This afternoon I spent some time learning to weld. My method was to try and close up the holes in some tinware from the van and grind the welds flat. Then discover that I had made the holes bigger in some places and try to close them up again. Repeat until madness arrives.
To be fair I learned a lot. Having been on a proper course it is really time to put the lessons into practice. At the college the machine is pretty much set up for you. The material you play with is thick and you are only doing fairly simple joints.
I have to set my machine up and work on thin metal. Of course I’m not joining to bits, I want to try and build up my weld pool to fill a rust hole. This is like trying to ice a cake with molten metal. Not being able to see anything properly doesn’t help. I need a strong light so I can see the work piece through the welding mask – or I’ll continue to miss the bit I want to fill and blow a hole in something else.
After two and a half hours of messing around and frustration I thought I had it. My weld pools were getting better. I learned to use the green gloves not the red ones as they gave me better control over the trigger on the welder. I learned that the contact the earth makes with the metal is vital and can be disrupted by a bit of rust or dirt. I tried different settings and made holes when I shouldn’t have. I fiddled with the wire tension and speed. I heard the sound of a good weld crackle and the spit of a duff weld as well.
I had to give up through lack of light. Not inside on the bench but outside where I was grinding the welds flat. Through sheer laziness I hadn’t installed a light outside so when the daylight disappeared I was grinding in the dark. A lead lamp helped but only to make me over confident. So over confident I ground right though the metal I was welding back in.
I learned about grinding today.
No comments:
Post a Comment