So I'm just starting to get into welding, my first attempt was with some thicker metal... The welds looked like crap but i figured I got good penetration, well when i hit it with the sledge it broke right off...

Now I've been practicing with thinner metal and I'm getting reallly good penetration.

My question is, say when you are welding to your frame. Saw you are welding on a mount for a set of step bars. You don't know the thickness of either peice of metal you are welding.

How can you tell if you are gettin good penetration and such when you are welding?

 

if it blows though its too hot lol.

its hard to explain over a key board, is there a local community college? That's where i learned to weld, go take a class before you develop any bad habits.

 

X2 You can not learn how to weld over the computer. Every welder has their own preference.

 

Last time I checked the local college had pre-rec's which consists of blue print class, and with my schedule it's hard to take a class...

 

Also check you local high school. The tech school at my high school offers evening classes for the town.

 

Or go to an exhaust / fab shop and tell them your shadow'ing... haha...

Learn for free..

But yea... cant tell you how to weld on a forum.. just something you have to learn... take it slow, get an auto dim mask.. go to town...

 

Is there anyone from Georgia on here that is close enough to help you. I would but I am bit far.

 

One way to tell if its a good weld and got good penitration is to look on the back side of what you welded and if you can see a distinct outline of the shape you welded on the other side it probably got good penitration, and most of the time if the weld looks nice its probably a decent weld. Thats what ive always went by and ive never broke a weld ive done some pretty stupid pulling on my rear bumper that i welded and yanked on it hard and havent ever broke a weld. Some one correct me if im wrong please.

 

you can have a good looking weld that doesn't have good penitration. you can also have a crapy looking weld and it will have good pen. its all in your voltage settings and your travel speed, wire thickness and base metal thickness and it also depends on your welder too. you can get alot of infromation from the Lincon or Miller welder websites main thing to welding is to watch the puddle and watch the edges of the puddle flow into both pieces. and play with your welder trying different settings too cold and you will have a tall weld bead, too hot and you're going to have undercut and burn through problems. too fast of travel and your going to have a tall narrow bead, too slow and its going to be really wide. hope this helped a little

 

best advice i can give you is if you have a local like welder or repair shop or know someone that has a welder and knows how to use to ask them to give you a hand my dad had never mig welded b4 and i begged for a mig welder and he finally bought my one at an auction and i have thought him to mig weld he is pretty good but he tryed it out for like a week b4 i got home from college and started developing bad habits and once your with someone that knows you learn really fast i learned in a couple welding classes in high school

 

Agreed

Do not agree. You can have a weld look like totally **** and still get penetration. It also depends on what your using. Generally a stick welder will look worse than a MIG, and a MIG will look worse than a TIG. Doesn't mean that any of them are a bad weld. Of course that all gets thrown out of the window if someone doesn't know what they are doing.
I second taking a course at your community college. There is absolutely no way to learn how to weld properly over the computer.

 

Do not agree. You can have a weld look like totally **** and still get penetration. It also depends on what your using. Generally a stick welder will look worse than a MIG, and a MIG will look worse than a TIG. Doesn't mean that any of them are a bad weld. Of course that all gets thrown out of the window if someone doesn't know what they are doing.
I second taking a course at your community college. There is absolutely no way to learn how to weld properly over the computer.[/QUOTE]

Thats why i said most of the time and i think most people know what each type of weld looks like but i could be wrong.

 

i dont have much advise, i just weld. i figure when i have to grind for hours just to get a bracket off it must have been welded good enough.

 

Best advice given to me when I started welding was rod smaller then the thickness of material welding i.e. 1/8" metal 3/32" rod. Set amperage @ 1 amp per thousands 0f an inch dia. .125" rod 125 amps to start if you are welding up lower your amperage but never more then 10%. Welding flat or filet you can go up 10%.
But the best advice was practice, practice, practice. Then when you think you got it down practice some more.

 

I'm actually gettin pretty good with it... needing to get some thicker metal to practice with, and need to get a bottle so i can start miggin and not use the flux ...

 

Dido. I learned by myself. I read a couple things on welding and just went out and practiced practiced and practiced.

 

same here

thats how i learned how to drive stick too