keep a fan around huffing molten metals cant be good for you.
all good advice, practice is key, at school they made us put together four pieces of metal 3" or 4" wide and about a foot long making a cross, then we filled each of the four sides up with weld. by the end it was a heavy bitch and welding was easy.
i wouldnt go that far but doing something close to that is a good idea, practice with it in the horizontal postion until you get comfortable then switch up to a vertical postion and practice that for a while, change your settings a bit to understand but they are simple.
at first just weld and weld, hold your gun at a 45* to the work, get your heat up high, dont rush it let it fill the surface before moving on. the weld should look almost flat with maybe a slight crown the good ones in the picture look good. start to watch the puddle, mainly the cooling edge this is your finsihed product, on your practice piece after you can weld smooth and consistant then try to do a slight whip away from the puddle for a second then back to it for a couple of seconds then whip away again, this will also be helpful in the vertical postion plus done right you can make it look like TIG work
After getting the verticle postion down then pipe/tubing is pretty easy too, i would start with some 3" or 4" pipe (then work your way down to what youll work with) cut it into 6 each 2" pieces slightly bevel them and tack together with a small gap 1/16th" or 1/8th" between each one all lined up then weld on a piece of flat bar to clamp into your vice. a row of these and you will be an old pro, work from up bottom and down from top and meet on the sides.
Pipe is usually done in 3 passes, cleaning well with a wire brush between passes, first one is the root pass, close in and cooler to fill the gap with weld, second the hot pass to burn out any junk left and fill the main part of the joint, when this is done it should be almost flush with the pipes, then third the cap pass to dress and cover the weld, this should crown over the pipes at the joint. Once you done all that you are a pro welder.
but HA! the small stuff for tubing will probably be one pass and more working with gussets and spreading out the load across more of the tube, the practice drills help no matter matter what you weld.
I've wanted to learn to weld for a long time, but I've never known where to get materials to practice with. Buying a bunch of brand new stock to destroy sounds expensive. So...
Where is a good place / what is a good way to get materials for practicing welding?
If you live near Winchester, Va go to Zuckerman's, they will give you all the practice bits you can handle. They are located on US11 just east of where 37 joins with I81 on the north side of Winchester. Or, you can help me clean my scraps from behind my parents shop, they have been bugging me for a while about that.
Wingfixer wrote:If you live near Winchester, Va go to Zuckerman's, they will give you all the practice bits you can handle. They are located on US11 just east of where 37 joins with I81 on the north side of Winchester. Or, you can help me clean my scraps from behind my parents shop, they have been bugging me for a while about that.
IN! what weekend do you want to do that?
Ken
Die young as late as possible, remember who you were before the world told you how it should be. -- Barry Morris
I'll let ya know, I am pretty booked up for the next few weeks off. I will most likely just bring you a pile of junk metal you can play with. I will try to come up with a little time so I can show you a thing or two if you want.
Wingfixer wrote:I'll let ya know, I am pretty booked up for the next few weeks off. I will most likely just bring you a pile of junk metal you can play with. I will try to come up with a little time so I can show you a thing or two if you want.
I'm always interested - have promised Grady copious quantities of cold beer for some tutoring too
Ken
Die young as late as possible, remember who you were before the world told you how it should be. -- Barry Morris
Another basic to remember is to make sure your material is clean. Sometimes it looks clean, but often has a thin oil coat to prevent rusting. Contaminants can really mess with a weld too.
Thanks for the info, Wingfixer! I'll keep it in mind for when I finally get a welder. Now that I have some sort of an idea on where to get some practice materials, I'm much more inclined to get one.
and other irrelevant chit-chat 
