Learning to weld

[corbin.black]

Haven't posted in this thread for a while but figured its about time for an update as this week marks the one year mark from my first weld ever.
I did one semester of stick welding at USU (January to may 2014) and then took a month and a half of as I was over seas with the military. The week I got home from training I was contacted by a good friend telling me that his work was hiring. .long story short, I was hired as a MIG welder in West Jordan. After 6 months of non stop MIG welding axles together I feel I am making pretty good progress and I can say I absolutely love what I do every day!
Im going to start taking more pictures to show my progress and so I have something to look back on in a year from now




Ive also been teaching myself TIG. Ive only tried a couple of times but it seems much easier than I expected it to be


these welds were my second try at TIG

 

[zmotorsports]

Haven't posted in this thread for a while but figured its about time for an update as this week marks the one year mark from my first weld ever.
I did one semester of stick welding at USU (January to may 2014) and then took a month and a half of as I was over seas with the military. The week I got home from training I was contacted by a good friend telling me that his work was hiring. .long story short, I was hired as a MIG welder in West Jordan. After 6 months of non stop MIG welding axles together I feel I am making pretty good progress and I can say I absolutely love what I do every day!
Im going to start taking more pictures to show my progress and so I have something to look back on in a year from now




Ive also been teaching myself TIG. Ive only tried a couple of times but it seems much easier than I expected it to be


these welds were my second try at TIG

Nice looking welds and very good progression.

Keep it up.

Mike.

 

[BlueWolfFab]

My first attempt at walking the cup ha. It's like having 10 TV's on at once and you are trying to watch them all. Love learning TIG.

This was welding in a 3/16" slotted keyway so its supposed to be flat. My cup "steps" were too short though, creating a slow travel speed and too much heat, hence the grey color instead of the nice golds and blues.

 

[nnnnnate]

I sure could use some tips on welding thin sheet to tube. I've got some 18GA sheet that I'm going to be welding to 14 GA square tube for my trailer.

What I think I know:
- keep welds short at about 1" long
- give metal plenty of time to cool down so it doesn't warp

What I'm not sure about:
- where the sheet overlaps the tube and lays flat do I weld the top edge where the seam is or from the bottom at 90* joint first?
- do I set the welder to the thicker metal setting or kind of split the setting between the two?

I tried to find some stuff online yesterday talking about this but couldn't find really anything that helped.

 

[Kevin B.]

This is a single pass of .035 flux core in my Weldpack 100, on 3/16ths plate and hitch steel. I cranked the amps all the way up and set the speed for four, worked pretty good. Nothing like some of that weld porn upthread, but this is one of the prettiest beads I've laid so far and I'm proud of it.

I tried to use the stick welder first, I didn't bother taking pics of those nasty boogers, but they were nasty. Keeping that stick at just the right distance is hard.