Learning to Weld
 

Hey everyone,

Tried to find an answer to my question but didn't seem to find much, so I'll ask you smart people. I'm interested in learning to weld solely for my car projects. Not trying to make a career out of welding, just want to be more self sufficient and experiment with making cool things. I.E welding intercooler piping, tabs for mounting things, heatshield, stuff like that. Things I've had to make out of thinner material I could bend that sometimes don't fit correctly because it was all I had to work with. Is it worth it to go to school to learn or is it something I could safely practice over time, using youtube videos or whatever? The only local school is through a university and its about 8k for the course over 8 months. I work full time and don't know when the classes would take place but I could make it work if it would be that much better. 8k seems like a bit much for the time being since its only a hobby and that money could be put into the car. Ideally I would start with MIG to get the basics and eventually move to TIG.

I'm open to any wisdom or advice. Tell me if its a waste of time, worth the money, I could learn it slowly with practice, whatever!

Thanks!

Buy cheaper mig setup (or cheaper multi-process unit), watch a bunch of youtube stuff, scrounge steel scraps to practice on = win at life...

I learned to stick weld and braze in HS shop class a long time ago and practiced on my grandfathers farm. But today, there's so much on Youtube...

+1 to what bahurd said. I taught myself to weld after watching maybe an hour of youtube then spending the weekend practicing on scrap steel. I started on a flux cord Lincoln welder i got for less than $100 then got a stick welder and practiced that. Now that my work has a big tig i practiced at work on my lunch brakes and stuff welding pipe and more scrap in my spare time until i got decent. You can figure out most of what you need to know from youtube and welding forums the rest is just practice and lots of it.

Great to hear guys! Thanks so much for the input, I really appreciate it! Makes me feel a lot better about it being possible without the classes. I figure for the money spent on the class, I could buy a welder and A LOT of material to practice with. I'll have to do some research on a good starting unit. Hopefully I could find one used but there isn't much on craigslist up here.

I have 3 "welding " schools near my house. I see a lot of local kids getting screwed out of money and learn nothing.


NOTHING beats practice. follow the advice above, post pictures of your work, and we can help advise from there. I could make a simple diagram that could help speed things up too. I should do that.

Get an Alphatig 200x for $700 and upgrade the foot pedal for an additional $100. Get some scrap steal and aluminum and then start laying beads. Any chance you get, more beads... beads on top of beads. In between laying beads watch youtube videos (weld.com, weldingtipsandtricks and kevin caron). The things that don't make sense initially will start to click and you'll be decent before you know it. Welding is 100% a time based scale of improvement.

Most of the welding schools these days seem to be focused more on robotic weld operators rather than teaching them how to actually weld. At my last job we had a lot of "welders" show up for skills test who could barely strike and arc. After talking, all they'd done in the past was tack parts in place and pass them on to a robot to finish.

That seems like a huge waste of time and money. Out of all the shops i have ever been in I think only one had a robotic welder and even then they had a fleet of skilled welders.

Most schools dont focus on teaching anything. They just show you---- and ask you to repeat. Thats not learning. and yeah, I vetted a lot of candidates prior to wasting time with an interview. They rarely pass even the most basic skills test.




OP- Mig is absolutely the most versatile welding, a little less pretty and cannot do thin (less than 1/8") aluminum.

TIG will do pretty much anything, but the learning curve is steep. real steep. and tall. steep and tall. also more of a pain in the ass for quick small jobs. some people are 100% not capable of learning it.


Really look close at a multi purpose machine with 200 amps. Buy once- cry once.

OP- I have zero hands on experiance with this welder but all the local pipeline guys seem to really like it and say it is bombproof.
Razorweld - Suppliers of Razorweld & Razorcut Mig Welders, Tig Welder, Plasma Cutters, Gas Cutting Equipment, supplies and parts for your welding machines

We also just got this at work for one of the service trucks and it is a nice unit but i feel the tig function is lacking
https://www.millerwelds.com/equipmen...YaAhyzEALw_wcB

Your post reminded me of this.

Attachment 228188

When I went through the welding program to get my certificate I found it to be VERY good.

Though, it could be because of my geological location and a teacher who kind of cared.

Now the school is going to have 10% welding classes 90% other classes with the program. You SHOULD just be able to take the welding classes.

I highly recommend this. But check it out first. Also, if you only went for 1 or 2 weeks my school would refund your money if you stopped.


If this isn't an option just buy a cheap machine / machines and watch YouTube videos. Really, practice is what will make you better.

Another here that learned thru YouTube and just getting hands-on. Make mistakes and learn from it. I am still far from being accomplished and am still learning.

Mig was the easiest for me learn. I bought an Alpha tig recently and have been practicing alum and for funsies tried stick. Lol....stick is something after learning the other cleaner methods first.

The wealth of knowledge here is so incredible! Thanks for all of the input. For the time being it seems I'm going to look at the youtube, practice route. My wife is in grad school at the moment, so this seems the most practical. Later schooling could always be an option if I wanted to get certified it seems. Now I just gotta convince her to let me get a welder in the near future lol.

Feel free to keep giving advice or wisdom! Hopefully others will get some insight as well as me and welding might not seem so elusive.

Youtube + seat time here. I took a welding class in college that taught me almost nothing - the most valuable thing I got from it was the seat time behind the gun/torch.

Youtube has been hugely helpful, particularly Weld.com's channel and Welding Tips and Tricks. Arguably the most valuable info they give you is the machine settings. If those are wrong, you'll never actually learn anything, because you'll be fighting those settings the entire time without knowing it. Get the settings right and you'll actually get good real-time feedback from the welds as your technique improves. Once you have the basics, and you know specific things you want to work on, just look for videos on those specific things. Repeat ad nauseum.

As far as equipment goes, I have a Miller autoset MIG and a Lincoln TIG, both 200A machines. I spent a little less on the pair of boxes than I would have spent on a full AC/DC dual-process machine, but I have a feeling that the price on those machines is going to come down pretty quickly. I also bought the MIG 4 years ago and the TIG 18mos ago, which smoothed out the bumps to my wallet.

If you have zero welding experience, I would buy an autoset MIG box from whichever company makes it in the color you like the most (red, blue, or green). Learn to weld mild steel on that, get some half-decent gear, and get the hang of things. Focus on the basics, things like torch angle, arc length, gas flow rates, travel speed, etc. Once you have a good grasp on that, get a TIG machine and start the whole process over again. More gear (TIG gloves, tungsten grinder, torch parts), more settings to play with, more basics to learn (filler material and size).

If you buy used, be aware that "previous owner" applies to welders too. I got my MIG from someone who did not treat it nicely, and I always assumed that all the issues I had were my own doing. Turns out a trashed gun tip and clogged nozzles don't do you any favors. I've finally rebuilt the entire gun at this point and that welder works far better than when I first bought it. I bought my TIG box brand new at a trade show and it was a much smoother experience.

Find someone local who will teach you in exchange for pizza and beer.

I'm actually looking at buying a TIG and learning to weld myself simply because in the past year, the amount of money I've paid for some guy to do random aluminum welding could have easily paid for a machine but I've always been intimidated until I got a a cheapie $100 flux wire fed welder and started to just stick stuff together and now it doesn't seem so intimidating anymore.

I'll probably buy a Harbor Freight Vulcan protig 200 or omni 220 unit just because its a 1 year return policy .. so I have options in case my need changes. Just my 2c.

This ^

Fab work is crazy expensive. My Alpha tig has paid for itself multiple times now in the money I've saved doing my own fab work.

I wouldn't even call it fab work. For example getting 2 bung welded onto my oil pan after I cleaned the pan, drilled the hole, wire brushed the area around the hole so he could have a clean weld surface and it still cost $80. Same thing with some slightly more complicated brackets for aero was $200. Yeah, that's motivation for me to learn to weld right there.

you did ok, from the welders standpoint. I cant tell you how often I USED underestimate possible complications. Now I price my work as if things are going to go wrong.

Its all fun and nice to weld your buddies fuel rail for cheap, until you realize that the Chinese bung is made of some shit mixture of aluminum and it just pops and spatters and pin holes. suddenly you spent 2 hrs to make 50 bucks. back out electric and consumables, and the job just cost you 10 bucks.

For real, learned my lesson trying to weld aluminum stock from Home Depot. What a nightmare. Never again.

I bought my TIG and self taught. The theory: noble gas keeps oxygen from fucking up the weld. Current heats up metal. You want the metals to be melted. That's pretty much it.

Fuck with the settings to see what they do.

Doing what the internet expert say typically doesn't work for me. Neither do the 'auto' settings on the machine.

The fuel rails I've played with are clear anodized. Welding to any sort of coating on any metal is not ideal.

Much better to tap them for ORB fittings anyway.

I am not guessing when I weld. The bung was a piece of crap.

Its a finicky 2000 series aluminum usually. not for beginners.

I got it to work and it definitely made me a better welder for doing it. The amount of heat I had to put into it was ridiculous and then I had to touch up some cracks because of the heat. I hear cast aluminum is like that.

http://www.ckworldwide.com/Form%2011...al%20Guide.pdf

I'll throw this out as advice - Go to your local welding shop, see if they know anyone that offers a non-technical class. You're not looking to get certified. Our local one started a weekend course they run every couple of months that I was really keen to sit in for TIG - but in the year it took them to get set up I think I've learned most of what they could teach me (or I'm peak Mount Stupid in the dunning kruger zone). I did start out with a $200 craigslist 125v miller MIG, and that thing was absolutely a blast to run - from seam stitching my body to making a decent bracket. But having the ability to do Aluminum with an alphatig has absolutely opened up opportunities.

Brought this up to my wife and she had a good suggestion. The only place that offers classes up here is at NMU, local college, but my wife is a grad student and said I might be able to get a free class as an audit. Sounds like it couldn't hurt to get a free class. That will definitely be something I'll check it out!

Sav all of that info was so awesome! I'll have to save that for later!

Also off topic:
Mattrussel, awesome job on that radiator support bar! You two did a sick job on that. I've followed your build thread and you've helped me in that past. You saw a need and made an awesome product, hopefully I'll be able to pick up one of those before too long.

To beat a dead horse here, tons of practice and there are lots of great resources on youtube. One that hasn't been mentioned is Instagram as well. There's a pretty large welding/fabrication community on instagram and a lot of them either slip tricks and tips in without realizing it or have videos with things that they've found to help out. Seriously, there's a lot to learn from both that community and I've picked up a ton from them.

But at the end of the day, it's just practice. And doing things right. Prep is such a major thing that people overlook and I'm still finding better ways to prep things after 5 years of welding.

Last note: I also found I really gained a better understanding of welding after tig. For me, once I started tig welding, my mig welding improved too. I understood what was going on with the puddle and how to control things better.

Starting on big metal makes it a bit easier too. You get a few more seconds to fiddle around before things go wrong. You really get to see the puddle mature and grow.

This. If you're an absolute beginner, I'd recommend starting with a stick welder:
1) They're cheap(er)
2) Fewer settings to fuck with
3) They force you to learn to control your speed/puddle early on. If you become a proficient stick welder first, learning MIG becomes much easier

I figure this is a better place than the buying a welder thread.

Can you guys yell at me for what I am doing wrong? Working with aluminized steel/regular steel exhaust pipe. Lincoln 120V hobby welder with flux core, set to B voltage and a hair over 3 for wire feed. Sometimes I get nice steady bacon sizzling, other times the arc pops in and out for no reason I can find. A voltage does nothing for some reason (maybe a lockout, maybe it doesn't work with flux core? No idea). C voltage range just blows through faster than I can control on this stuff since I am doing some gap filling. Used a smashed copper pipe as a backer for helping fill some of the larger gaps. I have about 45min total on time for welding experiance at this point. So I know I have a lot of learning to do.

Don't yell about the pipe fab, my friend is doing that, I am just doing the welding. This is our first major exhaust fab project.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c2bef412fc.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...85aa922301.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...035eafc8f8.jpg

I assumed the arc pop on my HF cheapo MIG was due to the wire not feeding smoothly, because HF cheapo MIG. My dad's ancient Daytona MIG (cheapo at the time) does it every now and then. He always bitched about it but never experienced a real crap MIG like mine. The nice Lincoln at work was smoooth as butter the 15 minutes i used it.

Did you clean the aluminized part off the steel so you had good material to work with? I would make sure you did that for both the ground location and where you are welding. I am assuming that you didnt have the nice sizzling sound on that weld and it was in and out making an arc right?

We ground down the aluminized parts, yes. Same where the ground clamp was. I could get a nice sizzling for short bit, but then the are would start popping in and out again. I was also filling in a fairly large gap and using a coper pipe as a backer.

Make sure the nozzle tip is the correct size for the wire you're using, and make sure the machine is feeding smoothly.

If you need a backer for that job, you are doing it very wrong. It also looks like you are a but low on the heat. You wont be able to continuous weld stuff like that. Millions of start and stop. Is the only way to fix that mess.

Any time you change voltage taps/dial settings and see no change on a 120v welder, I look at the input power. You running an extension cord? What size breaker is the circuit you're running off of? Any power loss on the input side will drastically drop the machine output and you'll be beating yourself trying to chase it.

You sure you have it set for straight (electrode negative) polarity (assuming you're talking a self-shielded wire)?

Yes, it is set for DCEN. Voltage A (the lowest) just doesn't work at all. Doesn't feed the wire, no arc, nothing. Fairly sure something is wrong with that setting. That said, B seems to be the correct setting anyway.

I need a backer cause I suck. Some of those gaps are on the order of 4-5mm wide. Got some 0.030 wire and some new tips, so I will set that up and give it a try. Also some tig gloves cause I got sick of having to take a glove off to trim the excess wire....

Good call on the extension cord, I ran into that problem on my shitty 120v MIG.

x_25, your cutting/fitting isn’t great. You can’t weld air, and you can’t weld dirt. However I don’t think that’s your biggest issue. I got a Harbor Freight 170a wire feed welder and used it with flux core wire for about a year. It was always a porous, spattery, filthy mess like what your pics show. I finally manned up and got an argon tank and a $25 regulator off of Amazon to do real MIG- night and day difference. I’m laying clean, shiny “stacked dime” beads like in the videos.

Flux core SUCKS. Seriously. Get an argon tank and some good quality wire from the welding supply store. You’ll wish you had done it sooner.

My experience was the same with flux core. MIG became a delight after adding gas.

I'll double that.

I've seen people lay down acceptable welds with flux-core wire. Hell, I've seen people do amazing, TIG-like welds with a stick machine.

I am not one of those people, and I can only assume that it takes hundreds of hours of experience to reach that level. Which I don't have.

And, yes, welders with a 120v 15a input are anemic at best. Has nothing at all to do with the quality of the machine, there's only so much power you can extract from that supply.