[TheForge] Re: Brooms and Welding Cast

[Mike Spencer]

Ralph> I'm not Frosty...

I'm neither Frosty nor Ralph nor a wizard welder.  Here's what a
non-wizard welder -- viz. me -- does.  More or less in order of
most-used to least-used.

6013 Glomming stuff together

7014 Stuff that has to look nice

7018 Dissimilar metals, vehicle parts, high- or medium carbon parts,
     stuff that has to be secure to be safe

1/16" stainless for some small, hard to do stuff. I forget the number.

6011 Glomming big lumpy stuff together



I have a little 250 amp (100 amps max for 100% duty) AC/DC machine and
I generally keep it plugged to DC for everything.  Swap the leads if
I'm getting too much heat in the workpiece.

Can't comment on vertical or overhead.  I have so little occasion to
do either that I've never had enough practice to do them well.  Er,
except that MIG, which I've gotten only recently and which is a whole
'nother story, seems to make vertical easier where it works at all.

'Course you can do a bad weld with *any* rod.  Our oldest, highly
respected and most accommodating steel supplier in the 70s & 80s had a
lucrative sideline in fabrication, especially steel trusses.  Then a
mall roof collapsed.  Inspection revealed sloppy welds.  Panic
inspection of dozens of other buildings revealed collapses waiting to
happen.  Company went down in flames, bigger less accommodating steel
service center bought the remains.  Sic transit gloria mundi. [1]


FWIW,
- Mike

[1] That doesn not mean that the surveyor gets the first day of the
    week off to see his girlfriend because his survey instrument is
    broken.

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^