Welding is objectively the coolest thing you can do. Anyone else love welding. Im so fricking happy that im an apprentice pipe welder. I love welding so much.
Welding
Welding is objectively the coolest thing you can do. Anyone else love welding. Im so fricking happy that im an apprentice pipe welder. I love welding so much.
You’ll mostly be plumbing because plumbers can’t plumb or weld.
I work for a shitty company who doesnt do anything important enough to be x-rayed so i get to pipefit and weld. It's literally a dream the best of both worlds.
You cant judge a trade by looking at the bottom of the barrel. compating production MIG welding to pipe welding with TIG is like comparing taxi drivers to pilots.
Just buy a welder. Its cheap and fun and you'll look cool.
I am about to stick weld for the first time. What's the easiest way to weld vertically ?
Watch videos. Words aren't very good for describing what to do. For the technical stuff do some reading in welding forums.
Set up a practice area and practice on consistent, clean (use an angle grinder) scrap. Run five or six inch beads to build muscle memory. There isn't room to type all the info on a PrepHole but the more you read the easier it gets.
3F or 3G?
one requires a 6010 root pass w fill and cap and the other is fine to do with 7018 or 8018.
anyways angle the electrode up 10-20 degrees and maintain a constant travel speed and puddle size. Make sure your travel angle is always point upward to counter gravity.
Whatever you do, don't listen to fresh out of school homosexuals like
who prattle off shit they recently learned in school to sound intelligent. They are just a wire burner trying to justify their tuition.
For stick, if you got thick metal just keep your heat down (like 105) and keep the arc moving, you don't want it to build up too much or you can get boogers, shit sucks and is a c**t to fix. Usually I'd make a fairly wide weave and put a good amount of vertical space between each step, again remember you dont want the weld to build up to much. If youre doing a vertical up, on a janky fit up, or thin metal like 10 gauge sheet etc., I like to stack really thin welds with a little oscillation like a few 3/32 rods or something. I was taught to do that on pipe, it's frickin time consuming but it is the best way to avoid blasting holes and getting porosity. Plus TSSA inspectors can be c**ts so you gotta watch your undercut and arc strikes. If the fit up is super sketch it's not a bad idea to fill in with a bit of 6010/6011 cellulose rods (the stuff that smells like campfires)
you'll want to grind it smooth and give it a second to cool down.
That or just crank your heat and rock a downhand, people who don't weld will think it's clean as frick.
it's just a simple frame for holding grapes so worst case inspector's gonna be allwhining neighbor.
the weld pieces are thick rebar (16mm) and 2mm steel and I have 2.5mm basic electrode or 2mm rutile electrode. I think I will use the basic one, as it has more penetration.
the blobs you mention are exactly I am bit afraid of, as I dont want to bury slag under metal, making it weak or corrode fast.
Ok so if you're welding that thick rebar with that thin rod you dont have much to worry about in terms of blasting through or undercutting. If it's just for holding grapes it's probably enough to just tack or do little 1 inch stitches. If there's some kinda dirty gap or the metals really rusty it's better to use the smaller rod on low heat because it fills better and doesn't get porosity as easily. The rods are sorta undersized for the metals so you might end up going through a lot of them, you might have to do multiple passes. Be sure to clean the steel as much as possible with a grinder, but I know thats sorta impossible with rebar.
Welding is the trade for morons too stupid to do real metalworking.
I'm glad they let you out of the home though anon.
Idk not getting parkinson's is another cool thing you can do.
So wear PPE. Stupid people gonna do boomer shit. If you live long enough you'll go mad anyway. Ideally we'd all painlessly and instantly die at 70.
it is until you try to date and women dont know what a welder is.
I enjoy it too but I doubt I could do it for a living. Too many shitty cramped spots, slag burns and retina burn headaches fricking suck, too many absolutely fricking moronic coworkers
>t. electrician
So just tell a white lie and say you're a metalworker/sculptor
>retina burn headaches
Never had one because I never went bare-eyed in a shop. Safety glasses that block UV are glorious.
Ppe is mando but it's more or less unavoidable in the multicraft plants/factories I've always found myself working in
Polycarbonate is naturally opaque to UV. If you're wearing safety glasses that wrap around enough to provide decent protection against debris, you're generally good to go for walking around in a welding shop.
Just tell them that welding is like a mans version of Knitting Steel.
Welder / Millwrights are one of the best trade combos. They have the arrogance, but humility to go with it....lol
Those guys can fricking do anything.
what is the easiest way to get into welding if you have no experience? I have a GED but I don't think I could be able to afford rent if I had to be out of work for 7 months to do some kind of training
About to buy a 110v hobby welder. I have minimal experience and only have small projects in mind, like a grocery rack for my bicycle.
Any comments, reviews, cautions, before I drop the shoe? It is the cheapest multifunction one I can find that is 110, as I don't have a 220v outlet/higher than 20 amp breaker in my house/garage anyways and don't want to put one in/buy a generator.
Shit, pic relateed.
That's a mystery chinesium welder. It might suit your purposes well or it may be a useless piece of shit, you never know what you're getting with those things. Reviews for these things are useless because they're full of bots, shills, and the totally clueless. Personally I don't buy anything off Amazon when the name is an unpronounceable string of letters because it means they're a fly-by-night operation reselling generic shit from aliexpress. The name says it's a MIG machine, but on the unit it says gasless which means it's not actually a MIG welder and can only run flux core. Flux core comes out of a MIG gun but behaves more like stick, in that it can weld through paint in howling wind and makes lots of spatter and slag. MIG welds are a lot cleaner and work better on thin material. I can't decide for you whether you want to do MIG or flux core or stick, but that if you do want to be able to MIG weld you cannot do it with that welder.
So it is quick and dirty?
That's my kind of welding.
Although the inability to work on thinner material an interesting fact. Why does fluxcore blow through thinner materials more easily?
Unplug your oven and weld in the kitchen
Fair, but no.
Long extension cords from dryer outlets work nicely too.
Filler wire should be as thin or thinner than the stock being welded and flux core requires more heat (amps) than bare wire.
https://blog.red-d-arc.com/welding/fluxcore-stick-welding-difference/#:~:text=The%20Cons%20of%20Flux%2Dcore%20Welding&text=It%20also%20produces%20the%20most,it%20will%20burn%20through%20them.
Thin metal is TIG and oxy-acetylene welding territory (jewelers use torches for good reasons).
Tiny flux core machines exist to be annoying. Their purchase is powered by intense wishful thinking. Small MIG machines do much better on thin stock.
Just botched my B-U2a at school
Still loving welding
Hopefully this pans out as a career - I know the money / health effects are bad, but I'm glad I'll be able to salvage my life with a trade job at 30
The money can be good but you need to advance. Get dat CWI early.
Thanks boss will do
>hvac tech
>welds
>plumbs
>woodworks
>mechanics
>STEMs
>sells
You just got mogged bro kek
>millwright
>does all of your mentioned shit
>machining
>electrical
>mechatronics
>machine maintenance and repair
>machine installation
The mogger has become the moggee
Just spent 8 hours yesterday afternoon/evening building up ripper shanks for a disc ripper... That kinda sucked. I like welding when it is putting two good nice fitting joints together. Buildup work is not fun.
What filler?
>What filler?
I just migged the shanks to build them back up with some ER70S-6 and then welded some "shin guards" to the fronts to cap them off. Just looked the shin guards up and they are some HI Chrome stuff that is hard as frick and wear resistant. If they come off I'll try some hard facing.
Hard facing wire (regular and gasless) is a thing with much less waste than stick (tho stick is more fun, it's not really fun for buildup).
while i do appreciate beautiful welds, most welding jobs don't require anything special, and so welders are mostly glorified assembly workers gluing metal pieces together
i'm not sure why anyone would want to be just a welder
>Im so fricking happy
God i wish that was me
Even with all of the protection, does welding still damage your eyesight over time?
No. Read how PPE blocks UV. However you WILL get old so get eyes checked every two years or so.
Impossible to know, no welder has ever worn their PPE consistently.
gotta be either brandon or xylem
I got a job at a scrapyard fixing their busted equipment, dump trucks, 80 year old recycling bins, building fences, 1000 different things the boss wants done.
it's a fricken dream job bro
Sup
How does one gets started w oxy acetelene welding? I have found old torches and other related gear in my shotgun shack. My experience is close to nonexistent except for fooling with a stick. I've heard you have to be really careful handling O2 and there are real explosion risks. But I really want to try BC a boomer guy told me carbide welding is goat top sex, literally the best out there as you can do anything with it.
acetylene is unstable and will decompose explosively above about 22 psi so make sure you have a real acetylene regulator and dont set the pressure too high. The oxygen you'll probably get for welding isnt pure enough to really be dangerous. Pure medical oxygen is the dangerous stuff that can make the oils on your skin go up in a fireball. Honestly theres good videos on youtube about everything you need to know. Just make sure the regulators are good and you have no leaks in the hoses, and wear good goggles with shade 4 or 5 welding lenses
Tnx I appreciate your advice.
oxy-acetylene is not that great for welding and takes forever. Only advantage is portability and it needs less dark lens.
It’s good for cutting metal though if you don’t have a plasma cutter.
Anyways, before you do anything purge the line with o2 then slowly introduce acetylene into the system and light the torch, unless you want a carburizing or oxidizing flame try to aim for a even balance. Don’t open acetylene valve too much or acetone will shoot out and your tank will be fricked, always purge the line with O2 when finished welding and storing the tanks.
No practical experience homosexual strikes again.
Imagine having such little experience with the most basic tool a welder uses that you cope by parroting back miscellaneous safety advice from your community college teacher. Frick off wireburner.
Get a brazing tip and a case of filler rod from your local praxair or something (don't frick with home depot their selection is balls). Make buddies with the hicks at your local scrapyard, for maybe $20 and a pack of smokes they'll give you a couple armloads of good steel to frick around with. Throw your shade 5 goggles on, and go to town, only way to get good is by doing. It takes a Zen like patience and concentration, braze welds are indeed a beautiful thing but they require the skill of a surgeon. I never got that into it but you basically tack up your joint, build up a puddle, dab your filler in the puddle, lift your torch, step back, drop your torch, rinse repeat. Like nightmare-mode TIG I guess. Make sure you have good ventilation or just do it outside, and make sure you don't have flammables kicking about. Dont leave your bottles cracked or you might come back to an empty tank and if not ventilated you'll get blowed up. You'll quickly discover that oxy brazing is a huge pain in the ass and was replaced by TIG for good reason, but I guess it's a handy skill to have for stuff like exhaust repairs and body work on thin thin thin metal.
Take a class at your local community college like everyone else, ffs.
you don't, LBW and GTAW-P has made OFW irrelevant.
If I'm getting started and just want to develop my basic skills, what are some beginner projects to try? I have a lincoln stick welder I bought at a dead man's house clear out sale, and a 220v outlet in my garage. Just now wondering what to do with it other than pointless weld pieces of scrap metal together. I'm not exactly the creative type
Finally grabbed a pic of one of those ripper shanks. Already had them in the ground and they're doing the job. Have new teeth for it that will cover up to the bottom shin guard, but figured I'd finish wearing out the current teeth before swapping them out.
Tillage costs a lot of money. You’re working very hard on making yourself poor.
Sometimes it has to be done.
What’s the best method of combining two 1/4” pieces of a metal rod together? Just torch it with solder?
Is it as cool as machining tho?
machining is what welders do after rehab. You can't do the job drunk, you can't wear Pit Vipers on the job site, and you require more than a hammer and a grinder. It's for squares.
Not quite, too white collar
Blacksmithing is definitely cooler than welding though, but only if you're actually good at it and have the full setup, not just a hobbyist with a little propane forge and railroad track anvil
manlet room temp nail scratcher versus chad plasma gun liquid metal bender
also how's adding metal going up for ya ?
>tfw you finally start doing succesful fillet joints with TIG
fricking dimes form themselves just by laying the wire and moving at a proper speed. feels good mang.
Not really. "Dimes" are from dabbing the wire. You can get a nice looking ripple with laying the wire, but that's something different.
Riple it is then, I am ESL and never heard the term, thanks.
It's an analogy to the ripple of flowing water, which can resemble the wavy pattern of a weld bead due to intermittent filler, a pulsed arc, a weave, or other factors. It's possible to make very smooth beads with the lay wire technique, but dabbing has more reliable penetration.
I've only been TIG welding thin gauge material, I feel like laying wire and even slightly pushing it cools the weld pool and stops me from cooking the rear of the plate.
It does. The solid filler wire sitting there acts as a heat sink and can physically obstruct the penetration of the hot current of metal flowing from the arc. So it's not necessarily good if you need to burn into thick metal, but it can reduce overpenetration on thin metal. It can also make it easier to bridge gaps.
Remember, a grinder and paint make you the welder you ain't.
I love you and your enthusiasm for welding. frick yeah.
I love welding but I don't think I can put a welding machine in my house without frying everything.
learned how to weld in trade school but ended up abandoning the profession
>I love welding but I don't think I can put a welding machine in my house without frying everything.
You certainly can. You can make a welding booth like a sand blast cabinet with a shop vac exhaust venting outdoors for any fumes then TIG or just OA torch like shitload of israeliteelers etc do at home. Fab a steel cart with non-marring casters or use a metal box atop a plastic work cart which is kind to woodwork.
For outdoor welding fab welding cart with large pivoting wheels like scaffolding casters (I fricking love those and my MigMaster 250's cart is a breeze to move with them). Have separate shielding gas cylinder cart and if want do what I do and use a good brass pneumatic chuck so hose lives on single cylinder cart or on old style steel golf bag cart (super stable, I have one).
Since you rent or own running a cord from your dryer or stove outlet is easy and you can buy 50-footers premade though I just buy SOOW cable and plugs.
You can weld pretty much anywhere. When I rented I added a 50A outdoor 240V outlet outdoors for welder or compressor power. It lives on the house I bought later. I also have a dryer outlet adapter of course. A great cord or air hose caddy is a suitable used tire with the bead cut out on one side and hole drilled for your female plug plus a hole or two for a rope handle.
I've spent about 1k hours welding over my career. Welding is the most fricking boring thing in the world. May as well put on a pair of sunglasses and look at a light bulb for 10 hours straight.