• If You Are Having Trouble Logging In with Your Old Username and Password, Please use this Forgot Your Password link to get re-established.
  • Hey! Be sure to login or register!

Weld Quality

Granted my introduction to GMAW was in 1972 when a high school instructor took me to a Miller dealer for a introduction lesson on a new MIG machine. You varied the current by plugging a cable into different holes. This was at a time I was into my second year doing weld repairs on rusty Pipers after school. I never took to ARC or MIG till more recent years.[/QUOTE]

Like this Charlie?? This is left over from my 4x4 shop I had back in the early 70s. Still works great and use it regularly for heavier stuff. ...... Ride the hoss till it drops I guess.

Miller 35.jpg
 

Attachments

  • Miller 35.jpg
    Miller 35.jpg
    73.6 KB · Views: 184
I was kind of grinning about that description of that mig that changed amps by plugging in. I have one too. Been used hard since new, long before I bought it, and still works as good as anything! We had 2 in a welding shop I worked in, and finally at the ripe old age of about 15 years, the fan quit....so we cut a hole so we could "hand prop" it. The thing worked for another 2 years, every day, and finally the fan quit completely. The boss said to keep using it even without a fan. Last I heard, it's still working part time, 10 years later! Good old fashioned technology never fails!

As said above, this is a great thread, and I'm learning lots. One very important thing I'm learning is that I probably wont use a Tig enough to keep current (no pun intended), so I'm just gonna put that money towards gas and keep my little Smith torch handy!
John
 
I use my mig for general repair and building jigs. I once made up a cluster of scraps to try out the mig on 4130 .035 wall and failed miserably. The weldors at Maule, Am Champion etc. are trained to make it work. Remember, powdercoat and epoxy paint hide a lot of sins, those fuselages are pretty fugly in the raw. Nothing I would send out of my shop. Back in the '70's we had an L-5 Stinson based at our airstrip that was straight out of the military inventory. It had many ugly looking welds all over the cockpit that looked like my first attempt with a Lincoln Tombstone AC box when I was 14. Several years ago an L-5 appeared at Oshkosh perfectly restored and when I looked it also had those same ugly stick welds.
 
Granted my introduction to GMAW was in 1972 when a high school instructor took me to a Miller dealer for a introduction lesson on a new MIG machine. You varied the current by plugging a cable into different holes. This was at a time I was into my second year doing weld repairs on rusty Pipers after school. I never took to ARC or MIG till more recent years.

Like this Charlie?? This is left over from my 4x4 shop I had back in the early 70s. Still works great and use it regularly for heavier stuff. ...... Ride the hoss till it drops I guess.

View attachment 52275

Ahh superb, a history of evolution from the early years of Mig to the Syncrowave. There are earlier and later but for hand welding these are real tools to get the job done.
 
Those machines are full of copper windings. Look inside a new invertor machine today and its like looking inside an iPad.
 
I have a Thermal Dynamics 190 Tig machine. If it were not for the pedal and cables it would weigh under 20#. It is the sweetest welding rig I have ever worked with. When running the arc and machine are absolutely silent. I find it eerily pleasant.
Nothing like the noise of the fan and water pump in the true workhorses.
It would be my daily welder if not for the air cooled torch. The cable lets out smoke real quick if you try to go to far. That smoke is a very poor shielding gas.
There is nothing like a 500# welder when you need to be on the pedal all day long.
 
On a similar subject, Tig Gloves. Many years back I bought a batch of 10 Anchor brand 130 gloves. They last quite a long time, long enough they are no longer on the market. I have bought a few other gloves that falsely claim to be light and offer great dexterity. It is frustrating when the new tig gloves arrive and they would be well suited for an old stick welder on 1/2 plate.
Anyone have favorite gloves?
 
Those look good, I see Zoro tools has them, I will order a few pairs so they will be here tomorrow.
 
Charlie, I've been using the Lincoln Electric TIG gloves I bought on Amazon a couple of months. I really like the dexterity and how they've broken in. They've been pretty durable. I use them only for welding and everything else like grinding and cutting I switch to other gloves. My hands are about 4.5" across my palm I and went with the larges which seem to fit just right with a bit of initial snugness that allowed the leather to shape to my hand with use.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QWNJR6R/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
Charlie

I like the Tillmans as they are very thin and flexible. They feel like they are "broken in" when you first put them on.
 
I am currently using the Lincoln gloves, Just came in from the shop taking them off as I sat down. They are pretty good, kind of a universal weight and they are what most recent welding on my plane have been done with. I do like a bit lighter, or call it more supple material. Probably just to make up for the stiffening joints and muscles in my hands.
 
I still have this old Lincoln, was my dad's from the 60's. Still runs great................... Talk about heavy!


Lincoln.jpg
 

Attachments

  • Lincoln.jpg
    Lincoln.jpg
    80.3 KB · Views: 130
My first Tig work was on a huge Hobart followed by building Flat track motorcycles with a big Lincoln which was probably the same as that. One thing I do recall especially the Hobart, minimum arc current was 10 or 15 amps. I was quite surprised how much that affected the welding by not being able to trail off the current when needed. After time I bought my own small torch so I could get the lightest most flexible cables which in close to 50 years I have never needed a large torch head or cables.
 
I started my TIG welding on a Syncrowave 300 or 350. Great machine, but way more than needed for aircraft stuff. Transformer machines provide a nice smooth arc, but like you said, I think the lowest it would go was 10 amps. When I set up my home shop, I started looking for a Syncrowave, but the used ones were beat up and they still wanted top dollar for them. I ended up buying an Everlasting 210 EXT. Inverter machine, lots of adjustability, goes down to 5 amps, and light enough that you can drag it out to the field and can run on 120. VAC if needed. Don’t know if it would be my choice if I was welding day in and day out, but for a home shop, it has been a great machine, and my electric bills aren’t near what they would be with a Syncrowave.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
It is interesting how important the need for low current is with what we do here, one would think 10 amps is a very low current but in reality it's not low enough. Having the arc shut off long before the puddle cools does us no good. Cratering being the issue here which can be a deep hole right to the backside of the material. Many times this can be reflowed, but if the shield gas was not maintained then it is hard to repair.
I just truly wish some of these economical welders had an easy way to run a watercooled torch. On my Thermal Dynamics welder I run a longer section of heavy torch cable into a home machined adapter with a 12' super flexible cable to the #9 torch. I found the long lightweight cables let out smoke in way to short a time.
I am thinking when Airventure returns I will spend some hours in the welding displays and get caught up on the new and great products. Last year was the discovery of spectrum correcting lenses useful with our aging eyes.
 
I’m running 25’ CK superflex cables with a #9 torch. For the stuff I do, the only time I would have liked a water cooled torch was building my fixture table. I was running about 180 amps with the #26 torch and it would get pretty warm. Welding thin wall tubing, I’m not using more than 50 amps, and never running for very long. Water coolers make a lot of noise, and there is enough background noise in the shop already.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
. Water coolers make a lot of noise, and there is enough background noise in the shop already.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I got rid of my noisy water cooler and remembered I had a small water fountain pump, cut hole in top of a narrow tall 5 gallon water jug to drop pump into filled with water. Quieter than the fan on welder now. For the small amount of welding I do at a time it’s fine.


Sent from my iPhone using SuperCub.Org mobile app
 
I have a commercial brand cooling set up for my torch now but for many years I ran house water through my torch regulated down to not over pressure the torch line. I ran the drain right into my adjacent laundry room drain. I was always halfway expecting to deal with hard water deposits causing flow restrictions but it never happened. When I upped my game and built a separate workshop behind my house I went to the dedicated cooling set up. I never gave the fan noise much thought, its the sound of money to me.
 
In mine the water pump is the noisy part. I had to replace the motor once
since it let smoke out so I realize the noise is in the bronze pump. Been the same noise since '86.
I modified my cooler since I started out with a demo unit that had frozen and the cooling coils had split. I have a huge automotive cooler mounted over the main fan on the back of the welder. Never gets warm.
 
Back
Top