Another lurker!

[Gert-Jan]

First I tried to produce a constant stitch weld bead, with enough burn through. I ended up setting the voltage and wire speed a bit higher. A more consistent spot weld was the result.




Good lighting is essential I found out, I used my engine hoist and attached a fluorescent light.


I still have some difficulties with shrinkage adjacent to the weld. I guess I should just treat that as a low spot and file the weld a bit more.


My spots have a hole in the middle, maybe the wirespeed is too low.


--GJ

[Gert-Jan]

These are the tools I used. I think I need to build a heavier slapper. I don't have a oxygen-acetheleen torch, so I MIG welded it.



The sandbag is home made, needs some more sand in it. But for now, it acts as a holder for my dollies, in absence of a post dolly.

[David Gardiner]

Welcome to the site Gert-Jan, I have nothing against mig and tig welding, I show the uses for these on the DVD. Tig welding as I show is more or less the same as gas welding when it comes to dressing the weld out.
I am amazed at the way that Johnny finishes mig welds and as you say he learned from Randy, I would never have thought it possible to finish a mig weld in this way. It just seems a lot of work to me. ( I hate grinding welds!) It would not be possible to carry out some of the other techniques I show if you mig weld. If you are trying to metal finish steel you will get on better with a flipper file like I show.

David

[Gert-Jan]

Thanks for your reply and welcome David.

The slapper made of a car leaf spring, a MG roadster to be more precise.

I know you avoid MIG welding when possible of sensible and you're keen on gas welding for good reasons. The thing is, I already bought a MIG welder some time ago and I didn't discover it downsides at the time.

If you totally new to this, like I am, you ask around, see some stuff on Discovery, read some books about restoring. Guess what, every resource mention MIG welding as the way to go. (and then talk about filler of course) Later I discovered metalmeet.com and later this forum came up. I don't hear or read stuff like slappers (flippers), shrinking discs outside metalmeet and allmatalshaping so much! I discovered your DVD through this forum also.

Finishing MIG welding IS a lot of work and grinding weld is a precise job, I see why you don't prefer it. I'm just having a go and see what I can do. I don't want to spend a lot of money when I just barely know how to hold a MIG welder. I was raised to making do with what you have. If I'm getting better at all this I will think about upgrading to gas or tig weld unit.