How hard is it to learn to weld?

[Peter]

Or you can buy an Albee cylinder, you pay £250 ish up front, but there are no rental fees. When you need a refill you trade the bottle for a new one and just pay for the gas.

 

I have co2 mix and pure argon.

[Darrin Turnbull]

I've done a bit of JB welding before very easy.

[Boy English]

180amp mig on 1.8 wire.. new steel if possible if not well ground (no rusty bits) thin steels worse than thick for blowing holes so if you could find a car man to spare you an hour I would take it..

 

pub size bottles of co2 cost me a tenner to refill, renting a bottle is a pain however if you can find someone with an old co2 bottle they will just exchange it without charge..

 

As mentioned in other comments find a chap who can weld and ask him to give you the lowdown 😀

[Boy English]

0.8 wire !! Apologies for that!!

[MattyF]

It's all in the preparation and a nice rust free and clean surface .. that's my only experience of welding, when my mate who taught welding and restores classic cars got fed up with me asking him to weld up rotten work trucks, he stuck me under and gave me a mig and said get on, I still have the scars from it spitting back on my chest Not enough prep !!

[sandy2210]

Welding - The DIY Guide

try the above site full of tutorials and a fourm a bit like this one with a lot of realy helpfull guys as well as a bit of banter

[Boy English]

Hot bits rolling down your ear canal is always a treat 🙂

[Graham w]

with the right rods it will let you weld most steels (inc. stainless) and even cast iron but do look into this one first as the technique is not trivial

Alec

 

also when welding with stainless rods watch the fumes are carcinogenic

[flatyre]

I did an evening course at the local tech, brazing, stick, mig, and tig. For yourself a good 180 to 250 mig with a euro torch will do, I found mig the easiest and most forgiving until I got more experience. Better with at least a few hours tuition, but even if you just get some scraps of steel at different thicknesses and play about with your power and speed settings until you get that nice sizzling sound and good penetration.

[Haironyourchest]

Get yourself a cheap inverter unit, an auto darkening helmet, plenty of cutting grinding and sanding disks and have at it!

 

I find the quickest way to learn anything is to just start the job, **** it up, throw my tools down in disgust, go away and watch some youtube tutorials, then come back the next day, tear down the previous days disaster and nail it the second time.

 

So many amazing tutorials on youtube.

 

A cheap inverter will always come in handy even if you upgrade later to a mig. You can do things with a stick inverter that you can't do with any other gadget - carry it up ladders, for instance. I know guys who have rebuilt whole truck bodies with a €200 inverter, and you can run them on a normal domestic socket with two 50m extension reels without blowing anything.

 

Light rods and low amps - if you get good its surprising how thin you can go, in a pinch.

 

As others have said, its all in the prep. A few tricks need to be learned to avoid disasters - like spot welling everything before doing the main beads. You can check your welds by walloping them with a sledgehammer.

 

Dont attempt verticals welds, its just a waste of time and materials, at this stage.

 

Design your structure so that all the loading forces are metal on metal - in other words that the welds don't hold any of the force - the welds are there to keep the members from moving, not to support. If in doubt, bolt as well.

 

And watch out for fumes. Work outside if you can, especially with galvanised metal or stainless. Even on the mild steel, the rods produce nasty fumes. Best of luck.