First welds Clarke 151Te / 1.5mm sheet:-

[carlos420uk]

Had a bit of a play last night. I am using:-

Clarke 151Te Turbo Mig
0.6mm Machine mart wire (I know it's not the best)
0.6mm tip
Welding onto 1.5mm mild steel prepared to a shiny finish

Here are a few pics of what I have come up with. Various power settings and wire speeds used here along with testing out different techniques. The taller welds are using "Max 1" setting with a wire speed of around 6, and the flatter wider welds were achieved using "Max 2" with a wire speed of around 8.5. I found that I could get more or less penetration by moving the torch slower or faster across the piece.

Only problem I am having now is that I ran out of wire. So I got a new reel of 0.6mm and installed it as per the tutorials, but no matter how I adjust the tensioner or the spool I can't seem to get the motor to run with a smooth sound unless I am at the higher end of the wire speed dial. I am sure that before I installed the new roll the old one used to feed smooth even at the lower speeds and the motor sounded "Right" if that makes sense. It's almost as if there is a restriction causing motor to have to work harder than needed. The first 2 pictures are of the welds with the new reel of wire that I'm not sure if it's feeding right and the last 2 pictures are from the night before on the old reel that came set up in the welder.

I am working up to butt welding in a few very small patches to the 0.8mm floor of my project car, but feel I'm a long way away from actually being confident in doing so without blowing holes everywhere.

Any advise at all on how to progress would be much appreciated, I'm more than willing to listen and learn.

 

[steveo3002]

is the new wire wound neatly on the real? some of the cheapies are wound up like a birds nest

as for your 0.8mm floor , you want to look at the thin metal technique , thats welding in a series of small bursts so you dont burn holes

 

[shenion]

Some cheaper wire is not wound well. The Clarkes are decent machines but thier wire feed is minimal.

Could be cheap Chinese wire. I have a roll that never fed properly as the wire diameter varied. It also corroded near overnight. This is on a welder with a motor the size of a soup can.

Could also be the tension on the reel is too high. Another thing is I have had the label on reels drag on the hub as the label glue gets exposed.

Those welds look great. You are coming along nicely.

I'd invest in a rell of the Lincoln wire from Weldequip. I use the same wire and never had any problems or it get corroded.

 

[Springerdinger]

Welds look good, good penetration
Try some butt joins and have ago at plug welding as the two techniques will serve you well on the car resto work
The butt joins on thin metal is where the thin metal techniques come in
as you can practice not distorting panels, and avoiding blowing holes
practice tack welds at about 1 inch apart then joining them up

hope this helps

Looking good keep th epics coming
Cheers
Chris

 

[Wozzaaah]

Another vote for a badly wound reel of wire.
I had one that flatly refused to feed once it got down to about 1/4 full so I chucked it in the bin.
Some nice welds there, well done!

 

[carlos420uk]

Thanks all for the kind comments and advice, it's good to at least know that I'm on the right track as far as the welds go.

I will take the advice given and get some decent quality wire. After all the stuff I have at the moment is cheap, so in the bin for that I think. Really need to find a good local supplier.

I'll move on to practising some butt joints using the thin metal technique and see what I can come up with. Hopefully it won't be too much of a learning curve as I really need to get cracking with the car and get it to the paint shop.

Here are a couple of pics. It's a track prepared Civic Type R that I've been working on for the last 12 months or so. All work carried out by myself in my little garage apart from the cage fitting which was done by a well known company:-

 

[carlos420uk]

Was itching to have another go tonight so had a play with the tensioner and spool spring and got it to feed nice again I'm still going to get some proper wire though.

Tonight's practise session was with some 1mm sheet. I did a few test welds straight onto the steel first to get the settings about right. I found that I could use either min 1 at wire speed 6 or min 2 with a wire speed of 8 and could achieve decent welds with either, the latter giving the best penetration.

Next I thought I'd have a go at a butt weld, so cut a little square out of the sheet with a dremmel. Because of the thickness of the cutting disk the square cut out had too much of a gap to weld all of the way round so I choose to butt up flush with one corner giving me 2 sides to weld up. I layed down a few spot welds on the lower heat setting as I was worried about blowing through and they held successfully so I started adding more spots until I had welded up both sides. I didn't have that much light on the table so found it hard to see and align all the spots properly. I then ran a weld over the top of the spots in an effort to melt them all together but the heat was too low I think and the weld ended up a little tall. Penetration on the back was mediocre so I ran over that also to seal everything up.

After this I had a go at the stop / start technique straight onto the sheet as per the video. I could see the molten pool glow up red hot with each burst so let off the trigger at that point then just at the point it began to cool I was blasting another spot half way into the previous one so as to join them up. I was pretty chuffed with the finished welds and they certainly had enough penetration Tomorrow I will try the same on another butt weld.

 

[Springerdinger]

Hi Carlos

The tacks look spot on, and you don't apear to have burnt through the 1mm sheet.
the beading tacks that join the first fixing tacks need to be closer together. its sort of on, off, on, off with the trigger. when its done it will look like a beed.

you can do a run of about an inch and then move to a different section while the first section cools.

With thin sheet its when the area you working gets generally hot that you tend to burn holes - it means you stayed in the area too long - you can use a heat sink behind it (copper)

It has taken me ages to be consistant with this and even then I have good days and bad.
If you get that sussed you wont need to lay bead over the top. which probably does not add much strength and may leave you lots of grinding down to do.

if you feel the first layer of weld is off the mark, grind that down and go again.

Blowing holes - just in case-
If you blow small holes in thin sheet . Let it cool you can fill them in with a quick flick of the trigger on,off,on,off on a low power setting around the hole. That gives you something solid to fill the hole with. You can then grind it down, and finish it with a flapper disc.

Look at you work from both sides after the thin metal technique and look for pin holes
check it as well after grinding and sanding. As you get better at thin metal work there will fewer pin holes

The penetration your getting looks good and your runs are neat.
I always find that no matter how much practice i do on a sheet of metal when i'm working on the car at funny angles in tight spots or upside down you just have to go for it. Its the best practice at the end of the day.

Drill some 7mm or 8mm holes in a plate 1mm or 1.5mm thick and have a go at plug welding it to another plate. Thats the other technique that will come along and is really useful for car work
If you are replacing a full panel that was originally spot welded you can plug weld it rather than seam weld it. Unless track rules require seam welding

Nice job so far good luck on the car - Hope this helps

Chris

 

[DrRob]

I have the same machine and am about to start testing with the settings in the manual compared to the findings described here (http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=3071&highlight=%27Clarke+manual+settings+wrong)
Have you seen this? I'll soon find out which one works best

 

[campervan]

looks a nice project you got going there,local supplier i use is birmingham welding supplies in the jewelry quarter gas bottles, tips wire ect also fills me bottle altho at mo chap who i was doing some work for had abot ten rolls of 6mm 5kg and two 8mm last time i was down there as he gave me two 6mm as payment so i sold them on here for £10 each

 

[carlos420uk]

Hi Carlos

The tacks look spot on, and you don't apear to have burnt through the 1mm sheet.
the beading tacks that join the first fixing tacks need to be closer together. its sort of on, off, on, off with the trigger. when its done it will look like a beed.

you can do a run of about an inch and then move to a different section while the first section cools.

With thin sheet its when the area you working gets generally hot that you tend to burn holes - it means you stayed in the area too long - you can use a heat sink behind it (copper)

It has taken me ages to be consistant with this and even then I have good days and bad.
If you get that sussed you wont need to lay bead over the top. which probably does not add much strength and may leave you lots of grinding down to do.

if you feel the first layer of weld is off the mark, grind that down and go again.

Blowing holes - just in case-
If you blow small holes in thin sheet . Let it cool you can fill them in with a quick flick of the trigger on,off,on,off on a low power setting around the hole. That gives you something solid to fill the hole with. You can then grind it down, and finish it with a flapper disc.

Look at you work from both sides after the thin metal technique and look for pin holes
check it as well after grinding and sanding. As you get better at thin metal work there will fewer pin holes

The penetration your getting looks good and your runs are neat.
I always find that no matter how much practice i do on a sheet of metal when i'm working on the car at funny angles in tight spots or upside down you just have to go for it. Its the best practice at the end of the day.

Drill some 7mm or 8mm holes in a plate 1mm or 1.5mm thick and have a go at plug welding it to another plate. Thats the other technique that will come along and is really useful for car work
If you are replacing a full panel that was originally spot welded you can plug weld it rather than seam weld it. Unless track rules require seam welding

Nice job so far good luck on the car - Hope this helps

Chris

I was quite pleased with the tack's myself, like you say I should have just gone for it after that and stop / start welded between all of them to join up properly. Today I have a day off so will have a good practise at a plug joint and some more butt joints I think.

Once I have done a bit more playing I just need to go for it and see what happens.

It turns out that the floor that I need to weld a few little patches into is actually 1mm not 0.8mm like I originally thought, so hopefully that will mean it won't be quite as hard to do. After all I can lay a weld on some 1mm scrap I have here so what's the difference doing it on the real thing?

I also have a few 10mm holes in the floor here and there, would I be best to try and fill them in with weld using some copper or brass to back, or should I just cut them out and butt weld in a little square plate as per the other ones?

Lastly should I be using exactly the same thickness metal for my patches or should I use something slightly thicker such as 1.2mm. Also is it advisable to try and use the same type of metal (Ie from scraps that have come from the car) or will any clean mild steel be ok?

I appreciate the tips and advise mate

 

[carlos420uk]

I have the same machine and am about to start testing with the settings in the manual compared to the findings described here (http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=3071&highlight=%27Clarke+manual+settings+wrong)
Have you seen this? I'll soon find out which one works best

Thanks for that, I hadn't seen it until just. I must admit Ive wondered a few times in which order the power settings go, now I understand how I can weld thin metal on min or max 1 without blowing holes (The latter giving better penetration for spot welds).

 

[carlos420uk]

looks a nice project you got going there,local supplier i use is birmingham welding supplies in the jewelry quarter gas bottles, tips wire ect also fills me bottle altho at mo chap who i was doing some work for had abot ten rolls of 6mm 5kg and two 8mm last time i was down there as he gave me two 6mm as payment so i sold them on here for £10 each

The project has been on going for ages now and is a labour of love. It should be a bit of a toy when I finish, around 1050kg (Wet) with 300hp on tap at 8800rpm

I will go and have a look at Birmingham welding supplies on Monday after work, I assume he does the regulators for Argon/co2 bottles? I need to get set up with a proper sized bottle as the disposable ones are a massive rip-off in my opinion. How does it work with the bottles from him, rent or buy?

Hopefully with some proper gas, wire and a better earth clamp I should see some improvement in performance.

 

[robertbruce]

hi Carlos, im a newby too and thought to mention some trip-ups i havdnt seen in the tutes...

While loading a roll of wire i managed to get the strand under it self and had a devil of a time chasing it around the reel...

Thank Springerdinger for saying how hit mad miss it can be even for the most experienced...im more confident filling a hole than tacking a butt...

File smooth any edges of patch's to be welded, including rounding the edges of any corners in the patch...... sharp edges just go POOF in instantaneous incineration if you held your tongue wrong......

grind down those tacks and welds in your pics to check for bubbles...

 

[campervan]

hi carlos best phone the place first as i think he works 9 till 430, bottles not shure as i already had my own from years back which i had retested and he fills

 

[Springerdinger]

I was quite pleased with the tack's myself, like you say I should have just gone for it after that and stop / start welded between all of them to join up properly. Today I have a day off so will have a good practise at a plug joint and some more butt joints I think.

Once I have done a bit more playing I just need to go for it and see what happens.

It turns out that the floor that I need to weld a few little patches into is actually 1mm not 0.8mm like I originally thought, so hopefully that will mean it won't be quite as hard to do. After all I can lay a weld on some 1mm scrap I have here so what's the difference doing it on the real thing?

I also have a few 10mm holes in the floor here and there, would I be best to try and fill them in with weld using some copper or brass to back, or should I just cut them out and butt weld in a little square plate as per the other ones?

Lastly should I be using exactly the same thickness metal for my patches or should I use something slightly thicker such as 1.2mm. Also is it advisable to try and use the same type of metal (Ie from scraps that have come from the car) or will any clean mild steel be ok?

I appreciate the tips and advise mate

I try to match the metal Thickness it keeps things simple-
I would cut the 10mm holes to good metal and but weld new metal in
Post some pics and some of the pro's will give you some tips.

Depending on how close together the holes are you might be better adding a larger panel instead of lots of little reapirs
It depends how good the solid looking stuff really is.

Dont waste your time putiing pitted or surfaced rusty metal on the car
Your better off putting new metal in. Old scrap stuff can make the job harder in the long run unless it is good clean metal. A possible false economy

Sligtly thicker than thinner would be my preference.
Cut the holes back to proper shiny metal for a long term repair

Cheers
Chris