ReplyIf you're on a 110-120V, 20A outlet, the practical limit is 1/8" for good fusion. Cut and etch those practice welds so you can feel the tears roll down your face, lol. Yea it won't be good from a penetration standpoint.
Solderer
Machine: Ironton Flux Core 125
Wire: Lincoln Innershield NR-211-MP .035
These are my first ever welds, I'm 100% new to welding and I know this machine is not exactly first-rate, but it's what I got. I'll step up to a better machine when I think I'm ready.
Machine was set to the higher voltage level and I played around with the wire speed...found that it was sticking well between 5-6. Material is 1/4" steel, some slag left but you get the idea. Any pointers you awesome guys & gals can provide would be amazing, thank you!!
Supporting Vendor
If you're on a 110-120V, 20A outlet, the practical limit is 1/8" for good fusion. Cut and etch those practice welds so you can feel the tears roll down your face, lol. Yea it won't be good from a penetration standpoint.
Solderer
Lol. It is on 120V, 20A outlet...this is about all I can do until I move into a home. I'm going to cut that piece in half and see what's up, I have welds on both sides.Originally Posted by Oscar
Am I going to fast/slow on these beads? I tried all kinds of positions as well, I like them all pretty equally...but I always drag/lead the puddle.
WeldingWeb Apprentice
Not bad, couple turds there but not bad.
You were given enough some solid advise abovery. Remember. 001 per amp approx for penetration. You can weld thinker than 1/8" just needed to be beveled with a root pass, and multiple cover beads.
Moderator
Beads are humped and obviously too cold. You really need to be close in output to the material you are welding to get an idea on if your travel speed is too fast/slow.
Consistency isn't bad though. Your beads are also nice and straight, something many have issues with when starting out. If you were doing these at the school, I'd want to see longer welds though. That really shows consistency and straightness better than short 1-2" long beads.
.035 wire is probably too much for a small machine like that. While it will run, you will get better results with .030 wire as the wire itself won't eat up all your output just to melt.
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Solderer
Gotcha, looks like I got a lot of practice ahead of me...which I can honestly say I am having a blast doing. I've read/seen so much on here in the past few months and I'm happy to finally practice it all.
I heard the same about the wire from a welder buddy, but it will probably quite some time before I finish this 10lb spool :/
Thank you all for your help!
Last edited by MK2MR2; 08-30-2016 at 06:11 PM. Reason: Spelling Errors
Supporting Vendor
You can definitely get a better result by beveling to a edge on both sides and weld both sides. By the time you do the initial pass on the "back" side, it will be nice and toasty enough that it will be essentially pre-heated for you, which is kinda like a small boost in the welder's output power for when you do the subsequent cover passes to build up the weld bead profile. The problem with all this is that in the real world, you hardly ever get the chance to do this.
