Welding 1.6mm steel - How hard is it?

[Paul.]

1.6 box section arc welded, you probably couldn't have chosen a much more difficult job for a beginner. your welder may have a low ocv as previously said, this will make it very difficult to strike and maintain an arc at low amps. try warming up the electrode by striking and running a short bead on a piece of scrap (something heavy enough not to burn through), then move straight onto the job, the arc will then strike much easier,
if you stick, a twisting movement will usually free the electrode although thin ones are more difficult and will bend.
You can also recover damaged ends with that piece of scrap plate, up the amps a bit then stroke them on the plate and force an arc, it will be very unstable until its burnt back to sound flux, then shorten up the arc for a couple of seconds and stop.
To be honest something safety critical such as a car chassis should really be mig or tig welded by an experienced welder.

 

[lee Rowland]

hi , what id do first is to make sure you have your power correct, if you strugging have a bit of scrap steel arc up see how long it takes to burn a hole in it , and adjust acordingly.its also down to what hand of welding you trying and what angle your feeding your rod in at, and you realy dont want any gap in your joins unless its thicker steel , you will get full peatration with 1.6 steel but up, providing you have your power set up correctly , i think for what your doing you would probably be better of with a 150amp mig welder as mig welding is a lot easyer to pick up

 

[fluxcored]

Look for some 7014 rods. A real breeze on thin metal. I had no problems on 1.2mm with 1.6mm 7014's:

Cheap 6013's are near impossible on thin metal. They don't work well at low amps. If you are to use 6013's, use a name brand; that will have better low-current results.

You can angle the rod down a bit. Will make a bit taller weld, but will not blow through as easily.

I regularly do 2.5mm 6013's on 1.6mm tubing and although the results are not bad, it's not as good as this.

Hmmm, I should give 7014's a try.

I tend to agree - for a chassis rather use MIG. Any slag that get's trapped and left behind in any weld can lead to disastrous failure. Not to mention how much you'll have to go through to compensate for the added warpage stick brings to the table.

 

[Tatey]

A friend of mine has offered to lend me his 150amp mig welder for my build so im going to take him up on his offer, i had a go with it the other day and it seems a hell of a lot easier than arc welding.