Technical welding, whats needed, and how is it done best with a budget?

Follow the safety warnings, they’re all facts! And here is a couple more.
1. Don’t weld in your underwear! It just starts them on fire.
2. If you flash burn your eyes take a raw potato and cut it in half and put them over each eye to the cut side. The starch helps mellow out the stinging.

 

Well said Gene , wonder if they'll listen any better than we did ?

 

At the time I started welding as a Boilermaker, the average age at death of a full-time welder who started welding at the age of 18 was 42. I've beat the odds by a bunch, others I've known have been gone for decades.

 

FORGET ALL THE SAFETY WARNINGS ABOVE ............

OK guys, all the safety warnings you gave are correct and should be used..........but most of them apply when you are doing a lot more welding and usually on thicker stuff than sheetmetal. I say lets not confuse the OP by trying to make him think about too many things when hes just trying to get those first initial beads and some feel for what he is doing.

Yes you don't want to weld without a pair of Levis that cover the top edge of your shoes, cause sparks will land in your shoe and burn holes in your socks.
Yes you want to have some decent gloves. You don't want heavy thick gloves because they make it more difficult to control the gun. I would go to a local welding shop and get some of the welding gloves that are made from goatskin or something like that. They will be gray with brown wrist covers. They will be very soft and cost about $15. You will like them a lot..........(Try them on to get the right size, not too tight)

When you first strike your arc, you must get the gun near the part then flip your helmet down and pull the trigger. There is a moment when you don't see and then the spark lights things up. These style helmets have fallen out of favor and most people want the newer style helmets with auto-darkening. That means when you flip the helmet down you can still see........and that helps a lot. When you strike the arc, the helmet automatically darkens. Thats really helpful when you are in odd positions or under a vehicle. Harbor Freight sells a decent autodark helmet pretty cheap. See if any of them have replacable batteries or you have to replace the helmet when the battery dies.

After you get where you can make welds, you may want to step up to a better helmet with "clear view", which allows you to have auto darkening and a much clearer view of what you are doing.....but for now the HF will get you going.

The whole idea that you want to grasp is to make small spot weld beads with a mound of weld. Just paractice doing that and not getting burnt.

One other thing is that people often don't realize that they aren't seeing the weld very well. If you need glasses to read then get some cheap readers $5-$10 to wear. Experiment with maybe one optically stronger size when welding.

Like I said, get to making the tack welds/spot welds till you get comfortable doing it....hand /eye co-ordination. Burn yourself a few times along the way.......then in a day or two you can start running small welding beads. They will probably look like crap initially, but can give you some more tips later.

Just don't want you trying to remember a million things while initially trying to weld. Remember how hard it was to drive a car the first time. How hard is it now?

 

i found out why i cant see anything with my dads helmet, it has a cheater lense in it so my dad could see! its magnified to his prescription.

 

HA! that will make a difference!

 

A #9 or #10 should work for you. #11 and #12 are for big stuff.

 

BTW, after the wonderfulness of Moi and maybe Gene-Koning , my son Wayne is the best welder on the planet . The_Cat_of_Ages lives close enough that he's making the trip so Wayne can teach him something. Looking forward to progress reports

 

I did some quick and dirty welding to help out a classmate when I took a welding class, no gloves and a white t-shirt. Whatta sunburn in March...

 

I did some welding with gloves and no shirt when I first got a buzz box long ago, learned that lesson quick

 

I find I can weld much better if I take everything outside on a bright, sunny day rather than staying in the shop.

 

Welding outside IF there's a breeze , really messes with your shielding gas .

 

That's why they make cardboard, plywood and tarps .

 

I have a steel table with a vice that I use for welding many things. There is a shelf on the wall above the table that sticks out about half the tables width. I mounted an LED type flourscent light under the shelf. It works great for providing more light for welding.

Don't know if you can still find them, but years ago I got the faces off some of the old style computer monitors and saved them. You can set them next to whats being welded to prevent breezes and they let someone look at whats being welded without getting a flash.

 

Don't plywood, cardboard & tarps ( all flammable BTW) block the light ?

 

I welded a steel frame outside, to serve as a carport, with a HF auto darkening helmet. I was getting some odd flashes of light, that ended up damaging my eyes. That was 5 years ago, and they have somewhat healed. Anyone else have a problem welding overhead outside with an auto helmet, with similar experience ?

 

Not just outside but I had the bay doors open and the afternoon sun was playing havoc with my auto darkening lens. I had to shut the doors.

 

Be careful !

 

They block the wind and they don't have to be right next to what you're welding. Come weld with me on a water tower sometime and you'll see what I mean

 

Oh, shit. All these years welding and now you tell me. I'm flammable, and I block a fair bit of light.....

 

Marty, I've never had an auto darkening helmet until this year, so I've never tried overhead outside with one. My standard setup for outside in sunlight has always been a #9 lens. A #10 works inside but is too dark for outside. Wish we could still get the gold glass lenses but it seems now all they have are the plastic ones with the laminated gold that chips off. As for the flash burn, someone here suggested cutting potatoes in half and sticking them on your eyes. We always shredded them as the potato juice did help out with the pain. Then there was the added benefit of having readymade hash browns to cook for dinner that night .

 

Professionals are using these auto darkening hoods.
While old farts are using the old hoods because thats what they learned on and do ok .... they get by and are not professionals.
Facts of life .... you show up on the job site wearing a 30 year old hood you would probably get laughed off the job .... Same time the employer would probably never hire you in the first place at your job interview, ..... Oh I'm going to get slammed for my opinion on this ..... I have thick skin.

To answer your question .... cheap helmets work .... I have one. I had issues with it and the first thing I fixed was replacing the cheap battery they ship with. .... It was worn out from sitting on the shelf.
Replacing the battery it actually worked ok.

I then had a chance at a good helmet at a sale price and bought it. I also replaced the battery in it before using it .... The difference between the cheap helmet and a better quality helmet was obviously noticeable.
My good helmet is not good enough for a daily job using it .... but a decent helmet for at home.

I also use some decent safety glasses under my helmet that offers uv protection.
My eyes are sensitive and they do help ... so if my helmet is slow in reacting I still have some protection.

Those old helmets work just as good as double clutching a non syncro transmission ..... nice to know but not practical in todays world.

 

i priced out an auto dimmer, its a tad out of my pricerange so im going to use my dads non magnified fixed lense

 

Auto darkening helmets should be ANSI Z87.1 2003 certified which means they are required to give full UV protection even if they fail to darken.

 

I've used the auto darkening helmets for years. I get about 4 years out of them before they didn't function consistently and they got replaced. I've had the expensive helmets, don't waste your money. Don't buy the dirt cheap helmets either, they have a very short life, and questionable function. The true view helmets are great, but buy the ones with replaceable batteries. Only buy any auto darkening helmets with replaceable batteries, for that matter.

Since I've retired, I don't do a lot of welding these days. I've found that the auto darkening helmet batteries are usually dead when I want to weld. I've gone back to the old flip down helmet. That did take some getting used to again, but at least it functions without having to replace the batteries every time I want to weld.

 

That will work. All us old guys learnt using them.
But you will get eye flash burns. Be aware, be careful, and grab some spuds.....

 

Battery life seems to be where inexpensive helmets fall down even with brand name batteries. I have had my Millar for about 8 years and have replaced the batteries once.

 

A auto darkening hood from Amazon starts at $40 + shipping.

A helmet like you have works good with A tombstone welder ..... welding sheet metal is a different story.
It is a series of spot welds inches apart. ...... The average youtuber welding these parts wont even wear a helmet to spot weld in sheet metal ... they just locate it and turn their face & close their eyes.
Once the metal is properly spot welded then they put on the auto darkening helmet & weld the rest of it in.

Seriously, I'm all about cheap and getting things done .... if you cant spend $50 on a welding helmet ... you really do not need to be building a car.

 

flash burns? i thought the helmet saved you from that

 

i mean compared to just using what i have 50 is a lot. if i can avoid spending money i typically do just that and work with what i have.