New member Hello

[kenf]

I joined the welding web about a month ago, as I am a newbie to welding and looking for all the information I can get. I got started with welding after needing some welding work done on a street rod I am building, and I made the committment to do all possible work myself. I started with an O/A setup, but before I really learned how to do more than burn holes through metal, I found an old Lincoln 225a A/C unit at a yard sale for $15.00. And it worked!! I have used this stick unit to weld the crossmembers on my streetrod chassis, and now beginning some hole filling in the sheetmetal. I bought a HF Mig100 flux weld unit for $79.99 through their website, and now have 3 welders, very little experience, no formal training, and lots of questions. Talk about dangerous! I am from Boise, Idaho; about to turn 55, and finally getting the time and money to do all those things I've wanted to do for the last 35 or so years.

[PAToyota]

Best advice I can give you is to take a class. Check out the local community colleges or continuing education classes at the local high school. You can read a book or webpage all day, but just watching as someone "does it right" will put you way ahead of the game. Also, the feedback on what you are doing wrong and what you could be doing better gets you up to speed a lot faster.

Next thing is a strong suggestion to do some destructive testing of some of your sample welds. Especially with MIG, you can get a real "pretty" weld that has no penetration and no strength. Since you are working on a car and a weld coming apart could really mean death or destruction, you have to be confident that you know what you are doing. Not just for your own safety, but for the safety of passengers and drivers around you.

So weld something together and then take a hammer to it to see where it breaks and how much bashing it takes before it breaks. I've seen nice looking welds that completely came apart on the first blow.