Killer Weldz Thread

[WARRIORWELDING]

it may just be a difference in terminology; but i caught alil flack about some mig triggering welds( or tack-tack as they called it) on my sheet metal in my copper crawler build, here and on pirate. warrior welding gave me some very technical input on the downfalls of this method, which sounded logical to me, yet i see this everywhere from garage builds to full custom shop builds, and no mention of any criticism on those.

I stand by my advice, and I believe the only reason it was brought out was that the original pic was on a tubing member of some sort, not sheet metal.

The tack tack method is not ideal for anything structural because you get a cold lap between each tack. IMO for what you're doing with all the sheetmetal thats not so structural its fine but not for much else. If you were to cut a triggered weld in half lengthwise you would see that there is a gap or small hairline crack between each tack.
If you prefer to have that nice dime stack look. Practice doing a continuous weld and varying your pattern. I typically use lower case cursive e's and change their over lap and height based on the look I want and the material I'm working with. Works for me in any position, pushing or pulling. I always picture that I have margins to touch as I make the circles just like having to type between the margins on paper. Focus on the margins always go up and down the same amount so you get that nice uniform bead. Once you get that down you can work with different amounts of stickout and how far you dip back into the puddle to really tune the weld like you want it. It's kinda like a golf swing, you've got a hundred things to do and think about but the more you do it the more natural it'll be.

One hundred percent agree. Good practical advice.

Here is a theory....

If a chassis was built structurally sound and all of its tube continuity was perfect, it would most likely live a super long time and take tons of abuse with shitty welds....

Disagree, poor welds fracture and or fail catastrophicly.
Therfore the chasis fails. The only thing that holds a poorly welded chasis together longer is poor over engineering to hide badly constructed joints.

on the other hand

If a chassis was not built structurally sound BUT had perfect welds it would most likely crack up and fall apart....

Nope the whole unit would act as a reinforcing structure. The entire stucture may fagtigue and show signs of stress and break down, but no single point failure should ever occur.

I disagree that trigger welding is a bad thing.... Not only was I taught to do it in school, but I have been around multiple sand car companies, and trophy trucks for that matter that trigger weld everything....

Trigger welding is a bad thing when someone doesn't understand what they are trying to accomplish other than it looking cool.

Triggering a weld and or "MANUAL PULSE WELDING" is entirely a different process than tac tac tac tac ..................

Think about it like this.... On .120 wall tubing to get a perfect weld all you have to do is get complete penetration past the .120 mark on both pieces.... So if you make a bead thats not undercut, no matter how you make your bead.... Look at the back of the weld and you can see the filler in tact all the way across, you have accomplished your goal....

Just because you see penetration doesn't meanm the jopd is done.

If your welding a 3/8 steel plate to a .120 wall tube.... Chances are, your not going to get the right penetration any way you go about it.... It all goes back to fabrication and chamfering the edges on that 3/8 plate

Trigger welding takes around the same amount of time and preparation as tig welding does in my opinion.... Plus its always good to know a few trade secrets

A properly preped joint shouldn't need to be manually pulsed except in high current vertical up travel.

Practice makes perfect and this type of welding definably takes a TON of practice and is the hardest to get right!!!!

I'll agree with you. Yea it is probably strong enough to hold up forever if you do it right. The fact of the matter is that a trigger weld and a continuous weld compared side by side the cont. weld wild always prevail.
With all the bad blood that comes with trigger welding and the fact that the AWS doesn't even recognise it as a legit weld procedure why would a big trophy truck or buggy builder even think about doing it. To me on tubing a continuous weld that looks like a stack of dimes is much more complicated to make look nice and be stout than stacking tack welds up on top of each other. Seems like an easy way to make a "stack of dimes"

I understood everything you said here except the last statement. As for the stack of dimes- individual dimes want buy squat. Tie em together and you can buy a coke to drink. Forget about trying to make everthing look all lapped together when your mig welding tube and you can make dollars. People really should stop trying to make Mig look like Tig.

 

[WARRIORWELDING]

I'd say your %100 correct when you re-iterate the word, most.

most meaning over a 75 percent failure rate

 

[MarsFab]

True but david is right. Its what people want, well... they want TIG welds but they don't want to pay for it.

I follow a lot of different welding and fab forums and you wouldn't believe the guys wanting the "stack of dimes" look and can't figure it out. So they go out and buy one of these american sold chinese built pulse mig machines thinking thats what makes that nice dime weld. Only to find out that all it really does is lay down a nice flat even heat flat weld. Ideal right... Nope they want dimes without having to use any torch english. So for them the quest goes on. Then they pay twice as much for a pulse on pulse machine that syncs the wire speed with the current wave. They could have saved a ton doing a little research and practice.

Just goes to show how far a style or fad can go.

I wonder whats next.... maybe it'll be upside down "M" welds.

 

[WARRIORWELDING]

A pulse in any form of welding is created only to allow the fluidity of the weld pool to decrease enough to allow forward progresion of the weld pool without burn through or gravitational drop out. In other words just enough to keep the filler from hitting the floor or the inside of the part.

The key word is fluid. A completely froozen tack is not fluid and results in the entire area around the tack and sometimes the entire weldment to be cold lapped.

Manual pulse is recommended in out of position vertical up travel. It is done in high amperage rapid triggering and has more on time or trigger depressed than not.

Welding is the act of making two parent materials fluid. This fluid dissolves into one another creating a new solution called the weld joint. Just like salt or sugar in water.

Placing a dab of molten metal over a base material is not welding. No mater how purty it is.

THE ONE THING THAT SAVES ALOT OF PEOPLE IS:

A weld is generally twice as strong as mild steel in mechanical properties so if their is a fraction of good stuff in their somewhere it will mask the whole mess for a period of time.

 

[MetalCraftSolved]

Triggering a weld and or "MANUAL PULSE WELDING" is entirely a different process than tac tac tac tac ..................

Huh?

 

[MarsFab]

THE ONE THING THAT SAVES ALOT OF PEOPLE IS:
A weld is generally twice as strong as mild steel in mechanical properties so if their is a fraction of good stuff in their somewhere it will mask the whole mess for a period of time.

Thats pretty good!

 

[MarsFab]

Lets see some more weld!

 

[mcutler]

hey guys; i apologize if i started any heated debate. warrior i totally believe what you posted in my thread and what we spoke of on the phone, also you did a killer job on my shave kit; to bad ballistic did a shitty job on the front cover and the patch plate, they are both leaking. must be that new robot they bought;
anyway, i think you, chris and david are fantastic welders and fabricators no matter how you look at it. i hope to further my skills and relearn a few bad habits from all of your experiences and techniques; again my apologies.

 

[WARRIORWELDING]

Huh?

I don't think I mis-spelled manual. But the above post is my explination of "pulse welding".

Also in my "Lincoln college" book manual is descrided as being conducted by the opperator via an arc controller (foot pedal, thumb controller) or pulling the trigger on the mig gun.

Automated pulse is preset and machine controlled of course.
Which is very nice since you can set back ground currents control the slope of heat input, crater fill, pulse duration, on time, off time, peak current ect. ect..

 

[MarsFab]

Nah I don't see it as a heated debate and I hope these guys feel the same way. From what I've see david puts my welds to shame. Thats why I question his process. not to take anything away from him, just to understand his reasoning. I also don't think you started it. If anybody did it was me.

 

[WARRIORWELDING]

hey cutty nobody's bashing here, at least thats not my intent.

welding and methods have been discussed as long as the process has been around.

We're all wearing big boy pants and we've all got an opinion. Thats all it boils down too.

 

[MetalCraftSolved]

lol don't apologize dude, we're all just explaining what we believe is right and and debating whats true and whats not. Nothing heated on my end and I hope who ever reads that stuff takes what they want and leaves what they want....

All in all I'm sure we'll all drink a beer together at a camp fire someday and talk shit

 

[MetalCraftSolved]

AWWW GROUP HUG

 

[MarsFab]

Back on topic sorry I don't have close ups of them all.
Had to stretch an s10 frame a few inches. I thought it turned out pretty cool.

This is a buggy Im workin on. The belly is 3/16 fully welded all the way around. MIG

Half inch plate TIG'd to the face of a bumper.

 

[mcutler]

cool deal.

those are bad ass chris!

i had very little plate and structural welding to do since my chassis was already fully welded by jim, but here is one of my truss. NOTE; all the link tabs were welded by warrior when he did my shave kit; they are crazy nice... the tubing on the truss and the web between tubes and axle are mine. i need some practice on my restarts; i was trying to avoid warping the axle tube by running an 1.5" or so then letting cool for bout hour before returning to same joint. i also welded the bridge to the axle last year.

 

[WARRIORWELDING]

looks good. What diameter cup and tungsten are you runnin? Do you use a gas lense on the torch?

opps meant that question for Mars

You've put a bunch of work in that entire build cuttty. I'd hate to no the man hours on that thing. All the trussing turned out nice and totally different than what I took a guess at on the design.

 

[MetalCraftSolved]

Back on topic sorry I don't have close ups of them all.
Had to stretch an s10 frame a few inches. I thought it turned out pretty cool.
View attachment 34713

Aren't those type trucks really hard to find a point to measure from to mount leaf springs? I did a solid axle swap on a older s-10 for a guy and I had to measure all the way back to the rear hangers

 

[MarsFab]

looks good. What diameter cup and tungsten are you runnin? Do you use a gas lense on the torch?
opps meant that question for Mars

All of those welds were done more than 6 months ago. Im pretty sure they were all done with a #5 cup with 3/32 lanthinated tungsten. I know thats a little large for the tungsten on that material but I like the way it welds. Since those welds I've discovered what a gas lense is and have fallen in love with them. Now Im usually using 2% thoriated 3/32 and a #8 I think gas lense for just about everything mild steel and stainless thicker than .090.

 

[MarsFab]

Aren't those type trucks really hard to find a point to measure from to mount leaf springs? I did a solid axle swap on a older s-10 for a guy and I had to measure all the way back to the rear hangers

Yep they suck. The front cab mounts look like they would work but ended up being a half inch different side to side. I actually found out that the seam where the frame stops being boxed in the rear was the most accurate.

 

[mcutler]

thanks andrew. im guesstimating bout 300+ for myself and maybe 40-50 for helpers, and 2000+ brainstorming, researching, shopping, internet... i'm ready for a friggn vacation.

 

[Papa_Jon]

Does this count?

This is wha mine look like when Im at my best

 

[shawn]

This is wha mine look like when Im at my best

Yeah, that could kill somebody. Killer weld FTW

 

[willness33]

This is wha mine look like when Im at my best

I've put down a few like that when I forget to open the bottle.lol

To every one of the experienced weldors in this thread, thank you for all of your input and advice. People like me like to read different points of view on experiences and techniques. I didn't see a heated debate, but more of a discussion of professionals. Keep the ideas and pics coming!

 

[Papa_Jon]

You see why i dont weld lol my Son picks up the gun and is laying beads that i seen guys that weld for year cant do. Crap is not fair lol

 

[Hurley]

For every porous weld pictured on the internet, there are a thousand more out there in real life.....


I'm sure many of them were laid by me too - and it's a shame, because when I lay a group of good beads I throw off my helmet & gloves and stomp around in celebration.