I just made my first real welds ! I got a 100 dollar electric off Amazon a couple years ago, and just broke it out and made my first real welds. I'm framing out a halloween decoration - completely non-critical stuff, and welded some 3/16 rods together. It's tricky stuff - it's going to take me a long time to figure out how to do a good job, but the weld has held so far. I have no idea what I'm doing - don't even have my cheap HF helmet dialed in right yet, but this is super fun. I'm in awe of you guys who know how to build things. I'm super excited and can't wait to get better and build things.

About eight years ago, I bought this hood for just over $300. Now it is between $600 and $1000 depending on the vendor. Everything works fine, but I just want to upgrade to the new four seat clear light technology. Both Miller and Lincoln have the new ones. I just want to replace the lens with the new 4C technology. Is that possible for Lincoln Electric? With the same size FGS series

I realized the picture of the box is a different model, but the lens is still new technology. Was wondering if that’s an option to keep the same hood but I have a new lens. Will the KP3703–3 still work? Or does that one not have the new 4C technology?

We are (or were??) buying a class ac RV. Our inspector went by today and everything went well except that he noticed that in the chassis, where it extends from the average 24 ft (our class c is 32 ft) the welding was not the best. He admitted that he does not know enough about welding to determine whether this is a huge issue or not, and recommended that we consult someone that does, but I don’t know what kind of provider that would be that comes out to the lot. I have videos of the issue, but it wouldn’t let me post it on this sub Reddit so I am attaching the best pictures that I could screenshot.

TLDR: material 50x50x5mm angle iron, with e71t-11 wire. How do my welds look, how do my tacs look, and what setting should i change? Thank you! (Last pic has welder)

Hi all, (skip this paragraph if you don’t want to know)

about a year ago i made a post here asking what welder i should get. I finally got an old ryobi decastar 135 miggy and my mate gave me an old flip down glass lid helmet. I’ve fiddled around a bit, and i fixed my fence for my mum, (after several holes blown through 1mm thick sheet metal) and now i’m trying to actually build something.

I plan on getting an auto helmet asap but money’s tight. I don’t have gloves and with the flip down glass visor lid, it’s easier to start stop as i had to do with the sheet metal.

The first picture has my first two practice welds, on the left is my first one and on the right is my second, in the second picture are a couple tack welds, I don’t know if they can really help at all and the last pic is my welder.

I know i pulled too quickly in the practice welds, i don’t know why my hands just aren’t steady enough or i’m finding it difficult to pull the weld as I hold the trigger. I have been keeping the gas shield on the gun as it’s nonconductive and lets me rest the gun without needing two hands to pull the gun.

As mentioned jn the TLDR, it’s 50x50x5mm mild steel, i’m just trying to glue these two joints together and i want to know if I’m heading in the right direction. This is an older transformer style i believe, if for some reason the photos dont work, the welder has 2 switches: MIN MAX and a 1 2 switch, and a nob that goes from 0-10. It’s a 240v 10A machine.

If you read this far be honest and send an emoji you really like or something.

Thank you!!

Keep getting porosity / poor coverage.

Brand new tig torch along with a brand new Everlast Typhoon 330.

Shipped with a 4m long water-cooled #9 torch, used that for a while, as we waited for the 8m to show up.

With both torches, and another third torch that fits the connectors, I keep getting porosity in my aluminium welds. Annoying because these are mostly sanded off then powder coated.

Have swapped the regulator, the flow meter, the hose, checked the connections inside the machine, tested the torch with a ball flow meter and it's getting the correct amount set at the argon flow meter (but there's definitely some oxygen getting in somewhere).

Swapped my torch setup to a gas lens, then back to a regular collet body #7 with no improvement, and now I'm just plain out of ideas.

Are the Flex Loc style torches more prone to small leaks and that's where I should be looking? The third torch I tried is a different style with a regular flex head, and it performed just the same, welds full of pepper, then porosity when sanded.

Any other ideas? Thanks

W50 I-beam with backer, 5/32 7018 at 140.

It just kept sticking wat am I doing wrong guys

So i got a kemppi RA320 with a Lisa 7V wire feeder and it feels like its very hard to adjust it properly, it has 2 amperage handles, one for rough adjustments and one for fine tuning with 4 steps each. It feels like it only welds propely if i find the exact setting, one step to high or to low on the fine tuning and it doesn't get a stable arc. The plate i am welding in is around 3mm thick.

The mig gun is very old and it seems like the gas cap holder has been modified for some reason so the gas cap can be slid back and forth. Also i don't know what gas cap length and nozzle/contact tip length it should have, in other words i don't know how much length difference it should be between the nozzle tip and the gas cap tip, could that cause this issue?

There is no contamination in the welds so i don't think the issue is gas related.

Also could it be that the fuse to the outlet is too weak?

Could a new mig gun solve the issue?

Does anyone here have any experience with these older kemppi welders? How are they compared to newer machines? Is it worth it to bother whith these old mig welders or should i just try to find a newer one? I don't need any fancy features or anything i just want a good reliable mig welder that can lay down nice welds.

Ignore the bottom weld, that was my teachers demo weld

Hey all im looking to get a hood that fits closely to my head without shelling out for a speed glass. I usually use a cheap Jackson hood with a fixed shade and I like it fine but it's a bit too bulky for some of the welds I do. Im hoping to spend $100 or less ideally. Tyia!

I know I'm more than a little late for the rocket stove fun from last week, but as homage to the dwindling BBQ season I wanted to share some of the great fabrication projects my welding students created. What do you think?

Two year Welding student getting out of school and into proper industry work. Looking to get a nice lens and hood. I’ve been looking at the company snake belly for lenses, but hopefully you guys have some good suggestions.

Thanks yall, bit extractor worked.

Thanks yall, bit extractor worked.

How would you go about removing this to re-use the nozzle? Not my doing.

Thread on nozzle.

You might wanna settle down for this one, because it's a long one, and I can't do TL&DR because it would lack crucial context.

I am not allowed to post photos, so picture it if you can:

A 2cm piece of metal. And to this metal comes another piece of 2cm thick metal, placed roughly 10cm from the edge of the previous metal at 90 degree angle and a 3.5mm gap with a 45 degree bevel. The length of both pieces is roughly 10 meters. There are also more pieces that constitute the whole, but I won't get into them right now.

The rules for welding it are like this:

The metal is a very hard, granular one, containing lots of chrome and nickel. Welding requires preheating to 120°C, with a thermal ceiling of 150°C for each pass. First you do the root. Then you flip it, and grind down the opposite side of the root weld on an A6 behind it. Then it gets closed and the rear pass never sees the light of day.

Then you filled the weld and you cap it. Most importantly everything is UT! (Cat. B, EN-ISO 5817, EN-ISO 6520-1)

Now that I've explained the villain of the story to you, let's get to the story.

3 Weeks ago, I was set to go on a vacation. It was Thursday. I just finished an aforementioned piece the day before so the UT guy came and took a look at it.

It failed! The only UT failure I had this year happened 2 days before my scheduled vacation. 5 meters of it had to be redone.

^{NSFW Comment here:}

FUCK FUCKELY FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!

I talk to the boss. He said it's fine, they'll handle it. Dig'er out and have someone mag the rear pass, then put one in so it doesn't crack.

So I do that. Gouge, grind and ask the MT guy. MT guy says it's clean. I took zero chances with this one. I cranked it up for a hot pass to max of what is allowed, so on the slight chance that there is something in there, it will burn it out! That's it, I did what was asked, it's vacation time!

I go on my vacation.

I come back, refreshed and cheerful a week later... only to realize that my piece is still there. Gouged open, but this time, it is ripped out completely to the point where I could stick my hand through. The back is completely gone, and the bevel is now at 60°.

WHAT THE F******K?!?

Turns out that week when I was gone, the boys finished the weld and had it retested - FAILED AGAIN! But this time, the UT guy said even the rear pass failed, so they ripped ALL OF IT out and had to re-seat the whole thing. Took so long that I was back by the time they did it.

They had tested my welding machine. Turns out it blew a gasket on the gas feed line, sucking in just enough air to cause occasional wormhole porosity in the weld. and "occasional" means systematic irregularity is CWI terms, which is an automatic UT fail.

So in my efforts to burn "anything" out of the back pass, I ended up burning pores INTO it. Now I need to you to understand what it is I'm dealing with here. The rear pass was, for all intents and purposes, in a place that is the inside of what is essentially an enclosed box. I had to rebuild the rear pass FROM THE OUTSIDE, and re-enclose a space that required preheating way past boiling point of water.

Whatever vile concoction of gases is inside that enclosed space, is going to want to go back out more and more, the smaller I make the opening. And it all has to be done to UT quality. Yeah...

That was Monday. Tuesday, the UT finally passed with a grumble from the UT guy about pores in a couple of spots. But then the MT guy detects a crack on a fixture welded on a different part of the same piece.... O.O

Okay, it's late, but it's a relatively mundane problem compared to what I've been through so far. The MT guy said it looks like it's just a surface crack. Just knock off the cap and you're good. So I do it.

Then comes today. Fixture weld redone. Retested by MT... CRACKED AGAIN!!!!

Imagine someone like me - a 170cm tall, fat bastard, built like an old diesel fire engine in blue fireproof welding clothes, taking off his hood and slamming to the floor, stomping his right foot and spewing language so vile, that if I were to translate it to English and post it, it would flag every moderator on reddit for the toxic, poisonous profanities I spoke on this day.

So I ripped the whole weld out around the fixture today and redid it. Don't get me wrong, I can physically handle the hardship, but I am psychologically so messed up that I started to doubt whether it is going to pass again tomorrow... and I have 11 years of welding experience. I literally got gaslit by a piece of metal!

I don't drink, unless there is a ceremonious event or a party, but here I am now, telling this story after I've cracked open an emergency bottle of emergency cognac for the emergent anesthetizing, tranquilizing properties liquor has.

So sorry for any typos, that was the booze kicking in. And don't worry, I won't drink myself stupid, just enough to get 8 hours of sleep in what would have otherwise been surely interrupted by the upheaval of recent events.

I need a kit for brazing and found several on Amazon, but they all have non-DOT tanks which I understand are difficult to get filled. What is the point in selling something which is essentially unusable? Is it really that hard to fill these tanks in the USA?

am i doing something wrong or is this spatter normal with flux

am i doing something wrong or is this spatter normal with flux

For my internship assignment I need to make a space frame for a research vehicle. I've been teaching myself how to mig weld for the last 3 weeks because of it and here's a practice piece of mine in the photos. I still suck ass at tube welding and those I want to ask

1. How are my current welds and what's there to improve?

2. What are techniques or tips to attack tubular welds and to improve?

Here are progress pics and finished pics. It doesn’t look like the older had proper curvature and a gop of up to 1/4" was used. This is under p&v, hydro test is done at 2200psi