learn to weld?

[bhlarctic]

I am hoping to learn how to weld so that I can play around with fabricating a few things. I have plenty of wood-working skills, but have not done much with metal.

Anyone know where to look for a class/course? I was thinking of the comm. college. Anyone ever done this?

How ironic--the advertisement at the top of the page when I wrote this was for welding manuals

[silvertrkposi]

learning to weld is easy.

i tought myself how to weld with a small mig when i was 14 or around there so that tells you how easy it is

welding good isnt as easy but with a gas welder and some practice you'l come in to it

[bowshtr]

Just do some research online and just practice until you see you have good penetration and clean looking welds. Everyone welds differently, there really is no wrong or right way to weld. As long as your making good solid welds and it looks halfway ok then you can roll on from there. I am willing to bet that most ppl in the 4x4 hobby havnt learned by a pro. Most of us here just picked it up and started playing.

I would say, if you are gonna start, start with wire feed welding, (mig, or fluxcore). It is simple to do. The one thing that takes practice is setting your wire feed settings and amp settings. But after a while you will pretty much know where the knob needs to be for differnet thicknesses of metals.

Play with as much scrap metal you can. The more practice the better.

A lot of community colleges offer welding courses and are very good courses to take. I woudlnt mind taking a course this summer on learning how to tig and heliarc weld, plus i need to work on my stick welding skills as well.

Hope you get it all worked out. Its not hard, just takes time and patience and you will be rewarded with some good welding skills.

One other thing, when practicing welding, try to make certain variables in your environment. like try to setup some things so you have to weld in a tight spot, or around a corner, things like that. If you practice lil things of that nature, when it comes to welding either in the field or just something you need to do in your garage on your vehicle you will have the practice there to make that welding situation much easier.

[silvertrkposi]

sorry about hijacking you thread but bowshtr if you want to learn to tig get out your set of torches and buy a welding head for it

teaches you to weld useing both hands 1 for holding torch 1 for dabing rod witch imho is the hardest part of tiging

torch welding is the only kind of welding i got tought how to do and it was 1 class period of my auto class and havent done it sence but when i started my job at an aluminum shop i picked up tig quick

p.s. tig and heliarc are the same thing tig means Tungston Inert Gas. helium is an inert gas but there wasent any other inert gas used when tig came out hence the name heliarc

[bowshtr]

Cool! I thought heliarc was a lot harder then tig, my buddy was tellin me he kept burnin through the metal when he did the heliarc, maybe its the gas mixture makes it different

[ronnny]

Yes if you are tigging or mig welding the different gas mixtures make a difference on different metals that you are welding. The only training i have had is on the job. Going on better than 15 years. I do not tig but i braze, arc and mig weld. The best thing about a class that you do not get on your own is a better general knowledge of what rod, wire and gas to use for the different kinds of material you are welding on. This may be more so in my maintenance work where i just weld on occasions and do a varity of metals. This may sound stupid to some but have someone around when you are welding (fire watch/help hold things straight). A # of folks can tell you about catching thier shirt or shoes on fire. Extra eyes can see things you over look or even if they don't know how to weld point out something that may be easier.

[bhlarctic]

Great. Thanks for the tips. I'll let you know how it goes.

[silvertrkposi]

ya i have never welded using helium but im sure there is some diference in how it welds compared to argon

i want to try it

ronnny you have a good point definitly a good idea to have some one around when welding ive cought my self on fire like 7-8 times in the last mounth but i weld every day so its not uncomon because i where frayed cloths alot old pants are so comfortable

one day i cought my self on fire 4 times in like 20 minutes and didnt know it till some one pointed it out to me and it was the same kid every time it was funny every time he would walk through my shop he'd say kevin your on fire probly had to be there but it was funny

[DeadlyPeace]

Also a few good welding tools for holding things in place for when you don't have an extra hand. 1 or 2 pairs of different size standard, C-clamp, and flat plate vice grips depending on how much or types of things you get into welding. Maybe start off with just a couple different sizes and then as you start getting into it and doing more stuff, then get a second pair of a certain size or a new pair of a size you don't have yet.

Another good thing to have is welding magnets. they come in a few different sizes and have come in handy for me plenty of times when vice grips won't work.

Sometimes you may even have make the right tool for the job, but not too often.

Other then that, as everyones been saying, just practice. Also to add to what bowshtr said about setting up or welding in different potions or type of situations. Also try different type of metals, sizes, and shapes. Then start combining them together.

As for welders, if you don't have one or plan to buy one, I'd say a mig would best to learn with, and don't to get one that's less then 100 amps. With the difference in the prices of them these days I'd spend a little extra and get something with 135 amps or more.

[Forgotten]

if you want to be a good welder, start with an arc welder. if you start with a mig, you will never have the patiece to learn to arc weld. btw arc welders are about the cheapest welder to buy, and rod isn't too expensive. lincoln is the best arc welder in the business. miller is fancy but wont weld worth crap

[82yota]

Im going to have to lean towards the learn with the stick welder also. When I learnt to weld I learnt with the stick and when it came time to weld with the MIG it was reletivly easy to catch on to. As for the TIG it is not that tricky to do you just have to make sure that what you are welding on is very clean. Cleanliness doesnt matter as much for stick welding as it does for MIG or TIG. And you can do a very large variety of work with stick. Can't do body work but when doing body work you need a machine that you can really turn right down and with that machine you cant really crank it up to weld heavy duty stuff. And Forgotten Im going to have to disagree with you that millers wont weld worth a crap because we've got one in our garage its 180amp with TIG and aluminum capabilities and it welds really nice. I didn't notice much of a differnce between the Miller Syncrowave 180 and the Lincoln 250. They both had fairly smooth arcs and did good jobs. The best welder I have used for stick was our 600 amp 3 phase motor driven Hobart. It has a really smooth arc.

[rockcrawlintoy]

if u wanna learn to weld take a class at the local community college

Drew

[92rocdoc]

One other useful tip is: Once you've gotten pretty good with the welder start practicing with the cutting torch and plasma cutters as well as other cutting tools such as portable band saws and circular saws with an abrasive blade, metal doesn't just come in the shape you want it to. Of course don't forget to work on finishing skills such as grinding (it's actually really easy but still takes practice). I also agree with Forgotten, start with an arc welder it is fairly hard but like everything else it takes practice. Also start with an easy rod such as 6011 or 6013. Both of these rods are extremely easy. Once you get into the 7014 or 7018 rods be prepared. 7018 lays down a nice bead but is really hard to keep an arc struck with. Don't forget to clean the beads after running them because they will deposit slag and slag is pretty much just waste so get a good chipping hammer and wire brush and always clean your beads I gaurantee that you will have stronger beads when you do this. Oh I should tell you if you are going to build stuff like bumper's or tube fenders always cover all of your welds with bondo or some other metal filler. It will just turn out nicer in the long run and if placed properly can even help to strengthen welded area's. Now things like skid plates or crossmembers have to have nice strong beads but as for finish work don't worry as much. Especially if these parts are going to have the crap beaten out of them.

[norcalyota]

I was in a car wreck a while back and then in a coma for a month and afterwards I had to learn everything over again after I woke up...how to walk, talk, everything. Except driving a manual transmission of course! Anyway, one thing I didn't relearn how to do was MIG weld. Before the wreck I could lay a bead so perfect people would think a machine did it. When welding on a horizontal surface I would move from left to right and make backwards C's and you can see the pool of metal following the tip. When on a vertical surface I would hold the tip at a 45 degree angle and drag the tip up, then halfway down and up, and halfway down again. Once again you will see the beads pool up behind your tip. It takes practice and time to figure out the right temp to set the welder at and what speed weld. My advice is that if you have a mig welder just get a lot of scrap metal and start experimenting. You'll get it.