Your most recent welding pics

[TSIflyer95]

Hey guys, I figured I'd chime in with my vast lack of experience. I have literally never touched a welder before, until 2 weeks ago Monday. That was for a mig welder. I started tig welding 1 week ago Monday. I feel pretty happy with how far I have come in just a short time. I still have a long way to go too!!

Here is a simple overlap I did in class with a mig welder.

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This is some of my first round to round mild steel 90 wall.

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Some tig welded round to flat. Same 90 wall.

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And here was one attempt at chrome-moly. Very thin. 30 wall. This for me was a big challenge.

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Like I said. I have a long way to go. These welds were made with, Lincoln Mig 140c, and a Lincoln Tig 225.

 

[1995gstdsm]

Nice, keep it up brother!

 

[Calan]

Hey guys, I figured I'd chime in with my vast lack of experience. I have literally never touched a welder before, until 2 weeks ago Monday. That was for a mig welder. I started tig welding 1 week ago Monday. I feel pretty happy with how far I have come in just a short time. I still have a long way to go too!!

Very nice for 1-2 weeks. I'd say you're a natural.

 

[TSIflyer95]

Nice, keep it up brother!

Very nice for 1-2 weeks. I'd say you're a natural.

Thanks guys! I do plan to do as much as I can, also I plan to build everything I can on my car. I want to be able to say I did it all.

 

[99gst_racer]

TSIflyer95 - That tube comes with a mill scale on the outter surface. Hit up those areas with a DA before welding. It will help the puddle flow better and the weld will look much better overall too. IMO, it's even more critical on mild steel than chromoly.

 

[TSIflyer95]

TSIflyer95 - That tube comes with a mill scale on the outter surface. Hit up those areas with a DA before welding. It will help the puddle flow better and the weld will look much better overall too. IMO, it's even more critical on mild steel than chromoly.

Thank you for the advice! I will definitely do that next time I'm playing around with this.

 

[JayRome]

how did you cut each piece because some of them have the angles to them?

just tilt the pipe when you cut it on the chop saw/metal saw...


NSX race exhaust

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[Fehrion_sit]

TSIflyer95 - That tube comes with a mill scale on the outter surface. Hit up those areas with a DA before welding. It will help the puddle flow better and the weld will look much better overall too. IMO, it's even more critical on mild steel than chromoly.

not to sound completely clueless, but DA?

 

[99gst_racer]

not to sound completely clueless, but DA?

Dual action sander. I use an air power sander and flapper discs like these:

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[turboglenn]

yea, mill scale makes it almost impossible to get any decent looking let alone a strong weld on anything hot forged (all hot forced stuff has the mill scale which forms from heat and i believe an oil oxidizing when the metal is formed, been a while since i read about scale)

When i'm working with 4130 I like to either put the pieces throgh the lathe back and stick the end i'm about to weld out the chuck and spin it up while holding some emery cloth to it, it cleans it up really nice with little effort, sanding off scale from plate steel is a B**ch with a flap wheel on a grinder and that's the easiest way i know of, there's a liquid you canget that takes scale off but it's so iffy that you have to wait so long for it to work you end up re-applying it a few times so it doestn' dry and then you are still left with a blotchy removal that's marginal at best I've heard that stronger acids take it off fast but i'm usually too busy with other stuff to worry about havingt things to neautralize acid with me while trying to weld something

 

[eviltsi]

Forgive my awful phone picture taking skills....

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[Gamble97]

yea, mill scale makes it almost impossible to get any decent looking let alone a strong weld on anything hot forged (all hot forced stuff has the mill scale which forms from heat and i believe an oil oxidizing when the metal is formed, been a while since i read about scale)

When i'm working with 4130 I like to either put the pieces throgh the lathe back and stick the end i'm about to weld out the chuck and spin it up while holding some emery cloth to it, it cleans it up really nice with little effort, sanding off scale from plate steel is a B**ch with a flap wheel on a grinder and that's the easiest way i know of, there's a liquid you canget that takes scale off but it's so iffy that you have to wait so long for it to work you end up re-applying it a few times so it doestn' dry and then you are still left with a blotchy removal that's marginal at best I've heard that stronger acids take it off fast but i'm usually too busy with other stuff to worry about havingt things to neautralize acid with me while trying to weld something

I get a better looking bead with mill scale, it's odd.

 

[Fehrion_sit]

Forgive my awful phone picture taking skills....

its beautiful !

 

[gofer]

Forgive my awful phone picture taking skills....

That's why you get paid to weld and Shawna gets paid to take pictures.

 

[CODE4]

Not a close up of the actual weld, but it was a socket weld 1.5" sch ball valve installed on the plant's steam line for a drop. Two pass, 309 filler (black iron pipe to 304L valve assembly).

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[eviltsi]

That's why you get paid to weld and Shawna gets paid to take pictures.

^^^^This!

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[gofer]

That the end of the exhaust, a dumped o2 housing?

Looks great!

 

[CODE4]

^^^^This!

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Do you do a hot pass for full penetration followed up by a cap w/ filler? Or only a cap w/o full pen?

 

[Gamble97]

^^What's the diff? Please explain.

 

[CODE4]

^^What's the diff? Please explain.

The welds on the pie cuts are borderline cold (as shown from the color & bead profile) and could not have penetrated 100%, assuming that is standard 16 ga tubing. Some people like to have the color and bead profile as seen above, so the shop might do a root pass w/o filler to achieve full penetration followed by a decorative cap at a colder amperage for aesthetics.

Or a better way of describing it would be to show a pic of the inside of pie cuts. Are the joint lines visible, meaning no penetration, or is there a silver bead on the inside reflecting a good purge and breakdown of the joint.

 

[gofer]

I know absolutely nothing about welding but I noticed that "dashed" weld color difference and was wondering if it was for aesthetics or not?

 

[eviltsi]

It's .058/16 gauge and a root pass was done.

 

[turboglenn]

The welds on the pie cuts are borderline cold (as shown from the color & bead profile) and could not have penetrated 100%, assuming that is standard 16 ga tubing. Some people like to have the color and bead profile as seen above, so the shop might do a root pass w/o filler to achieve full penetration followed by a decorative cap at a colder amperage for aesthetics.

Or a better way of describing it would be to show a pic of the inside of pie cuts. Are the joint lines visible, meaning no penetration, or is there a silver bead on the inside reflecting a good purge and breakdown of the joint.

I doubt that's a cold weld, any coloration past "hey" or gold means you're actually too hot and there's early exposure to oxygen, You can weld 16 gauge SS pipe with only about 65 amps (less when it's heated up by the middle/end of the weld passes) That weld to me doesn't look cold and i'm down to bet there's full penetration, what makes that weld "look cold" to some is that there's filler used in regular dippings on that unlike most stainless which is done in an "autogenous" fashion where only enough filler is added to start the bond and or to prevent undercuttin the material. I've been certified on a few jobs for stainless work and i've also passed aircraft certification (one of the FEW taht lasts past a single job) but those were on aluminum (non cast) and chro-moly 4130 and 4140 using an ER70s-6 and Er80 fillers ( using 41xx chro-mo filler on aircraft or race car chassis is a ticket to catastrophe)

I'm not ripping into you I just want to know what makes youthink it's a cold weld

Also, to the person who welded it, HOw did you purge/back-gas it or did you use solar-flux B ?? i really rpefer the solar flux these days, with a correct thick mix of it and proper application i cut argon costs and use WAY down, and although it's 67 bucks a half quart (or was 5-6 years ago and probably more now) the stuff lasts so incredibly long that it is insane, even after what you mixed has dried you cna put it right back in the can to mix and use again if you dont' let it sit and get contaminants in it.

Here's a little "micro welding" I did last night, needed to do some -3 banjo fittings and I'll be damned if i'm paying 15 bucks a oiuece and waiting on mail order to get them here (not to mention shipiing on top of the price) So i took some old bad rubber brake lines that were bad, then cut the ends off, and took some -3 fittings and other fittings and drilled them out so there was a "slip fit" to the banjo ends and welded them together with some e309 Stainless (which is the most versatile alloy of stainless rod, can do so much with it that it's insane, I chose stainless for corrosion protection or it would have been ER70/80 grade filler, but the flexability isn't a concern with these, so stainelss works just fine

and yes, they have been put into service and have not leaked a drop the more years i weld the less entertaining doing your regular old SCh. 10/40 SS and any aluminum gets to be (Chro-mo is still fun and challenging) but anymore i like to try and weld anything that's challenging by either being tiny, super thin material or anything that requires good technique, control and will show any incorrect properties plain as day

 

[Imback]

I don't know why everyone always ask about back purging. Only time i backpurge is for a exhaust manifold. There is no need to backpurge on o2 housing or a exhaust for that matter. I also never understood the reason for laying 2 passes. Achieving the" LOOK " is not hard either just require a little more time.

 

[turboglenn]

I don't know why everyone always ask about back purging. Only time i backpurge is for a exhaust manifold. There is no need to backpurge on o2 housing or a exhaust for that matter. I also never understood the reason for laying 2 passes. Achieving the" LOOK " is not hard either just require a little more time.

Simple unavoidable fact and or physics of welding stainless steel is that if you get it to a molten state (i.e. fully penetrate the wall thickness during a weld) then the back side which exosed to oxygen will "grow" and "sugar up" as we call it, it kinda grows into porous grey/black pile of non stainless and brittle crap, I just made a down pipe welding video to put up when i edit some of it (just showed using solar flux instead of back purging to be exact)

But i will grab a piece of trash stainless and cover one half the inside with flux and leave the other bare, weld it all the same and show you the difference later on today, once you see it you'll never feel right about not back purging, at least for a customer i wouldn't knowing i am delivering an inferior weld..

There's "tips and tricks" to welding better or easier, then there's some things that are just "fact" and or "must haves" to do a PROPER weld, and back purging or fluxing SS is one of them, you'd never pass any kind of certification on a SS weld of anything you can fully penetrate without some how keeping oxygen out of the back of the weld... hell or else you could turn the argon off and weld stainless ifg back gas wasn't needed