Welding advice

[Peter]

Glad you mentioned it. 6013 is an aluminium grade, but to be fair it's usually welded with 4043 filler, so I am kinda stretching a point.

[peatff]

Glad you mentioned it. 6013 is an aluminium grade, but to be fair it's usually welded with 4043 filler, so I am kinda stretching a point.

 

I've only used 4043 or 5356 tig wire for aluminium and never anything exotic. 6013 is aviation grade material from what I can see on Google so it's never going to affect me.

[GardenKit]

I thought I was OK at stick welding; found that practice was the biggest issue, the more the better.

 

However about 6 months ago I broke down a large angle iron crate to construct a frame for a pto based log splitter. Never have I produced such horrible welds, not even as a complete beginner. Feeling cheesed off I put the project down and gave it some though and it came to me; the crate originated in China, it was poor quality probably recycled umpteen times, dirt cheap steel.

Some times its not always technique. Although I still move everything to the horizontal wherever possible

 

You are right, its not always technique, but sometimes the welder is at fault too.

I just posted these comments on 'the mower bench' but they are worth posting here as well.

My 13 year old Clarke 160T mig welder has been giving me trouble lately, the torch is wired in unlike the newer 'euro torch' and has been changed a few times and the clamps have become weak. And, to be honest, I have never welded well with it although my welding these days is only 'repair' welding to mowers and small fabrication occasionally and i thought I had lost my skills.

 

So I decided a new one was in order, and as Inverter Fusion Ltd are just up the road I decided to buy one of theirs.

 

My welding is back to top form instantly, making me wonder why I had put up with the Clarke for all these years.

 

This iFL Mig 170 uses inverter technology, providing stepless control of amps and volts. It is also able to double up as a stick welder which is handy outdoors or on dirty metal. There is an anti-burnback feature which, when in mig mode stops the wire burning back and sticking in the tip which is flaming brilliant.

 

All in all I am very impressed so far, its the best I have ever used, and I have had big Kempi, Migatronic, Esab and more in previous lives.

 

 

[Peter]

The inverter welders have really come on in leaps and bounds, even the Chinese made gear works really well.

[peatff]

I have had a little Kemppi inverter mig for a few years now and it's a brilliant machine. I welded a mower deck the other day and the metal was about 0.6mm thick, it did it no trouble without blowing holes all over the place. The multi function machines are getting more popular now with scratch or lift tig and stick being handy add ons.

[Peter]

Did you use pulse on the 0.6 mm?

[peatff]

Did you use pulse on the 0.6 mm?

 

Kemppi Minarc mig doesn't have pulse but it goes very low on amps, perfect for thing steel and car body work and it will weld up to 5mm from a 13 amp socket and run on an extension lead no problem. It's supposed to be generator friendly as well if you have one big enough but it needs to be about 8kva to do the job properly.

[Peter]

0.6 with no pulse is impressive for mig, I would get the tig out for anything thinner than 1 mm, but my mig is an older transformer machine.

 

Did you weld that in flat position or top to bottom vertical?