I've been MIG welding quite a bit of sheet metal today. A couple of times I had to deal with some gaps and the metal was a bit thin for my welder's lowest heat setting.

Tired of blowing holes? Coat hanger to the rescue! Yep, a good use for those old wire coat hangers...

Kind of like gas welding with a torch... feeding the rod into the pool. You can feed the coat hanger into the area you are wire welding and fill the gaps. Get some filler in there and melt it into the sides... Works quite well.

Works good for small holes too... lay the wire across, melt off pieces as you need. Then melt it across and grind it off flush.

I'll start my progress thread soon too, but just thought I'd share a quick tip that came in handy today.

Also when you burn through... and need to fill a hole

take a piece of copper pipe....

give the piece of pipe a smackdown

you now have body shop stuff on the cheap

I have a friend who owns a ranch and stables horses. They are always kicking the bars out of the stalls and he uses coat hangers as welding rod to fix them...

Hey Tim

I am not sure what you were doing with the copper pipe. Are you using this behind the weld? Doesn't the copper contaminate the weld?

Mark

use the copper to back up the weld.

you can place the copper behind a hole, and weld right across it filling the hole. The coppers supprts the weld puddle, yet the weld doesnt stick to the copper either.

Thanks Tim

Can't wait to try it

Mark

QUOTE (TimT @ Oct 10 2005, 10:20 AM)

use the copper to back up the weld.

The copper will heat up rapidly though, if you are using it for more than one or two small holes. It can get too hot to handle very quickly. Have a small pail of water handy to cool off the "backing bar", and a towel to dry it off.

A block of carbon is also good for backing up a weld, and can handle the heat better than copper.

Sorry, but I'd have to classify this one as bad advice.

One of the first things they teach you in a "real" welding class is never use a coat hanger for welding rod, which is what you suggest. Coat hangers are made of unknown crap metal, while real welding rods are pure alloy metal. There are better ways to save a buck.

A Long time ago I was riding my motorcycle on a back road in Kentucky.
I stopped to offer help to an old timer on the side of the road with the
hood up on his '55 or '56 Chevy PickUp Truck. When I walked up to him
he was tapping a coat hanger wire on his radiator 'causing sparks.

I asked him what the hell he was doing and he said, "I'm fusing a hole in my radiator!
I got this carbon rod I wedged under the battery terminal out of an old flashlight
battery."

He touched one end of the coat hanger to the carbon rod under the positive battery terminal
while tapping the radiator with the other end of the coat hanger around the hole to close
it up!"

I watched him doit! It worked! Now that guy was a welder!

QUOTE (Rand @ Oct 10 2005, 03:03 PM)

A block of carbon is also good for backing up a weld, and can handle the heat better than copper.

Thats what I usually use (graphite), but they get hot too.

QUOTE (9146986 @ Oct 10 2005, 06:38 PM)

Sorry, but I'd have to classify this one as bad advice. One of the first things they teach you in a "real" welding class is never use a coat hanger for welding rod, which is what you suggest. Coat hangers are made of unknown crap metal, while real welding rods are pure alloy metal. There are better ways to save a buck.

If you use a real welding rod, this is good advice. Don't use a coat hanger.

QUOTE (9146986 @ Oct 10 2005, 05:38 PM)

Sorry, but I'd have to classify this one as bad advice. One of the first things they teach you in a "real" welding class is never use a coat hanger for welding rod, which is what you suggest. Coat hangers are made of unknown crap metal, while real welding rods are pure alloy metal. There are better ways to save a buck.

Vey very true.

Wonder why that horse rancher has to keep re-welding his stalls? If they were good the metal would bend before the welds break.

Just to clarify, my use was simply filling across a couple of small holes in sheet metal - not a structural weld that has to be strong. Using a coat hanger for filler is absolutely not a problem in this scenario. Not quite the same thing as using a coat hanger in place of welding rod.

At any rate, the main tip I was sharing is really the technique of filling with rod while wire welding. It comes in very handy sometimes. By all means, use real welding rod if it makes you feel better.