Welding school to Graduation and stuff in between!

Week 9 has come and gone!

Wow, it went by way too fast but there's plenty to share.

Gents, I did not forget about you or this thread

Been really busy as we finalized some Solar stuff for our new house that's being built.

That and we took a trip to Universal Studios, followed by camping for a few days.

A week from now even, we're going back camping for 4-5 days!

To the important stuff!

Our instructor caught COVID, at least that's what was shared to me, as of last Wednesday. I did miss Thursday of last week but no harm to my grades fortunately.

Since we had a sub, we were left to practice more Ts, verticals, the importance of gusset placement, and more.

Something happened that really boosted my confidence - Tuesday afternoon I had run multiple T's. I got lazy and instead of cutting more metal, I got about 23 beads on 2 T's I put together....overkill I know.

At the end of the day that stuff goes to the scrap bin.

Wednesday morning, I found said piece on the table of our classroom. I thought it was weird, and waited until the end of the day to meet up with the main instructor. He comes in after our class as he teaches the afternoon/evening.

Apparently he said it did not belong in the scrap bin, and wanted to know who had done said piece.

He got technical and even said it's difficult laying the beads on top of other beads, and that there was no undercut or discontinuities anywhere that he could see.

Suggested I either; keep it and use it for pictures for the portfolio we build later, or let him have it to demonstrate it for future classes.





Seeing as how we can only do so much without a real itinerary, I went ahead and started my first 'personal' project.

Apparently, you are allowed to do them but you must take the time to draw out a blueprint and all so I did -



The small project was just building a sleeve for a Class III hitch. It won't be used for towing or anything, it'll just be the base for a round tube to act as a flag holder when a vehicle is stationary.

Practiced some real heat management in keeping this whole thing square -









I do have some slight undercut, where I laid a new bead on top of the old when doing my passes. I realize I could've prevented this by grinding the initial bead first before starting another

Anyway it's been great, and everyone's impressed with my progress. Especially since I'm the first to draw a diagram. We just starting learning weld symbols.

When it got slow Thursday I took a stab at doing some stick. Being a glutton for punishment I asked "what's the most difficult rod to run"

The answer was 6010 -



Not sure why really. I never stuck the rod and those were my first passes trying stick for the first time!

 

Yes your doing well but sooner or later your going to go crashing into a Brick wall just don`t let that get you to frustrated it happens to the best of us.

I myself don`t think 6010 is hard to run at all you just need to know the tricks because it is different then running 7018. If you can master 7018 and 6010 you can pretty much handle anything you need to do with steel .

When you can run vertical up and overhead in any process that is when you start to excel .

Why would you not trust your Receiver you made for anything but holding a flag ?? Don`t trust your welds yet ? It would make a good front recovery point .

Towing I could see then you only need to add a reinforcement where the male part plugs in like on the commercial receivers

Have a Great Turkey Day!!

 

Thanks, I'll make sure to remember that!

I know I had an off day for a bit, but come to find out someone had reversed + and - when they switched out my mild steel wire to flux core. I found they messed up the regulator, switched wire, and left me a nasty nozzle and tip. Hell even the wore wasn't secured -





It wasn't until I said "fuck it I'm going to try stick welding" that I disconnected the cable, and found it was in the wrong place.

Reverse polarity MIG

After all was said and done, I was laying down my usual beads

 

I did also mess with 6013, in 3/32 which is supposed to be really finicky and hard to lay down.

They were right, I couldn't lay a stringer for crap my first try but I did a nice bead when I stitched. Truth be told, I don't know what a freeze/fill 6013 would be used for and I didn't mess with my heat.

I'll give 7018 a try just to see what it's all about.

 

The 6013 freeze fill is great when you have poor fitter that leaves very large gaps in none structural welds .

So you can just bridge the gap where with a load bearing weld you would just run stringer beads on each side till a single pass will close the gap .

Then one always goes by the procedure where you work.

7018 takes a very short arc you need to get you head in close to see the puddle some times .

 

Ah, yeah see I need to learn what each electrode is really for; your explanation for 6013 helps.

I noticed it also had a pretty short arc but it was really easy to keep it going.

Guess that's where MIG helped me in this case.

 

I had wanted to answer each part, hence the separate quotes but got busy!

So it's not so much that I don't trust my welds, I'm just unsure of;

1. The type of steel needed

2. The thickness of said steel needed

3. The specifics as to maintaining structural integrity in relation to the hole drilled for the lock pin

all to create a strong receiver.

Especially since I just took angled steel, and welded it together to make square tube. How strong can it really be?

 

I'm curious what @GHOST SHIP would have to say about stuff so far

 

I’ve been following along with great interest.



you’ve been progressing super fast but that’s not something you don’t already know. I’ll probably wager that you already know as much if not more than me about welding. The rest comes with experience.

 

I can't wait for that; you'd think I'd be excited about our house (which I am) but I'm more excited about getting a welder and getting some more done!

 

Just as strong as most other mild Carbon Steel the welds are the strongest part .Maybe stronger then HREW be fun to test and find out.

If I think to measure Most Commercial Receivers are only 3/16" or 1/4" until your using a 2 5/16" ball out side of the reinforcement I have all flavors I am curious now

How do you think they make HREW square tube run flat stock from coils through dies then seam weld it not really all that different it is interesting to watch if you have never seen it

Then you have Drawn Over Mandrel Square Tube which used to be about twice the cost of HREW then with metal prices being so crazy who knows any more. Then who you know still plays into the price .How much you order as well.

 

love it!

 

Was hoping for constructive criticisms

 

you are probably older and more experienced in life than me. so i dont really have much to add because it looks like you have got things pretty well figured out on the welding side, and i dont want to sound like a jackass with some cliche life advice. just arc time and trying to make as many mistakes as you can to improve yourself, and remember what you learned from the mistakes so you dont make them again.

i am glad to see someone excelling in something i am passionate about.

 

In this field one is always learning if not your going to be left behind.

I think now and then about about when Mig and Tig started to trickle down to smaller fab shops One would have thought it was Devil Worship or Black Magic of some sorts.

Then Plasma Cutters did the same now they are in home hobby use

 

You do know that flux core requires reverse polarity right? That said, they should of atleast set it back to where it was and cleaned it up.



Also try reverse polarity stick welding with a 6013 rod. I do that alot at work and it seems to work out for me, although we have the capable 480V Millers at work to do that with. 7018's are the worst to try and strike an arc. Once you do get it going it's basically a drag rod. 6013's are a "farm rod" but strike easy and burn through just about anything. Great for old nasty metal, but terrible for up and down work. The flux does make it a little hard to see the puddle.

 

No I didn't; I learned that after asking the instructor.

I'm sure you missed a lot of what I posted but I haven't even dived into flux at all yet.

 

This is where things really get confusing!!

In Physics because electrons are negative charged particles and electrons flow to the positive charged particles Electricity is the movement of electrons.

Then years ago The powers to be decided in DC circuits to make it simple electric would flow positive to negative talk about confusing .

Now back To welding We are back to physics again to make things easier we sort of instead of Reverse and Straight polarity went to electrode positive (reverse) or electrode negative .(straight) It just made things easier in the field when using 6 Packs and other assorted racks some machines set up Mig some for DC tig with the high frequency box and gas cylinder close to were you were working some times 200' away from the rack .

Then throw in machines with polarity switches

All part of welding in the field one only can learn so much in school

 

Been following the thread since the beginning, just never really said anything. Your progress is great though!

Flux core sucks, honestly. It will do the job for "farm" work or the like, but it's dirty and nasty. We used to use it out in the field at my last job. Had Miller suitcase 120V welders with flux core that were lightweight and portable. Could drag them up on a conveyor or platform up in the air without too much trouble. I'm spoiled where I work now since our Miller welders are 480V and do MIG or stick. We also have a couple Fronius portable lithium battery stick welders. I still prefer to roll out 300' of cable to use the 480V Miller though...

 

Nice!

Damn 480V, can only imagine how big those welders are.

We've got a big transformer-based stick welder (Miller) but I've yet to try it.

Been told that if I run it, I won't ever want to try inverter-based

This week it's been nothing but stick welding as we all have to put a 30 degree bevel on pipe, and weld it together. We have to put a 1/8" landing at the top and run a root weld with 6010. Think we fill with 7018?

The distance between the two pieces though needs to be 1/8" as well.

The 6010 can be 3/32" or 1/8" sized rod so we'll see what I use, but most likely 1/8".

It's funny cause everyone has run a full module of stick welding before I even joined the class yet a handful of guys have issues sticking.

Here are some of mine today with 1/8" 6010 -