. Particularly, the bacon frying sound smoothed out a lot and the weld wetted out the fillet real nice. Do you think winter day, summer day vs preheated can really affect the result that much? Seems so in my case. I did a bit of pre-heat/dryout on some more thin rusted out crap today so it de-moisturised but pretty sure it went right back to cold in 10 seconds. In that case I balance spot weld duty cycle with deposition/metal color-temperature and get a localized temporary pre-heat that I think promotes the sizzle quality.
Question for you here. Have you ever messed around with pre-heating before striking up an arc? Say oxy acetylene or MAP gas? It's a practise used on aluminum because it sucks up so much heat. I've seen instructional videos where the bead is noted to be bulge-ier at the beginning of the weld and others where a weld ends with undercut or dropout due to over accumulation of heat. These vids were usually stick, perhaps mig.
On a hunch, out n the cold, I preheated a 90 degree butt joint with MAP gas, not red hot but a fair ways, and used abut 3/4 max on my mig - laid in like butter. Particularly, the bacon frying sound smoothed out a lot and the weld wetted out the fillet real nice. Do you think winter day, summer day vs preheated can really affect the result that much? Seems so in my case. I did a bit of pre-heat/dryout on some more thin rusted out crap today so it de-moisturised but pretty sure it went right back to cold in 10 seconds. In that case I balance spot weld duty cycle with deposition/metal color-temperature and get a localized temporary pre-heat that I think promotes the sizzle quality.
Last edited:
flushcut
TreeHouser
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #586
Preheat is a good thing especially on thicker metal. Some metals require preheat usually in the 300 degree range and that temp needs to be maintained while welding.
Higher preheat temps can help a low power mig machine weld better. But you found that out. 90 degrees will sweat out the moist but not really hot enough to be considered “preheat”. As far as I know.
Kyle or Bob know more than I do so hopefully they will chime in.
Higher preheat temps can help a low power mig machine weld better. But you found that out. 90 degrees will sweat out the moist but not really hot enough to be considered “preheat”. As far as I know.
Kyle or Bob know more than I do so hopefully they will chime in.
Nutball
TreeHouser
I don't know for sure, but I thought some soldering flux is based on pine rosin. I'm not sure how dangerous pine sap fumes are to breath. I should try using some sometime to see if it works as soldering flux. I have observed pine resin and rosin easily spreading over the surface of aluminum when heated, so perhaps it could be used for soldering aluminum if that is such a thing. All I know is that pine sap looks similar to the Radio Shack rosin flux I use as it is burning off.
Preheating is used for different weld procedures as required, and when conditions require it for non code work (stuff they aren't going to xray and procedures aren't as big of a deal). So if I'm welding stuff in my backyard and it's covered with dew, snow, rain, etc I'll hit it with a weed burner from a propane tank. When i was pipelining they wanted you to heat it enough to burn the moisture off the joint, so around 200 to 250 degrees (you can actually watch the moisture leave the joint). Other times they require much tighter control so you would be using heat sticks, and they might even go so far as using induction heaters and stuff. It just depends on what you are doing, the more critical it is the more they care. Learn to stick weld if you plan on doing highly stressed or important stuff that could hurt or kill someone if it fails, no amount of preheat can make a baby mig become an actual machine.
Yeah I'm familiar with your feelings about mig. 
I was probably about 120 A on the 90 degree (right angle) butt weld. It was still only 1/8 or 3/16 material, thin by your standards. I could see the moisture going away, even with the spot weld really thin stuff. I have stick welded in the past but rarely get into heavy structural stuff. My stick/tig looks forlorn in the garage .
Aluminum is another whole animal with oxide skin to break up even if you did a super clean prep. It's like chasing water mercury droplets in the midst of where you're welding. You can see it quiver under the arc. Percentage + and - arc for cleaning and heating, fancy machines. Me to aluminum braze/solder rods is as to Kyle and mig - I haven't ever seen or done what I would consider good with that process. Only practical option IMO for aluminum is tig, preferably with a foot heat control. A salesman tried to sell me a spool gun once but I wasn't convinced. In a worked out repeated process I've heard of aluminum mig working but in one-off's you never get the chance to tune your settings. Your chance to see if you were set right is one, done too late it's over guessed wrong or right. Tig you can play with big small odd weird etc and put your fillet just as you want. Even no fillet if that's the target. Yeah, I realize that last sentence is a crime to most traditional training.
I was probably about 120 A on the 90 degree (right angle) butt weld. It was still only 1/8 or 3/16 material, thin by your standards. I could see the moisture going away, even with the spot weld really thin stuff. I have stick welded in the past but rarely get into heavy structural stuff. My stick/tig looks forlorn in the garage . Aluminum is another whole animal with oxide skin to break up even if you did a super clean prep. It's like chasing water mercury droplets in the midst of where you're welding. You can see it quiver under the arc. Percentage + and - arc for cleaning and heating, fancy machines. Me to aluminum braze/solder rods is as to Kyle and mig - I haven't ever seen or done what I would consider good with that process. Only practical option IMO for aluminum is tig, preferably with a foot heat control. A salesman tried to sell me a spool gun once but I wasn't convinced. In a worked out repeated process I've heard of aluminum mig working but in one-off's you never get the chance to tune your settings. Your chance to see if you were set right is one, done too late it's over guessed wrong or right. Tig you can play with big small odd weird etc and put your fillet just as you want. Even no fillet if that's the target. Yeah, I realize that last sentence is a crime to most traditional training.
Dave Shepard
Square peg, round world.
Looking for auto darking hood recommendations. Doesn't have to have a grinder setting, but that would be nice. I lean hard to the Red side, but I'm open to other makes.
BlackSmith
Uncivil
I tried an auto hood once, didn’t care for it. It had a yellow tint that wasn’t appealing to me. After using cobalt blue everything else was just nasty. A silver mirror is ok but green or yellow or gold I can’t get comfortable with. I like the adjustable shade function of the auto shields but other than that I’d rather stay old school.
Nutball
TreeHouser
I'd be concerned about a failure in the auto darkening mechanism: dead battery, delayed response, oxidation of electrical connections, etc
flushcut
TreeHouser
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #593
I have my eyes on the Miller Digital Elite as my next hood. Right now I’m using a Praxair Prostar hood it has a grind shade 5 and up to 13. 4”x5” window or something like that. You have to take the hood off to adjust it to “grind mode” kind of a pain. But I really like the big window. It’s been a good hood I built the chip box with it so I have several hours of arc time with it. I’ve read really good things about Lincoln Viking hoods.
Dave Shepard
Square peg, round world.
Leaning torwards a Viking. A friend has a Lincoln of some kind. Used it a couple of times, will have to check the model. Mine, a Radnor, was supposed to have an automatic grind mode, but has no grind mode at all. The salesman had a lazy eye, so he might not even been talking to me in the first place.
Technically, auto darkening hoods are always opaque to UV. It's just the visible spectrum that's getting switched. I don't know if the built-in battery in mine went bad, or if it was just discharged from sitting in the garage for months with the solar panel covered by my welding gloves. I don't like it, anyway.
Like Bob i have mostly used passive lenses for most of my career. The aulktro (spelling is wrong) lenses are the best out there, gold plated and cobalt blue. The blue tint let's you see thru the smoke like it's not even there, it's like watching uhdtv for the first time. I have an arc one singles in my pancake right now, having an autodark sped up my restrikes and it's nice to be able to grind without adding the weight of a flip front. It's a 2 x 4, and is a thick as a normal lens, so they fit in normal hoods. Basically I'm trading some clarity for convenience, but I've been pretty happy with it. The pancake is by far the lightest hood I've ever used, the next step would be to go to all carbon fiber, which is unnecessary imo. I've used the original pancake brand hoods, but this one from Wendy's is better imo. I also very recently had to start running a cheater lens, i got a 1.5 and it's been helping. The beginning of the end 😭😭😭😭
Lol yeah both wendys and sarges builds very similar hoods. Trust me, once you try one you won't go back. Rather than clamping down on your head it fits like a pair of goggles. No drifting up or down as the suspension wears, no light coming in from anywhere, no nodding your head to drop it, no more neck pain because the cog is so close to your face that it's not torquing your neck. Add an auto lens if you want, i even had a journeymen ecq adjustable one in it but i didn't like changing batteries. I forgot to mention i use the pancake on hardhat hood jobs too, with the autodark it's no big deal to just adjust the strap and wear it right under there. You guys will never need to deal with that, but yeah it matters to me.
I would stick to 2 x 4 lens size hoods, a bigger window does nothing but add weight. You are watching the puddle not the entire room. Also if you use reading glasses you need to get a cheater lens, I'm only 39 but it's helping me already. All this stuff adds up weight, while you guys aren't welding all day everyday it still will cause strain, especially once you gotta start cramming you head in spots, crawling up under stuff.
I would stick to 2 x 4 lens size hoods, a bigger window does nothing but add weight. You are watching the puddle not the entire room. Also if you use reading glasses you need to get a cheater lens, I'm only 39 but it's helping me already. All this stuff adds up weight, while you guys aren't welding all day everyday it still will cause strain, especially once you gotta start cramming you head in spots, crawling up under stuff.
BlackSmith
Uncivil
I never found a gold lens I liked. Everything looks burgundy (red wine) to me. Has an uncomfortable feel to it. Happy eyes are best eyes and that’s cobalt for me.
What brand is yours @BlackSmith ?
BlackSmith
Uncivil
I have no idea Kyle, it’s probably 40 years old.
Similar threads
