Mild Steel Thickness?

[GeorgeB]

George... I would have thought, you would have had better results, by setting up your joints differently...
Which begs me to ask the question: Given the rule of "diminishing returns", how do you expect to learn, & improve, with your choice of set-up?

Knoba - many thanks for your very helpful diagram and suggestions. I will definitely try those approaches. To answer your last question, I hope to learn and improve by my mistakes and via useful inputs from kind people like you.

oilcooled - has your sister already tried arc welding thin sheet steel? If not, perhaps you could ask her to confirm whether your confidence is justified. I'd be very interested to see photos of your sister's welding, or yours, if you have anything useful to contribute like shenion and knoba.

Also, should I continue posting here on this 1mm sheet project, or open a new thread?

 

[knoba]

Knoba - many thanks for your very helpful diagram and suggestions. I will definitely try those approaches. To answer your last question, I hope to learn and improve by my mistakes and via useful inputs from kind people like you.

You're very welcome. I wasn't being facetious... What I meant to say, was; Theoretically it may seem possible, to produce good fusion & a nice, continuous, weld bead, but in practice it's a nightmare to achieve.

Given your set-up, even if you slightly varied; rod angles, arc lengths, etc., the results would be unlikely to much different from those that have been shown. If one can't see any appreciable differences, from varying these techniques, how can one learn, to do better, from them?

GeorgeB
I'd be very interested to see photos of your sister's welding

...and some of her naked...

 

[Drains]

I'll agree on one thing - arc weld beads can look fine as you go, but then gaps appear as you remove the slag afterwards.

This should not be the case at all. The skill of the welder and the quality of rods should prohibit slag inclusion, and I'm not talking about any level of skill or quality over basic DIY.

Slag inclusion like that in the pictures is typical of cheap supermarket rods, and difficult to avoid even with practiced skill. The flux is invariably very slow freeze and makes it almost impossible to either see the weld pool or control the flow of flux and molten steel. These are not exceptional skills.

Only in some very confined circles would such welds be deemed as acceptable. The other 99 percent of the population would imagine they were done by an enthusiastic starter who would welcome the assistance and suggestions of others. Unfortunately this is not the case here, though I will make one additional suggestion if i may:-

Use fewer tacks, try to keep them away from the weld (eg on the other side of the joint), grind them flush before welding over them. No matter how skilful the welder, it is virtually impossible to weld over protruding tack welds without getting lumps.

George, you have to learn to avoid slag inclusions. It is the MOST basic part of stick welding. For you, there should be nothing else of greater importance.

Now tell me, am I wasting my breath?

 

[knoba]

Slag inclusion like that in the pictures is typical of cheap supermarket rods, and difficult to avoid even with practiced skill.

George, you have to learn to avoid slag inclusions. It is the MOST basic part of stick welding. For you, there should be nothing else of greater importance.

... I have to agree.

It's almost impossible to improve one's arc welding techniques; on thin sheet, with questionable rods (& using a hobby machine won't improve the situation, either).

 

[rtbcomp]

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View attachment 20862

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That method of welding the outside edge gets my vote too.

I once repaired a car wing by cutting out the rust and folding a lip all round the hole. I then made a patch with a similar lip and ran the weld, using a buzz box, along the edges of the lips.

Obviously the lip was towards the underneath of the wing!

This left a valley on the top face of the wing which I filled with lead.

 

[GeorgeB]

That method of welding the outside edge gets my vote too.

Do you mean the approach shown bottom right in knoba's diagram? I was thinking of trying that, since the objective is to weld the corner of a box, formed from the sheet steel.

Drains - thank you for your input too - another very helpful post.

 

[rtbcomp]

Yes, that's the one.

 

[TechnicAl]

George
To be honest you are trying to re-invent the wheel. Over many years welding companies have developed processes / products to give the best results under a certain set of circumstances.
Its extremely difficult to weld 1mm thick sheet with a stick electrode so the professionals dont even try. They choose a process that is suitable.

You are getting the results you can expect. You are blobbing it on to avoid burning through and that is a function of the process, not your technique and not the rods. I agree with you, in the circumstances Aldi rods are as good as any.

There is probably slag, porosity, l.o.p. etc etc between each blob so not only does it look awful it is undoubtedly also an awful weld. It wont be strong. A good looking weld will be a lot stronger because its continuous. However it might be strong enough for you.

If your only doing bits and your really not bothered about the appearance I should accept it as it is. If you want it to look better dont bother practising as it wont really improve. Get a MIG or a TIG set. Before these inventions they would gas weld which I guess is another option for you.

Also you have to realise that the welds shown really wont be acceptable to the pro or the semi pros on here,so all those arguments you've had about horses for courses etc have been completely blown away. Your acceptance level is totally unacceptable to just about everyone else.

 

[knoba]

@ George:-

...with your working parameters; some rod pre-heat may also improve your chances.

I am asking how you expect to learn, to do better in general arc welding techniques, not just on thin metals?

TechnicAl
If you want it to look better dont bother practising as it wont really improve.

There's a world of difference between shenions' & Georges' attempts. Practice is exactly what is needed. Although, I would suggest thicker section (> 3mm), different joints & lots of positions. Get 1000 white box rods and waste them all (as above) with destructive testing to help improve your techniques, before attempting to apply them to thin metals.

 

[Wozzaaah]

Also, should I continue posting here on this 1mm sheet project, or open a new thread?

Perhaps we should ask the OP, after all, it was originally about buying a welder.

 

[Dogbreath23]

" you could get 2.half kilos of 3.25 s in MM's for six quid I think."

I take it back. I just looked in the MM cataloge and tbh you'll not be saving any money on rods wieght for wieght. I'd not bother if I was you and just spend the extra fiver on some nice ESABs or something....I still wouldnt touch that fifty quid stick welder with a barge pole mind.

 

[GeorgeB]

Perhaps welding is not like riding a bicycle. It seems I've forgotten the few welding skills I ever picked up and am now having to start again. I'm convinced it's me and not the kit I'm using, which is the same as a year or two back. For example, back then I did loads of arc plug welds on 0.8mm sheet and it always seemed very straightforward. I don't recall having any come apart. Now, they are all falling apart on 1mm sheet, which should be easier. Nothing seemed to work until I went back to simple tacks welds. Here are four, left to right. The second one seems near perfect to me, with good penetration on the reverse side. The other three are of varying standards and yet these were all done at the same time, with the same rod and the same settings. The variation amounts to operator error, i.e. me. Knoba's helpful suggestion, in his diagram, of welding straight through the top sheet shows promise, too. I did a plug weld without drilling a hole and it's the only one which held! It's second up on the far right of the image.

 

[GeorgeB]

I've pressed on with my re-training and have now added a bead/seam to the piece of metal seen above. First, I used a lower current setting for the section seen between 2 and 3 on the image below. Then I increased the current for the section between 1 and 2, and am moving closer towards what I need for the real work piece. Again, I stress my feeling that there's nothing much wrong with the kit I'm using, which supports my initial comments to the OP of this thread. Any shortcomings in my welding are as a result of my lack of ability.

 

[keith19]

Looks like you're getting some real fusion there George, instead of what looked like dumping blobs on top. So that is far more encouraging.

I would be clamping the job to a copper or alloy heat sink if I attempted anything anywhere near that thin with stick welding now, but I remember back in the 70's and 80's we used to have to put in floor pans and chassis patch panels with stick if someone was already using the gas, and the metal used was quite thin, around 18 and 16 gauge, 1.2 and 1.6 mm.

But the arc welder we used had a high output voltage setting for thin metal, which gave an advantage you won't have on yours. So keep posting your results, because I for one find it informative and interesting; you are working in an area in which few dare to tread...

 

[malcolm]

George - You've had more good advice than anyone else who has ever posted on the forum but I don't thing any of it has helped you one little bit.

Please start a new thread asking for advise. I'm past bothering (I've got you down as a troll and am awfully close to changing your user title to reflect this) but we've got some good members on here and if you post a new thread they might still be prepared to offer you some good advice.

I think in the future moderators will remove posts where you suggest to new members that an aldi welder and aldi rods are the bees knees for welding car panels. Until you get the hang of it we'll go with with recommending methods that actually work.

 

[GeorgeB]

Looks like you're getting some real fusion there George, instead of what looked like dumping blobs on top. So that is far more encouraging. I would be clamping the job to a copper or alloy heat sink if I attempted anything anywhere near that thin with stick welding now, but I remember back in the 70's and 80's we used to have to put in floor pans and chassis patch panels with stick if someone was already using the gas, and the metal used was quite thin, around 18 and 16 gauge, 1.2 and 1.6 mm. But the arc welder we used had a high output voltage setting for thin metal, which gave an advantage you won't have on yours. So keep posting your results, because I for one find it informative and interesting; you are working in an area in which few dare to tread...

Thank you for your kind words. I post here because it seems to be the leading place for hobby welding. I'm sorry if anyone thinks my posts are some kind of wind up. I asked if my 1mm related posts and responses should be transferred to a new thread but nothing happened. There was no intention to highjack anyone else's thread. I've already said, I agree a MIG welder would probably be best for most people. If there's a ban on me saying nice things about anything from Aldi, I think that would be a bit worrying.

>George - You've had more good advice than anyone else
>who has ever posted on the forum but I don't thing any
>of it has helped you one little bit.

I'm grateful for lots of comments, although I see it as give and take. Perhaps others can learn from my findings too. As I've said before, I don't regard this forum as an 'ask an expert' type of place, as in 'them and us'.

>Please start a new thread asking for advise.

Yes, please transfer all the 1mm plate posts to a new thread if you like, as I said before.

 

[malcolm]

As I said before please start your own thread. When it becomes the norm to move a members posts to a new thread there's a problem.

You can overcome that problem by starting your own bloody thread to ask what you want to know. It will not help you if we move posts from a thread where you have ignored all the replies.

Thread closed with apologies to rustytoba - do keep on with the forum and apologies that we allowed someone to ruin your thread.