old school arc welder for thin metal

[brightspark]

good luck to u george mate .do what u have to do with whats available to u but its not for me

 

[Rocketman]

pdq grinding a weld back so there is no witness of the weld is the resto game, in fact being able to grind back a weld on thin sheet and leave no pin holes and a strong join is actually class a thin panel welding.

My view of the worst welds is that often the preparation is no good in the first place, not enough corroded metal is cut out and the welds are just hovering on the rust metal below.

BTW they aren't allowed to try and lever patches off in a MOT test.

 

[Kent]

i wont go ranting on about it but a lot of car pannels and box section cannot be got at behind for a heat sink so there fore stick welding them isnt any good,ive learnt gas welding with oxy acet myself and is verry versatile and better than mig even though its slower ,so pidgeon sh,,,ting pannels with stick u will never convince me . show me some that has been done to a half decent standard thats all i ask

Will do as soon as I have time and some thin in. Something I have never really pushed and just done as and when for various crazy reasons. Pigeon poop aint the issue, that's just bad welding heat and blowing holes at the start up is and yes there are limits but few even realise how thick you can go with O/A there is another one that's perhaps wasting an hour or two on.
What I plan is how thin can you butt joint with a 2.5mm? Because lets be fair that's usually the thinnest most folk have to hand in a pinch and I will be using every trick known to man and perhaps a few yet to be
I was very interested to hear of the MMA set that had a sort of pulse setting for thin - something I have never heard of so we can all live an learn if we remember two ears and two eyes and yet only one .................

Who sets the standard? I suggest that arc welds stand a good chance of being stronger than many mig welds. Either of them can be ground back to look tidy but I generally don't bother, in hidden away areas, because I prefer to keep the strength of the original weld deposits. None of my real-world arc welded joints have ever failed, so far. I include car welding to MOT standards, tools, etc. Since I last tried defending the idea of arc welding thin sheet steel on this forum, youtube has taken off and there are now loads of videos of people doing just that, so I think the critics, sceptics and doubters need to change their story.

But what you must be wrong this cant be, your quite right there is stuff out there already Even Jody at welding tips and tricks has talked of using an AC buzz box to do rusty cills on "the brother in laws car" though it seems his brother in law needs kicking into touch with all these freebies he seems to be asking for

Well now... For a start, arc welds run a much higher risk (compared to MIG, and it shouldn't happen if you're running gas) of slag inclusions which give you stress risers. A poor gas mig weld will be structurally better than a poor arc weld up to a point.

Well in the course of most days I come across some totally terrible stick welding done by farmers and only rarely do you see actual breaks and I include some very old machines and gates and such in that often badly corroded by time and adverse conditions, in fact I was looking at some gates my neighbour built in the eighties just this morning on the fell all the welds held out even though the bars are actually rusted through that's after many a cattle incident and collisions with plant. Yep the welds are like "well squiggly rubbish" . Now for MIG welds, seen hundreds often factory produced sometimes by skilled welders, coded even (a few the other week on a 2yrs old Boat from a Polish yard) and there is certainly one thing I can say give me an ugly stick weld over an ugly MIG any day because I have seen many a nice looking MIG weld break and yes have had two myself one was not enough guts in the plant for the job I was given to do (by an employer) spot welds as many call them "plugs" in reality and every other welder on the job had the same. The other just cornflaked out on cooling (parent metal fault) did the rest with Low HY rods just fine. An ugly MIG weld? What like some of the DIY chassis jobs etc we see posted here? I shouldn't drive those cars personally with the greatest of respect to those looking for guidance I might add! Oil contamination? don't even go there. Still MIG is better for cars

Stick is never going to be the way for car body work but it can be done, way down the pecking order yes but lets not pick fault past that point eh? Wait on keep an open mind, read some old books even look at what is out there on the net (good and bad), speak to some older guys and others who did it and there are strings to be added to those bows for "needs must" situations. My own car experience with stick is really in Landrover Chassis in the field and as for car body work on rusty fords and such I should MIG or OXY fuel them way over arc (but it can be done) but then again I have also done thick pipe with O/A (just the once no electric allowed, working in waders) and all sorts of daft stuff because there was no other choice available

 

[mart]

Can you not buy a thinner rod than 1.6mm?

I wondered about that too.

 

[a111r]

That's just not true though! I suppose I am going to have to search out some bits of thin stuff when I can and post a few pictures now after making that statement. You know back in the 70s guys were welding cars (mostly BL stuff) on their driveways with little buzz boxes from the catalogues nearly all of them novices.
Series Landrovers were 14swg

I think I bought something a bit like this in the 80s, but it was 'car battery' powered?
https://www.frost.co.uk/body-weldin...MI8O-I5Lyx5wIVg9DeCh3pDASGEAQYASABEgKjbPD_BwE

I 'upgrade' to an early Sealy Mightymig 100 with the live torch, swapped for a rare Honda moped I'd rather have back.

 

[Memmeddu]

Since this thread is being revived
I can easily weld 1.5mm sheet metal using 2.5mm E6013 and my inverter set at 50 60ish Ampere
I think that using 2mm and maybe 30 40A I could weld 1mm but since I didn't need to do that yet I wouldn't like to do that using a stick welder

 

[a111r]

The thing I was mentioning above in #45 has just appeared on Ebay this morning.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-...de848ff:g:EYkAAOSwrfFeNsPl&LH_ItemCondition=4

 

[brightspark]

but would you really want one they were rubbish when new now just old rubbish

 

[welding it great :)]

Hey guys im sure i originally started this thread but cant quite remember i forgot my original password ive been through 3 mig welders since then including a sip which was useless recently tho ive bought a little clarke arc welder and some 1.6 rods tried some 2.5s aswell and they worked alot better but when i went to do the car they just wouldn't strike and kept sticking as my mig welder (clarke 150te) was starting to do my head in with constant wire feed problems and wire sticking to tip ive found the arc ok im using it patch up an old car when i started using it i found it hard to get both pieces of metal as when u chip of the slag there was a lot less weld than expected also my first welds just seemed to crack off and be full of slag mstarted to get the hang tho and put on a few patches suprisingly it doesnt burn through as bad as i thought it would and can get an ok looking weld hopefully service my mig soon tho get it good again i also bought a carbon arc torch not quite sure how to fit it tho.

 

[welding it great :)]

Managed to cut through a piece of scrap metal aswell by cranking it to the max and burning a hole through then just kept going it made a pretty straight cut tbf