Welding GODS, grace us with your presence

[Provience]

When adjusting gas flow for MIG what flow is best? I am using .030 wire with 70/30 argon/co2 .

to be perfectly honest, i don't MIG with gas hardly ever. 15-22 on the dial will do all the things with pretty much all the nozzles, if you are outside in the wind and notice an issue (porosity) turn it up a bit and/or put up a windscreen. i tend to run ~18



that said, if you really want to get parsnickety, it depends on the joint and the environment. the shielding gas is there to create a bubble free of oxygen to keep the molten metal from combining with the free oxygen and thus being unable to stay in one piece. it will turn in to porous nonsense. this is a bad picture, but you can kind of see a couple of the holes in this weld. the second picture is how far i had to grind to get through all the holes. This is just from a tack weld without enough gas causing instant porosity, then just welding over the top about 4 passes. the separated metally bits don't float out, they are essentially rocks. This is bad, if you see that, grind it out right away and start fresh.

if you are doing some very repetitive stuff and want to maximize your gas cylinder life, you can set up a template joint and turn down the gas 1-2 while making a short weld ~1 or 2" long. turn it down until you get an issue, go back up to where it was clean and weld from there. If you are going into a deep channel or a T joint you don't need as much gas flow as you do with a butt weld, because the gas hits the walls and has less area to get lost. same thing with a draft, you don't need as much flow if there is no draft as with a slight breeze.

for some reason i can't find one of those handy charts online that show the difference between various shielding gasses. Basically, pure AR gives you a wider weld, pure CO2 gives you a deeper weld, 75/25 gives a neutral balance of the two, Helium also gives a different pattern, can't recall if it was more extreme wide/shallow or narrow/deep

75/25 is great for steel, pure AR for aluminium

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

When adjusting gas flow for MIG what flow is best? I am using .030 wire with 70/30 argon/co2 .

to be perfectly honest, i don't MIG with gas hardly ever. 15-22 on the dial will do all the things with pretty much all the nozzles, if you are outside in the wind and notice an issue (porosity) turn it up a bit and/or put up a windscreen. i tend to run ~18

I run only 10-15. Indoors and the shop has very still air.

I might crank it a bit more for something stupid like an outside edge run vertical... Normally I forget and wonder why the weld went to shit.

[Provience]

I run only 10-15. Indoors and the shop has very still air.

I might crank it a bit more for something stupid like an outside edge run vertical... Normally I forget and wonder why the weld went to shit.

10 sounds low as my balls on a warm summer evening being a cheap bastard, i stick with FCAW. I did actually buy a small 75/25 tank that i was going to use with some 0.023" wire to do some body work on a jimmy one time. well, it was parked outside so i said screw it and just used Flux Core. tack, tack and some wire brushing in between and it came out just fine.

[arse_sidewards]

Flux core is highly underrated. Even with absolute shit wire you don't get that much spatter if the material is clean.

[Joe_the_ice_man]

Question for the welding gods, what is the correct tool to cut out these sleeves so I can replace them?

I have access to an angle grinder and an acetylene torch. I'm thinking the torch might be better, but given my inexperience I'll put the question to the "Welding GODS".

[Johnny5]

Just a little play in your skid steer bucket lol use er till she rips out

[Joe_the_ice_man]

Just a little play in your skid steer bucket lol use er till she rips out

That's my thought too, but it's my dad's machine...so I'll fix what he wants.

According to him, them sleeves are more urgent than the screaming pump and motors, as well as having to add about 5 gallons of hydraulic oil every other month...it's his machine...

I pay shop space rent by fixing the stuff he doesn't have time or patience for, hence the fixing of the sleeves.

[Johnny5]

Well id torch off most of it but that sleeve is gonna go inside the braces a little so thatll be the tricky oart to get out. Careful as ya can cut it out and weld in some new sleeves. Gonna need a new pin and bushing on the cylinder.
And once ya are ready to weld in new sleeve make sure pins and bushings and such are installed so that ways its as “true” as it can be.
Sounds like the unit has more issues than a slightly worn out bushing tho haha. Is it leaking that 5 litres? Or is it “disappearing”? Lol

[Joe_the_ice_man]

Well id torch off most of it but that sleeve is gonna go inside the braces a little so thatll be the tricky oart to get out. Careful as ya can cut it out and weld in some new sleeves. Gonna need a new pin and bushing on the cylinder.
And once ya are ready to weld in new sleeve make sure pins and bushings and such are installed so that ways its as “true” as it can be.
Sounds like the unit has more issues than a slightly worn out bushing tho haha. Is it leaking that 5 litres? Or is it “disappearing”? Lol

Already got bushings and pins, just need to get the old ones out, not too concerned about fitting stuff, that should be easier than getting those sleeves out...

As far as the oil, it's leaking from at least 2 rams and 1 axle. So I'll see about fixing that too while it's in the shop. Also, that's not liters of oil, it's GALLONS. It took 5 GALLONS of oil to get it back to a happy level earlier this week.

[Provience]

I would use the torch, 100%. torches cut pretty good angles, just be aware of where your oxygen stream is pointed.

if the bushing isn't bent at all and it is just that little bit of weld where you can access it, you could probably use a cutoff wheel to get most of the way through the weld and a big hammer to slam it out.

either make the bushing oversized or do some weld washers to fix the diameter if you fuck up the roundness of the housing, pretty easy fix if you go too far, so go with confidence!

[Provience]

on the subject of this thread: Just because you CAN probably means you SHOULD

made up some exhaust stuff, some of it was overlapped, some of it was gaps from trying to cheat angles, some of it was just butt welds....used the flux core for 90% of it managed to burn 3 holes in it some of the ugliest weld i've seen in a long time, but i couldn't hold the trigger long enough to count to 4 without having issues, so the puddle wasn't really molten enough to get all the crap out (aluminized steel) so lots and lost of little weld, wait for it to cool and got a decent bit of air pockets, mountains and other fun things

16gauge, used number 2 on my voltage setting...whatever that is. 17 volts maybe? I dunno

used the tig on just the funky Y part, but only because i was hammer fitting a 3" pipe to two 2-1/4" pipes while welding, so i wanted to be able to play with adding heat vs adding wire

[ridenby]

Got some of my problems figured, fuckn feed roller was for flux cored, changed it. Much better. Now to get myself to stop pushing torch down like a stick. damn modern stuff.

[Provience]

Got some of my problems figured, fuckn feed roller was for flux cored, changed it. Much better. Now to get myself to stop pushing torch down like a stick. damn modern stuff.

You can likely play around with your wire speed (BLASPHEMY!) if you don't feel like you are getting the same resistance. get to the point where it feels like you are driving it in with the torch. if it is pushing back up on you turn up the heat. at some point you will be able to move fast enough or it will burn all the way through and blow out the bottom

[Scoobienorth]

https://youtu.be/_u31t13QO6A

I’ve been watching some welding and fab videos. I’ve always been scared of patch panels and such but this was completely new to me as far As techniques to do it. I’d Be willing to give this a try, pretty basic really

[arse_sidewards]

For the kind of body work we do on off road vehicles I'm really not a fan of welded patches if you can't access the back side. With rivets you can pre-drill, de-burr and paint both panels before fastening them together and this leads to much better rust resistance than you get from the back side of a welded panel where you've cooked the paint (if there was even any there) off.