Not going to win any awards but something I'm proud of for only pipe welding a few days a month. 16" 5P Downhill
Nice work guys. Mark, that Al is sexy. Here's more free hand practice. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/browndogwelding/8289086977/" title="Izthistaken came over to shoot some welding pics tonight. This is what I was messing around with while he played with the camera. Free hand. by Brown Dog Welding, on Flickr"></a>
Figured I'd work on my off hand, this one was lefty: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/browndogwelding/8315259156/" title=""But can you do it with your left hand?" #goingbackwards #leftyforaday by Brown Dog Welding, on Flickr"></a> plain old righty <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/browndogwelding/8311701042/" title="Weld away the winter blues.... by Brown Dog Welding, on Flickr"></a>
This one was free hand: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/browndogwelding/8350422127/" title="Some #weldporn for the weekend. Freehand. Just trying to stay warm! by Brown Dog Welding, on Flickr"></a>
Walking the cup is a welding technique often used when weaving a larger pass on pipe or fillets. The cup rests on the work. I did that free hand, without letting the cup test the work. Different situations call for different techniques.
So at the risk of sounding stupid, you use a cup to rest your hand on to keep the proper distance from your work, right? I'm a novice welder with a mig, I've never tiged.
Spent several hours practicing my TIG welding this afternoon on 18g. Simple butt welds. After seeing these welds I think I'm going to put my unit to good use tomorrow. I'm going to weld the door to my garage shut. You guys are making me sick to my stomach !! Bruce/CT
For you pros. Is it normal that welding courses are about 30 hours give or take?? Im thinkin of gettin into it professionaly, but its hard to find a good school over here (italy) and the fact that its 4/5 days courses is sort of a put down. I mean, i weld since '05, but im sure being self-thought means tons of bad habits to fix. Maybe not, but since it aint free.... whatcha say?
Not sure I've got time for "great detail". Some machines have settings where you can adjust an arc's low amp, high amp, the duration it stays at each extreme, and how many times it cycles through those extremes per second. This way you can keep a consistent arc, but decrease overall heat input. In some cases, like with stainless steel, the pulsing can agitate the puddle as well...which settles the weld pool and brings contaminates to the "top" and out of the weld. On newer inverter machines you can set the pulse to cycle well into the triple digits, and when you weld it really doesn't effect your rhythm. Is it necessary? No. All the welders I use have the capability, but I rarely use it. If I'm working with thin ss I might, but other than that I typically don't. If you're "pulsing" the foot pedal, that's a bit different. You're just manipulating the heat input manually. It can be done, skillfully, but you've got to have a good grasp of what's going on in the puddle. People that throw the term around tend to think it's some kind of magic bullet that shoots stacks of dimes. It's not. The ratio of it's usefullness to the average guy compared to the average guy's fascination with it is pretty distorted. This is in regards to TIG welding. I do a lot of pulse MIG, it's a bit different.
j, when I tig, I can barely control my breathing, ad filler, watch the puddle, least of all pulse my foot controller. No pulse for me, I try to keep the weld clean and tight. Sorry, the pics suck.
I know this may be a vague question or comment, but at my shop I have a Miller Diversion 165, not a bad little machine, I used to have a Lincoln Squarewave Pro before we got robbed last summer. I'm just not as happy with the Diversion as I was with the squarewave. The Squarewave would lay much smoother beads, even though both machines only have amp control. I fell in love with a Dynasty I had a chance to use a few months ago, I was able to lay beads that looked like they were done by a robot. Obviously there is much more you are able to control with the Dynasty, and hopefully I can eventually pick one up. I'd like to get a machine where I can control more settings to dial in a perfect weld, but I need to study up on setting up, is there any sources online to read up on the settings, or guidlines to really go by?
lol Can you graph that please? I don't think I've ever used the auto pulse feature. Maybe that's a way to differentiate between the two: auto pulse vs. manual pulse? Welder pick-up line: I only manual pulse, baby. No need for coins in the bed.
Thank you. So, basically electronic pulsing is really unnecessary unless for very thin sheet metal? b) i was getting the term pulsing confused with using the pedal to pulse, which i did a little in school---because the instructor wanted us to on aluminum (not sure why). Btw, i'm not gay (not that there is anything wrong with that) but i kind of look up to you as a welder and person and i think i love you (in a platonic way). i hope i have not creeped you out. b) i have not slept really well in the past few days which may explain my unabashed outflow of emotions. (sort of like being drunk, not that i get drunk often) Thanks again.
So... I'm new here ans I'm glad I stumbled across this thread. I have been welding awhile for hobby and am about to make the jump to do it as my second career. Currently getting my 3G and 4G certs with 7018. Also working on my TIG skills. Here is one I did with OXY/Acetylene T Joint thin sheet (not sure of actual thickness) and some practice on my "keyhole" open V.. you can see the progression.. solid 3 hours, 3 passes ea. still not where I want to be. I'll post more as it goes on... Mike
So, with freehand versus walking is it a bragging rights thing? I see welds that look great either way. I do see the witness marks sometimes on pieces that someone has "walked" on, but the weld itself seems to look just as nice. If it's bragging rights I fully get it. I would be bragging as well.
I was totally joking about the manual pulse thing- didn't mean any disrespect at all. Controlling the heat on auto pulse is the main deal, from my perspective. It's easy to let the heat affected zone go wild by the end of the weld if you just peg the amps and let the pulse max out every time. With manual pulse (and auto pulse with manual amp control), you can effectively reduce the amps towards the end of the weld and keep the material temp constant, which prevents burning through at the end of the weld.
P.S. One reason why i was asking about pulsing is because i'm looking at, say a miller dynasty 200: The SD base model doesn't(?) have pulsing while the DX model does, but the price difference could be $300-$500 between the two.....
Good job, Keep going. And don't be afraid or ashamed to love another man. a) i'm am generally referring to platonically. b) But if further----romantically or other wise there is nothing wrong with that either.
You guys got me cracking up As far as bragging rights....there ARE certain certs that don't allow you to touch the cup to the work piece. I've never run into them, but they exist. So there is a reason to know how to do that. But honestly, this is just me challenging myself. I don't have much use in my particular line of work for walking the cup either...but I enjoy it. Then I do something and someone says "yeah, but can you do it free hand?" ...so I try it. Then someone says "well that's ok, but can you do it left handed?" ....so I try it. And all in all, it translates to other techniques and other forms of welding too. Watching the puddle, controlling your torch and the heat, being able to work lefty or righty, it's stuff every weldor should work on anyways.
The Jalopy Journal
