I am on it again, this time I will get it right.

I'm using the millermatic, set on auto. My argon is set at 20, cheap harbor freight regulator , may be reading wrong. I ordered a good one. The welds are solid this Time but all over.

One more

Just looks like you are getting contamination and as a result, dirty welds. Be sure to clean the jeepers out of the surfaces you are intending to weld. There should be no contaminants. Paint, rust, grime, oil, dirt, french fries, etc... will all make your welds look like that.

.....

You have to get everything hotter. Plus move the wire in a horseshoe movment. I go in circles but I have welded a lot. Plus you may need to run a bottle with the wire you have or it needs to have flux in it.

Plus welding upright or upsidown is harder then it looks. You may just need some practice.

I use a argon,

Can you explain the horseshoe technique. By hotter, you mean more gas?

Using an extension cord?

Yeah , a heavy one.

Is there only one setting for how much power? The gas won't change anything unless u don't have any.

Btw, I have a Lincoln mig. I have never even looked at one from harbor freight. If someone can take a picture of the machine, I might be able to help with the setting.

Shouldn't this thread be in the Garage? Perhaps an Admin can move it.


Hotter means a higher voltage setting. If it's too hot, it will blow holes in the metal. Between blowing holes and your weld is the best setting.

I experimented with my Millermatic 135 for different metal gauges and wrote down the settings for voltage and wire speed.

As mentioned, the metal needs to be cleaned of all dirt, rust, paint, etc.

Horseshoe means you go side to side in tiny motions to even out the weld material. It will leave like a wave pattern. You can see this in professionally welded materials like this.

Thanks ,
It is in the garage. already ?

Are you using straight argon or mix of argon and CO2?

Hi 914itis,

OK, I'll give you some direction on how to imprpve the look and quality of the your welds.
Practice. Get some scrap metal and practice putting down a smooth and straight beed on a flat piece of sheet metal. Until you can do this, you will not be able to weld two pieces together.
Based on what you have posted and the look of your welds this is what I suggest:

If you are using only 100% Argon, change to 75%Argon/25%Co2. This will make all the difference. Straight Argon will not give you good penetration on steel. You can used the same gas cylinder and regulator you already have.

You should be using solid steel wire copper coated. I would recommend that you use .023"/0.6mm diameter wire. You could get away with using .030 wire but it burns hotter and would be more difficult for you to control penetration and warpage of the metal. Whatever you do, do not use gasless flux cored wire to weld on your car.

Clean metal is paramount, and good fit is even more important. It is very difficult to weld up a gap between two sheets of sheet metal. Make sure the metal is clean (NO SAND PAPER) use a non-silica abrasive. Wire brushes and abrasive discs are good.

Judging by the look of your welds I would say that you are holding the gas nozzle too far from the surface. Keep in mind that the gas you are using (either mixed or straight argon) is lighter than air so it wants to float away from the weld area. You need to hold the nozzle close to the surface. When practicing laying down a bead, lean the gas nozzle on the surface, drag the bead rather than push it, and lean the mig gun abour 45 degrees in the direction of travel. If you find it difficult to weld on a straight line or to follow the line where the two metals meet, mark the weld line with a sharpie. It will make it easier to lay the bead where you want it. Also, be careful with wind or brease from a fan blowing the gas away from the weld area. Wind will make a mess out of the weld beads.

The wire speed and heat setting (Amps) are related to each other. Feed the wire faster than you can burn it and you and up with welds that look like yours (globs of metal on the surface), feed the wire too slow and you will burn the wire to the tip.

To set up the wire speed properly pick a heat setting first. Then turn the wire speed way high, much higher than you will need. Then gradually slow it down untill you can hear an even bead, it's like a hiss. While the wire is too fast you will feal it pulsating at the gun, like pushing the gun away from the surface, and as you slow it down it will gradually even out to a smooth bead. you don,t even have to look at the arc. just listen to it.

If you are going to weld upside down you will need to run more gas. If you are having problems with burning through the metal, try overlapping tack welds instead of trying to put down a continuous bead.

Very important, if you are using galvanized sheet metal, make sure to grind the galvanized coating at least 1" on eather side of the weld area. The fumes from the burnt zink coating are very toxic.

Hope this helps and good luck with your welds.

Bill.

Great first post!

Is it windy where you are welding? Do you have a fan blowing on the area you are welding? In my experience you have to MIG in still air so the wind doesn't blow the shielding gas away from the weld. Just .02 worth.

Take your pick in this order
Not a good ground connection,
metal at weld is not clean. . you can't weld rust and paint
Heat set too low. .
shielding gas insufficient. . are you welding in the wind??

That's great informations Bill, I will put them to practice and report back.

Thanks

There was no wind.

great comments

Go here. Lots of good info
weldingtipsandtricks.com

Great site, also buy a book, "the welders handbook", usually available at most flaps. Ask the guys at the gas/weld shop for tips, I've been to a few and they seem to love to pass along tips and tricks. Make sure the tip in the gun is the correct size, I went through a 1/2 hour struggling using thinner wire, then I reLized I forgot to change to the appropriate size tip.

Practice on thick metal, it's easier and less frustrating, once you get the feel and sound switch to thinner metal.

Keep practicing!

I agree. Very nice

Take a pic of your welder and where its settings are at then flip open the lid and take a pic of the recommended settings. Myself or someone else will tell you where to adjust based on that.

Oh and we'll need to know how thick of wire your using, or trying to use.

Always start from the recomended settings and make adjustments.

ONE more thing. Take a pic of the inside two heavy wires. You could have them backwards.


Your metal is clean enough to weld but not very clean. You most likely have the heat setting to low.

PS, A good welder can weld right through paint, they just have to get it started on clean metal... I know.. I did it on galvanized metal all the time to prevent it from popping.

Got the same welder, Paul. And if your using your using auto set, 75/25 out of the wind and it's clean then it is, as Daytona suggested, gun position. Also, for beginners like you and me, it doesn't hurt to run a few practice beads on similar material before attacking our object piece. FWIW, I've been rediscovering gas welding. I forgot how much control it offers.

I really am not trying to sound like an @ss, but 76-914 hit the single biggest thing, _practice_. If you can't lay down a near perfect bead on scrap, sitting at the bench, then you have no chance of getting a good result on your rocker project.

If there is one thing I've learned about welding (and painting and a few other things) it's that it is always harder to do real work (e.g. sitting on the floor welding uphand with awkward access) than practicing so you need to really be able to nail the practice piece before moving on.

Please don't take offense - just trying to help.

You have gotten a lot of good advice, but I haven't seen the key piece clearly stated. I have seen welds that remind me of the glass eye they put on Dennis Hopper in Waterworld. They just don't stick.

OK the most very most very important thing in welding is the puddle. You are making a continuous piece of steel from three pieces the original, the patch piece and the wire. It is absolutely essential that you have a molten puddle in which all three contribute. The wire should contribute as little as possible. Ideally you have a lake of molten metal with one piece melted into one side and the other shore melting into the other. When it cools they are joined.

To do this several things are required. First you need to be able to see what you are doing. The helmet doesn't have to cost at top of the line but it MUST allow you to see that puddle. Another thing is that the puddle ain't gonna form on rust. That iron oxide is gonna cause all sorts of trouble include blazing away so you cannot see a durn thing. Also, the puddle will never merge with rust. So, I learned the hard way that any welding requires clean metal. Should be shiny. You will find out what you can get away with. With a mig you want the wire feed to fill only enough but not make gobs on the surface, so feed rate can make a difference. There is a temptation to feed in more rod or wire but that isn't what makes the weldf work.

What makes the weld work is melting the two pieces so that they become bonded by each other's metal. You can do this easiest with steel because it transmits heat poorly compared to other metals. That means you can melt a piece of the steel while having other parts happy as a clam in solid state.

Good luck.

If your on an auto setting and its sputtering like that you need to just stay welding in the spot your in until it starts to clear up. Basically "Burn" through the crap. It will give you a large weld on one spot but your penetration will be there and you will burn through the contaminates on the metal.

If not change your setting to manual and turn your heat up.

Way to much junk you are trying to weld over. Need clean metal. That wont clean with a wire wheel. Sand blast it with spot blaster..grind that stuff flat and then sand blast it again and you should have something that will hold a puddle.

The other obvious problem is you are missing the target altogether. You aren't hitting what you want to weld which tells me two things

1) to fast or poor hand control.
2) Can you see what you are aiming at when you pull the trigger. Can you see the puddle form as the wire lays down? Reason I ask the 2nd is this is what I see when auto darkening helmets no longer darken;batteries go dead and the operator trails of course because eyes are burning.

In any case practice on clean metal and learn until you have a weld that looks good and most important sounds good.

Upside down is actually easy with a MIG. Reverse the polarity and everything flows to ground (UP)

Paul, the tank refill was 25% CO2. You're running .030 wire. I had to figure out some settings when I used it but eventually it worked out. The .023 would have worked better on the 18 gauge, I believe.

And yes, I wire wheeled the bejeezus out of that hell hole repair...

I agree with practice but...

1) This area does not look clean enough for a good weld
2) The weld itself looks too cold. This can be caused by the Voltage too low, the wire feed too slow or the lack of CO2.
3) You should use C25 (25% CO2, 75% Argon) gas welding steel with a mig
4) Automatic setting means you need to weld just like the engineer's designed it
5) Practice, practice, practice
6) Don't practice on your 914, get some metal to play with.

clean metal and practice are your biggest problems, as others have said get some steel the same thickness as the area youre working on. spend 30 minutes setting the welder and practicing. you will know when you hit the setting you want the welder will sound like a swarm of bees and gun wont be jumping. when you do get the heat setting and wire speed set correctly remember its just sheet steel and you will warp the hell out of it if you stay on 1 spot too long or try a continuous weld. tack the corners and bounce around doing a 1/4 spot at a time allowing it to cool before you come back to that spot.

all good advise here.
practice on clean, dirty, fat, thin, flat, round
i would hit the scrap heaps and bring home some of everything to weld on untill it started to look right.
to make that puddle and be able to move it around takes practice.
the oxide expands, pops and spits the molten metal away.
small spot welds first will help transfer heat and help with burn thru on thin metal

I'm improving as I progress on my rustoration.
Get a helmet/lenses that works .............

I still haven't found the right combo yet myself. I've got the blue HF one. NOPE. Then Super In Law has some fancy $300 for his cataracts. Still not what I want.

I was up in The Couve and stopped at Airgas. The guys in the store said the mid price Lincolns worked the best for them. I'm going on vacation after the Fourth and I'll see if my store in Lake Grove has loaners.

My .02c. Its amazing what you can do when you can see the puddle.

Here is the practice sheet on a 16 ga steel.

I picked up that I was moving my hands too fast. I have to wait for the puddle before starting to move my hands with the stream.

Tell me wah you think.

My understanding, how I interpret that is more heat and cleaner metal. Still looks cold. The one time I have ever had the gas-feed-heat right it was like magic...it was not my welder, though

There is a lot of porosity in those welds. Try turning up your gas flow. If that doesn't do it, you may have an air leak somewhere in the regulator connections. Next would be to take the bottle back and have it refilled. Occasionally you can get a bottle that's been contaminated.

you should try practicing on some scrap metal. Oh, and use 75/25 mix, and make sure the metal is clean.

In your practice pictures it looks like not enough heat and wire speed to fast. when your heat and speed are right it will sound like a loud steak sizzling on the grill. John

I would not be mistaken for a good welder, but those don't look good. If everything
else was right, then you have a shielding gas problem. For reference, this is a pic
of the frontside of my testing various settings on 20-gauge. Notice that even though
I can't see well to make a straight line, the beads are smooth and don't have
spatter all over the place. You should check the back side for how much penetration
there is also.
Click to view attachment

Before going near metal pull the trigger. You must hear the gas valve open inside the machine. Then listen for the low hiss of gas flowing out of the gun.

As I mention on the first post, the gas was 100% argon And I don't trust the regulator. I have a regulator coming in tomorow and I will refill with 75/25.

I know it's far from being right but these are stronger than the first ones and I definitely develop some confidence from all the readings on this thread.
Thanks to all . I will post more sometimes tomorow evening.

You need to CLEAN the metal first. I can see you just grabbed a piece of metal and started welding. Actually take a sander or wire brush to it so it's bright and shiny. Let's at least see some scuff marks. Any contaminants on the metal will get thrown into the puddle and hose up your weld. Those sheets are treated to prevent rust.

We can help you after that with recommendations. Until you prep the metal you're your own worst enemy.

Look at the scuffed sheet on the right vs. your un-prepped sheet.

That metal was clean, brand new from Home Depot.
It's all from the weld.

Do not mig weld with straight argon. Get a bottle of 75/25. If you hear gas flowing your reg is probably o/k. Start by practicing on something a little thicker like 1/8" or 3/16" until you get the hang of it. What size wire are you running? Check your polarity. Ground/work clamp to negative & gun to positive for solid wire with gas. If you had flux core it will be opposite.

Your problem looks mostly to be a gas issue.