Anything welding

Makes perfect sense. I should also mention that my experience was on the NDT side, welding could be very different.

 

When I was heavy into bending wrenches on helicopters I wanted to go through NDT training. I knew there was good money in that and a state side A&P doesn’t make much.

 

If you want to clean up the flux spatter, I found spraying the weld area with "anti spatter spray" worked really well.

 

I picked up an 80 CF cylinder today along with 0.023 and 0.030 solid core wire. Cant wait to get it set up!

 

Holy shit! We thought it was gonna take more effort to move you into gas.

You are gonna love it!

 

Lol, you had me at magical welds and less splatter

 

I was at a local TW members place of work this morning to pick up some scrap metal, and there just so happened to be a Robert's Oxygen a mile away, soooo....

 

Don’t forget to swap polarity on the welder! And make sure you use the correct roller in the wire feeder.

 

Stick your face closer to what you are welding, you will be surprised what a difference it makes to have your face right up in it.

 

Just make sure to shake the bottle before every time you weld so the gas is mixed

 

I do the same with my water since the hydrogen and oxygen separates if it sits too long.

 

Most people have no idea how much better shaken up water is

 

What?

Please tell me I missed a joke.

 

Lol

 

Serves me right for checking my phone while driving.

Bad dog! No biscuit!

 

I hate Baja bugs but this one came out kind cool. I refuse to work on them but since this one was for one of my best friends I swallowed my pride. It has center mounted arm and I got 19” travel in the front and 18” in the rear

 

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Thanks, I had almost forgotten to do that! First impression with gas and 0.023 is mixed; I'm still playing around with settings, will post pics hopefully later today. Splatter is almost non-existent, which is great, but the bead looks more like cake icing from a pastry bag rather than a bead of caulk like I was getting with flux core. Can't seem to get the puddle to "flow", it looks lumpy when I finish.

I should probably run through all the setup steps to make sure I didn't forget to change anything from 0.030 flux core to 0.023 straight wire, but I went through the instructions pretty methodically and don't think I missed anything. A lot of variables in play right now with me at the bottom of the learning curve; it's hard to single out the one that may be causing the problem. That being said, I'm thoroughly enjoying myself! This is all next level stuff and I'm sure I'll eventually get it sorted out.

 

I'll try that on my next iteration. I am seeing it a little better with the shade at 9 and my 250 W halogen work light (that sucker puts out a lot of heat though, I need the Lil Larry LED light!), but the contrast is still pretty significant.

 

That's what's referred to as being "cold". It just means it's not properly penetrating and you'll want to turn up the welder settings. It also depends on what type of joint you're welding. For example, let's say you butt two pieces of tube together nice and flush. If you weld it like that, the puddle has nowhere to flow and it will appear like icing from a pastry bag. If you post pics, that would be helpful. You'll get better, just takes time.

Side note: I've never tried 023. I've found that 030 is a great all around wire and I've welded from 1/4" down to like 20 gauge with it.