Practical MIG Welding: Welding
Watch This Course
$199 USD
-OR-
Or
8 easy payments of only $24.88 USD
Instant access. Easy checkout. No fees.
Welding
03.16
| 00:00 | With your workpiece cleaned and prepped, the MIG set up, welder settings keyed in to suit your material, your PPE fitted and your part clamped down with a dry run performed, you're now ready to actually weld it. |
| 00:12 | Again, if you need to, make sure you refer back to the practical skills section for a full breakdown on the specifics of any aspects that we're going to talk about here. |
| 00:20 | Even if you're familiar with the machine, it's a good idea to first find some off cuts that are the same material and thickness as your workpiece and perform some test welds. |
| 00:29 | This will allow you to fine tune the settings and your technique before tackling the actual workpiece. |
| 00:34 | First we need to add some tack welds before doing any larger welds. |
| 00:38 | This will stop the part moving in rapid expansion and contraction due to the weld's heat. |
| 00:43 | We can start by tacking on the opposite end that we intend to start at and remember, the smaller the tack welds, the less interruption they'll have on our final weld. |
| 00:52 | It's also important to consider the angle of our MIG gun position when tacking and welding. |
| 00:57 | By focusing the arc evenly on the weld joint, we're inputting heat evenly to both sides and creating an even weld that we strong and uniform. |
| 01:07 | By depressing the button on the torch, we initiate the arc and begin the tacking process. |
| 01:11 | This should fire the wire into the arc and immediately join our two pieces with a small tack. |
| 01:17 | We need to visually inspect the tack weld and make sure that it's contacting and bridging both halves so that the part is strong enough to move around the bench. |
| 01:25 | By measuring and ensuring that our part is in the right position and repeating this process on the opposite side of our last tack, we now can be guaranteed that everything is ready to go. |
| 01:35 | Remember that it's much easier to break a tack and reposition our part rather than cutting apart a complete weld once we've finished. |
| 01:42 | Before each weld, we need to take a look at our MIG gun for any visible damage or metal inclusion from performing our tack welds. |
| 01:49 | If the gas nozzle does have some inclusions, then spending some time cleaning these off will keep the gas flow consistent. |
| 01:55 | After positioning ourselves for the complete weld and running through a quick dry run, we can hit the button on the MIG gun and begin to weld. |
| 02:02 | Remember what we want to aim for is that nice bacon frying sound while we're welding and we should see some fluid agitation as the molten weld pool builds up. |
| 02:12 | The travel speed will dictate the size of this molten weld pool. |
| 02:15 | If we have any irregular popping or feedback through the gun, we'll need to decrease the wire feed speed. |
| 02:21 | If our weld is very quiet and overly fluid on the other hand, we'll need to increase our wire feed speed to get back into that crackling sound that we want to hear. |
| 02:30 | Keeping the stick out length consistent does take some practice but it's necessary to complete a reliable weld as the longer the stick out length, the higher the resistance and the colder the weld arc. |
| 02:40 | Once we have our settings in the ballpark and the weld is crackling along as it should, then we can concentrate on the shape of the weld pool. |
| 02:47 | As we learned in the practical skills section, there are several variations of weld motion and the best choice will depend on the job at hand. |
| 02:55 | Make sure you refer back to the welding technique module if you need a refresher on this topic. |
| 02:59 | Practice does make perfect and the more we do, the better we'll become at our craft. |
| 03:04 | So, if you need a day to dial in your welding, then so be it. |
| 03:08 | Grab plenty of scrap material and weld it up until you're happy with the results. |
