16 replies to this topic

[stuart bowes]

Apologies if there's already a thread on this but I don't recall seeing one recently and thought it might be nice to get one started, a bit like the 'what have you done on your car today'

 

and, if anyone else is into this kind of thing you've probably noticed facebook just has this vast sea of arrogant, rude, weirdly competitive welders who claim to know everything and offer very little in the way of useful info

 

so anyway, rant over, here is a thing I made recently

 

 

I just copied it from the one at college, it's not my 'idea' but you use it to clamp down pieces with the right weld prep and gap (ignore actual pieces in the pic it's just so you can see) 

 

than you can practise PA/PB (above), then PC:

 

 

two threaded holes in the bottom so you can hang it upside down for PD/PE:

 

 

and then PF/PG:

 

 

obviously used on a metal table not on the tablecoth lol

Edited by stuart bowes, 02 November 2025 - 12:07 PM.

[stuart bowes]

<edited out> see better description post 11 below

Edited by stuart bowes, 03 November 2025 - 01:34 AM.

[Designer]

Hi Stuart,

 

Intrigued!

Not being a welder.

What does PF/PG  PD/PE  PA/PB  PC stand for?

 

Paddy

[stuart bowes]

sorry yeah that's just torch position / angle (short version, as you go through the alphabet, gravity is working against you more, sort of)

 

arrow indicating angle of torch:

 

 

for my purposes to be honest I'll mostly just use it to hold things steady in the flat straight down position (PA) 

 

but for college I need to get good at the others, and I definitely haven't yet 

Edited by stuart bowes, 02 November 2025 - 07:57 PM.

[Rubbershorts]

This is great Stu. Never welded but planning on buying a small welder and giving it a go. When this fills up with contributions it could be invaluable to newbies like myself. Daz.

[DeadSquare]

Many years ago, near the B'ham BSA works, there used to be a wonderful old boy, long past retirement, who, if you caught him in a good mood, would do his party trick.

 

Using gas, he'd take a Baked Bean can and "before your eyes", weld the lid back on.. Half way round, he'd hand it to you to go Ooh, Aah, wonderful.  Then, taking it back, he'd turn his back on you as if shielding you but actually making sure you couldn't see, and weld the other half with a stick.  All with 1/8" of cigarette hanging on his lip.

 

They don't make 'em like they used to.

[weef]

Being able to weld successfully is an envyable skill to have but does not come easily, it takes lots of practice to achieve good welded joints.

Before contemplating any work on your vehicle the basic skills needed to weld are a minimum.

Not many people have oxy/acc gas welding sets now, being able to gas weld though is a great asset , so I presume you are referring to MIG welding.

Once you have your welder of choice, grinder and the correct PPE its time to get going.

Using offcuts of clean sheet steel, maybe 1.5mm thick, start by trying to run straight beeds, don't bother about trying to join bits together just practice running beads . Play with the welder settings noting what works and what doesen't.

Keep laying down beads of weld until your confidence grows, it doesn't just happen in a couple of days so keep at it.

Progress to lap joints then other types of joint, checking the weld penetration.

I think that it takes lots of practice and practice, then more practice to be a confident welder.

Vary the weld possitions, uphill, downhill, overhead, right and left hand.

Being able to possitional weld is essential for vehicle repairs.

Welding clean steel to clean steal is easy compared to welding a rusty panel that has been "cleaned" up with the grinder as there are always impurities left and complicate the welding process.

Keep up with the practising and gain the basic skills.

Once you have these skills get back to the forum for more tips.

[Avtovaz]

ive never seen that angle chart before! welding is simple. Im not the best at it although i did it at night school [ i have a cert 165 in welding and fabrication ] which i would recommend. 

 

On cars, its not the welding that is the hard part, its not distorting everything around the weld zone

 

 

i take it your weld table part is arc welded. i did it at collage, just never got in with it.

Edited by Avtovaz, 02 November 2025 - 10:17 PM.

[stuart bowes]

Being able to weld successfully is an envyable skill to have but does not come easily, it takes lots of practice to achieve good welded joints.

Before contemplating any work on your vehicle the basic skills needed to weld are a minimum.

Not many people have oxy/acc gas welding sets now, being able to gas weld though is a great asset , so I presume you are referring to MIG welding.

Once you have your welder of choice, grinder and the correct PPE its time to get going.

Using offcuts of clean sheet steel, maybe 1.5mm thick, start by trying to run straight beeds, don't bother about trying to join bits together just practice running beads . Play with the welder settings noting what works and what doesen't.

Keep laying down beads of weld until your confidence grows, it doesn't just happen in a couple of days so keep at it.

Progress to lap joints then other types of joint, checking the weld penetration.

I think that it takes lots of practice and practice, then more practice to be a confident welder.

Vary the weld possitions, uphill, downhill, overhead, right and left hand.

Being able to possitional weld is essential for vehicle repairs.

Welding clean steel to clean steal is easy compared to welding a rusty panel that has been "cleaned" up with the grinder as there are always impurities left and complicate the welding process.

Keep up with the practising and gain the basic skills.

Once you have these skills get back to the forum for more tips.

 

pretty much the essential basics there, all useful info, thanks for adding 

 

if we're being picky (and, one of those sort of interesting 'well actually' facts) technically, it's actually MAG not mig as the gas is active when oxygen or CO2 is part of the mix

 

the idea of this thread is that people can post some examples, show their own work to back it up (I'm going to add some soon) note the actual settings used, and generally just share info, so the more info we add the better (but pics and possibly even short vids are the most useful of course)

Edited by stuart bowes, 04 March 2026 - 12:23 PM.

[stuart bowes]

Ive never seen that angle chart before! welding is simple. Im not the best at it although i did it at night school [ i have a cert 165 in welding and fabrication ] which i would recommend. 

 

On cars, its not the welding that is the hard part, its not distorting everything around the weld zone

 

i take it your weld table part is arc welded. i did it at collage, just never got in with it.

 

 

I dunno about 'simple' ., it's one of those things that easier said that done, I would say, especially if you want to make a decent job of it, not just rely on grinders and paint (hence signing up for a city and guilds)

 

mig/mag is a lot more forgiving than oxy or Tig though, I'll grant you that

 

I'd say the prep is one of the biggest parts of the battle, getting a good fit with decent alignment (not so much skill really I suppose as it is time, and patience)

 

good example of that is the the welding jig thing above (all mag welded) the main focus there was getting all the alignment good and true, so it stands up in all the right ways without wobbling, and of course the mounting surfaces have to be flat and level.  the actual welding on it is hugely overkill lol, a load of tacks would have done just as well

Edited by stuart bowes, 03 November 2025 - 10:54 AM.

[stuart bowes]

these are just some things I've been told and/or worked out as I've gone along, they might help to get you started

 

Dialling in settings:

 

some interesting pointers I've learned about this, firstly there's a really good app on play store, miller weld I think it's called, you can choose your machine type, and material type + thickness and it'll give you a good starting point

 

so first you want to set up your welding kit on a bit of scrap the same type and thickness 

 

firstly, just hold the nozzle really still, about 8-10mm from the surface, and weld a blob onto the metal, trigger, let go and don't move   wait a sec, then move your hand.  the reason being, the machine is quite capable of adjusting power to maintain the arc despite your very slight hand movements, and it will continuously do so.  So, if you weld your 'blob' and then lift a bit as you stop, it adjusts a little and you get a false reading on the display.   keep doing that and adjusting until you're happy with the amps (which are obviously a result of wire speed and volts)

 

for 0.8mm I've been settting to about 13-14v, and playing with wire speed until I get about 40-45amps. 

• blowing through, turn it down


• more on top than underneath, turn it up


• if it's penetrating right, but you're getting a lot of spitting and spatter then you can up the volts a bit instead and bring wire speed down (maintaining same amps)


• if your wire speed is too low you'll get an intermittent arc and just a lot of airy hissing noise, turn the wire speed up and compensate by lowering volts (maintaining same amps)

spend time on that, find the right settings until you're getting build-up the same on top as you are underneath, no blow-through and a continuous sizzling bacon sound 

 

Position and angle:

 

torch head at about 70degrees

 

'stick out' (length of wire from tip before you start) something like 8-10mm

 

always push so your gas is actually doing something

 

get the nozzle right down so it's literally just hovering above your weld bead as you move along, don't lift up as you move along which is something that can naturally happen

 

before you actually do the weld, just 'fake' it first, without pulling the trigger - watch closely and see if you're naturally moving away from the right place as you move along (before you add darkened mask to the equation)

 

Practice runs:

 

pretty obvious really but just welding a run onto a flat sheet along a straight line is the first goal, the aim here is moving slow enough to get a nice even and consistent bead, but fast enough to not keep blowing holes.  I reckon on this thin stuff I'm probably moving about 1cm per second (possibly a bit quicker even), so maybe get a pencil and start drawing weave patterns first to try and match that speed as a starting point (remembering, that's 1 and 2 and 3 and)

 

like this

 

 

you might find it's easy to wander off-line because when the mask darkens, it's not easy to follow a little scribed line.  lightly run a grinder or dremel along it if you like, it will make it easier to see and follow with the mask on

 

Once you're getting nice continuous runs in that way, cut a series of slits into a bit of sheet and start welding them back up again.  the benefit of that is you'll have nice even gaps to fill, and it takes clamping and positioning out of the equation to start with.  And now you're practising welding two open edges which will increase the chances of blowing holes again.  modify your movement speed to stop that happening, maybe adjust settings down if you need. 

 

If you cut those slits right to the edge as well then you get to practice welding up to the edge, good luck with that lol (when going up an edge you can use a bit of scrap as a run-off plate, weld into that, then cut it off again, handy little pointer that)

 

after you've done a series of tacks, when you start filling in between, start on a tack each time (or on previous weld) because the initial arc-up will easily blow holes.  starting on the slightly thicker point where there is tack or weld essentially sinks away some of that inital heat in a place when it can handle it. then get moving.  quick

 

don't do more than say 1/2" to 3/4" at a time, cool in between (wait for red to go away) you should get away with minimal warping (but don't worry this is the whole point of practice runs)

 

Hand positioning:

 

Steadiness is critical (or at least helps hugely) use your off-hand like you do in snooker to steady the tip.  lean your elbow down on something to be stable as well if you can.  or, tucking your elbows in to your ribcage as you go makes you more steady as well, sort of locking yourself in position

 

actually holding the tip with the thumb and first finger of your left hand, while resting on the heel of that hand, can give you really precise and accurate movement although it's "not good practise" (well. in my book, if it works it works)

 

that trick doesn't really work so well on thick stuff when you want to just do a long run all the way along as you have to keep awkwardly re-positioning your hand.   for that I have a sort of 'snooker left hand with walking fingers' technique to keep my position right.  But we're only doing short bursts, not covering a lot of distance each time

 

when I do this I'm basically using my left/off hand at the nozzle to provide the forwards movement, and the right/main hand on the torch handle to make the left/right sort of rotational movements (like revving a bike very slightly)

 

--------------

 

I know that's a lot to take in .. but hopefully there's at least one of two things in there that might help someone

Edited by stuart bowes, 07 November 2025 - 12:00 PM.

[Avtovaz]

^ thats all for thick stuff, and even then with mig you dont weave really. Do flat runs leg length the plate thickness time 1.5 i think it was. I think with arc you do those weaving.

 

On car stuff again that will give far too much distortion, itll either drop threw or distort 

[stuart bowes]

The main difference is you do it short bursts but it 100% is possible to run short 'stitches' of weld in like 1/2" to 3/4" sections at a time, there are also other ways to control the distortion. I mean you can just go all the way along, but I totally agree it'll be bent all over the place

I find I need to 'weave' slightly when welding across a gap, you need to keep the heat in both sides as you go. I'm not talking about an inch-wide weave here, it'll be a total width of what, 3 or 4mm maybe. otherwise you're aiming at one side only and not getting decent penetration to both

 

you could even try both and see which you prefer

 

Bear in mind though so far this is all about practice and getting weld beads going. Worry more about distortion and profile once you've got nice tidy beads going, and penetrating, and you can do some destructive testing to check

 

*when I say you I don't mean you personally of course, I mean you the person trying to learn it (whoever that might be)

Edited by stuart bowes, 03 November 2025 - 11:19 AM.

[stuart bowes]

So here's basically where I'm at now. Partly to show, I'm not trying to say I'm a brilliant welder or anything lol, you can see for yourself:

firstly the wire and gas




then playing with settings, went from RHS (too much) to LHS (dialled in)

0.8mm sheet





and the welder settings to achieve that




Interestingly this time I was getting a lot of spitting, like the arc wasn't stable, so I turned the wire speed up a bit, and the volts down a little to compensate (still aiming for around 45a) .

What I don't understand if anyone can tell me, is, why during welding is it showing a higher voltage than I've dialled in. possibly my technique re torch distance. I already mentioned above, the kit will automatically adjust itself to maintain the arc, but I thought that only affected the amps, and the volts is a constant output. obviously I was wrong? anyway I'm getting the amps I want and a constant sizzle

shoved a couple bits of sheet in the clamp and cleaned up, tacked



and run some weld




so, part 1, you can see obviously that blew through and I had to fill it. that knocked my confidence and worrying about overheating meant I did shorter runs for 2 and 3, then I started to get the feel of it better for 4, and 5 was just filling whatever gap was left

I should have taken longer over this and it's a visual fail (aesthetically speaking if nothing else) but penetration is totally fine

my main error really here was not aligning the plates well enough, I cut them on the bench shears and as you probably know metal curls when you do that. next time, better prep. probably wouldn't have blown the hole, and the finishing would definitely have ended up smoother

anyway I wanted to see if it was strong, so I linished it smooth (ish) and checked for pinholes (none)





then I cut some sections for testing, centre punched so I know which side was up:



and then started bending them, one upwards, one downwards and one along the weld. no cracks at all which I was happy about



I need to make another little jig for this so the bend is evenly applied, instead of just hammering a bit of round stock into it .. but for a first go I'm happy

basically the same as we were doing at college, here's one of mine (not an actual test piece because they tell me off if I post those online. just one I did at the end of the week when I was finished)




of course that one needed a 12 tonne hydraulic press and even that was struggling lol, we slammed it with the massive (and I mean, huge) fly press as well a few times just for good measure

thick metal is so much easier...

so, next time, prep more carefully, keep the same welder settings and hone the movement speed and general technique

-----------

as a point of comparison, although less useful generally, here is the same with some 1.5mm sheet




looking from the bottom upwards you can see my hand position was good for the first two runs, then I was overextending instead of moving my hand, that mistake is what made it go off-line, corrected a bit for the last one



no holes blown, good penetration for the most part but I think Id turn it up a bit more next time, go a little slower, or make the gap a bit bigger..

Also Identified another mistake: on the underside where you see occasional gaps in the penetration, that was where it was tacked. mental note, take time to ensure tacks penetrate as well

 

bit of destructive testing (not as thorough as previous just a quick check really)

 

 

 

nothing split or cracked..

 

And then updated notes for the next try

Edited by stuart bowes, 10 November 2025 - 09:44 AM.

[stuart bowes]

quick point to note, as I've been talking about this with others today, I was already aware of the 'tacking' method, i.e. 'just run a series of tacks, that works best with thinner metal' which you do hear and to some extent it does make sense (and is easier for sure)

 

I have done that before in some places (mostly where heat definitely will be a problem and I didn't want to ruin a new panel)

 

and here is a decent honest example of what it looked like previously

 

 

 

 

straight away you can see a difference from the weld in previous post, the top side looks more or less the same (blew two holes, I'm sure you can see where) but the bottom side is quite obviously different (same power settings and prep, same gap)

 

this ended up a lot flatter than the one yesterday which proves the point about warping, agreed on that 

 

it linished up pretty much the same:

 

 

but interestingly when i did the bending again, they felt signiticantly weaker. 

 

 

 

two split at the ends but the weld didn't go right to the end of the plate anyway so we can forgive that, the one on the far right though shows best what I mean, there was a definite kink / weaker point right along the line of the join.

 

the ones I did yesterday actually struggled to bend at that point, they actually bent either side of the weld area leaving the welded bit still fairly flat

 

this is not a definitive comparison because you can always question my technique, and how much did I linish each one exactly, and so on (I tried to do it the same) but pound for pound, same settings and prep, same person doing it, there is a noticeable difference on this occasion

 

I suppose knowing this I would prefer longer more penetrating runs where it's structural, and on press shaped parts where warping is less likely, but use the tacking method where it's more cosmetic (door skin or quarter panel repairs for example).   this is why I'm trying to focus on the technique for continuous welds

 

considering buying TIG attachments for this reason, but also determined to get better at this first before moving on

Edited by stuart bowes, 07 November 2025 - 11:25 AM.