How do I weld up a sump without making it look like crap?

[mullett]

Wire is an important factor too...if you're using heavy wire, you'll need high amperage to melt it, introducing more heat to the weld, and you can't weld slow enough on a thin metal. 0.6mm wire would be great for this, don't use 'flux cored' gasless wire, it's junk. You welder should have a low enough amperage setting.

What breed of welder is it? If it's a cheap chinese MIG, you might be better off with the gas torch, or tack it all together with the MIG and get it TIG'd up professionally.

-RM.

[RAd28]

Wow... thanks for all the advice guys, some really good stuff in there...

takai - I will be linishing it when i'm done, just wondering how to make it look neater though before hand... more of a side note that one...

matty12 - I tried using the MIG on the spot weld setting just to basically spot it all up, but for some reason it didn't want to work... it made all the right noises, but the wire didnt' feed through, and to be honest, I didn't try acctually welding with it.. just pulled the trigger to test the pulse time, but there was nothing. don't remember hearing the gas either. I figured I could maually control the spots well enough (see end notes about this one)

Skiddz - starting out welding this kinda shit is hard... Owens welds might have looked like crap, but we've all done them, he just wasn't afraid to show them off...

oldeskewltoy - That's I can see your point there, But i question the fact that when you remove the pan from your dummy block it's just gonna warp anyway... but less so i guess because of heat dissipation...

af300e - Interested to see pics if you got them... I'd love to see pics of the gates, I have an idea for my gates, but as always, input would be awesome

RA23 - as per my reply to Matty12 regarding the spotting, as for wire diameter, I'm running 0.8mm atm, but I the welder can go to 0.6 if i need to... what thickness material is 0.6 good for? do I need a new gun at all?

manny - Thanks for that, will definately check it out

timbosaurus - I'm doing my very best to keep things clean and neat etc etc I managed to learn very early on that anything less then virgin metal isn't gonna weld... as for gas, i'm using Argoshield...
Normally i'd tack every few inches too maybe upto a foot apart if the strength in the plate is there, but with this stuff i've been trying to tack every 15-25mm apart, just tiny ones though. this in itself seems to be a fair challange...
I'm currently using the lowest voltage setting (don't know the value), and wire speed to suit, I tried cranking it up a notch to see if picking up travel speed helped with blowing holes, but i didn't get far with that, it blew holes almost straight away...
I might have a crack at test welding some of this sheet with the OXY, see how I go with that... it might be alright, because it's so thin i'll need to keep the speed up which might keep the heat out...

mullet - it's a SIP Ideal200 made in the mid 80's... made in London...

This afternoon I put more effort into getting a test weld to look nice and neat... Cleaned and prepped 2 pieces of sheet (not too small) about 30-40cm long... then I positioned them, used welding magnets to hold them in place on one side, and a thick piece of flat bar on the other side to act as a straight edge... I started tacking them together, and this is where the first of my problems start... I can (almost) never start cleanly with a weld... usually I start with the MIG wire resting on my work piece (tell me if this is bad) then pull the trigger, the thing just seems to jump, break the wire then i have to start again. anyways, managed to get it tacked up (reasonably) well, and it was still looking pretty straight... so I started doing stitches (waiting for the orange colour to fade between runs), vertical down as one of the guys from work suggested, and I managed to get 2 or 3 fillets about 20-30mm long looking quite respectable... but that was the end of that... from there on all the welds started looking worse, and it ended up blowing holes in almost all fillets after about 15mm... and back to that problem of not making a proper arc... I'm thinking that i'm having issues with my earth lead, it's just a spring clamp style (similar to a jumper lead) but its getting weak in it's old age, and isn't really clamping tight on thin sheet, i'll try again tomorrow with some thicker plate to sandwich the thin stuff...

bought an auto darkening helmet too... makes spotting alot easier...

[matty12]

post some pics of the welds you are getting,it may help identify problems.

practice makes perfect.

Ive just bought a tig welder, i was abit ordinary to start but now ive done a few hours im now ordinary.

[floppy]

Hey!

If you need an 18R block I have one here you can use.

The only reason I was keeping it around was to do exactly what you are wanting to do, keep a sump from warping!!

Give me a ring, I have tomorrow off.

Dave

[rolla 36]

hey mate when tacking or starting a new weld are you cuting the wire (about an inch)

i could tell you why u need to do this but just but that dark section of wire does not melt well and that is why it jumps and spits

to try to stop distortion (nerly imposable but can get it close) try back steping or back weld what ever it is called cant remember now is what this means is weld like this <-- <-- <-- that means you weld then stop wait for the glow to go away (like was said earlyer) then move about an inch away from where you started last time (after cooling a little) thenweld back to the point (i.e again <---- <---- <---- <----)

and also make sure you try to clean the area as well as you can

i am sorry if that makes no sense if you dont under stand please measage me and i will explain on the phone maybe it will sound a bit beter then wat i just wrote

[ra28_miles]

go down to the local tafe, 1 that trains boiler makers, and check out the art of tig welding. I got 1 done for me and even had a go, harder than playing the guitar.

On that note if any body is in perth, the seats at the thornlie trains stop were all hand tig welded here in perth.

[oldeskewltoy]

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[mullett]

That's a pretty decent welder you've got, having the problems you're having, maybe it needs a service? To go down to .6mm wire you should only have to change the tip. Talking of tips, that's a common problem when spot or stitch welding, the wire burns back and welds itself to the tip, it's a pain in the ass.

You should start with the wire a bit away from the weld, let it feed in and melt...

-RM.

p.s. PICS!

[RA23]

matty12 - I tried using the MIG on the spot weld setting just to basically spot it all up, but for some reason it didn't want to work... it made all the right noises, but the wire didnt' feed through, and to be honest, I didn't try acctually welding with it.. just pulled the trigger to test the pulse time, but there was nothing. don't remember hearing the gas either. I figured I could maually control the spots well enough (see end notes about this one)

RA23 - as per my reply to Matty12 regarding the spotting, as for wire diameter, I'm running 0.8mm atm, but I the welder can go to 0.6 if i need to... what thickness material is 0.6 good for? do I need a new gun at all?

When you pulse, do it by hand. It is not a setting on the welder. Just squeeze the trigger for a second and let go for a second. Takes a while to get the trick, but works a treat once you get a feel for it. Auto darkening helmet will help too.

I use 0.6mm for all thin sheet. Thinnest I have welded was 0.45, thickest with 0.6 was 2 mm.
My welder came with a set of rollers/guides and nozzle for 0.6.
My welder (Lincoln 180) has a handy chart in it for wire speed and current for each thickness and wire diameter. I always follow that, worked well so far.

[matty12]

i have a CIG 200 which i paid about $2000 for,it doesnt have pulse i just do it manually waiting for the weld pool to cool and then go again.It just comes with practice.

[RAd28]

Thanks again for the comments guys...

matty12 - uploading pics now... will have some to show by the time I finish typing this... link to album at the bottom...

floppy - Thanks dude, I'll leave it for the time being until i get practice down pat, then i'll come grab it off you.

rolla 36 - I understand what you mean, i haven't tried that yet, but i'll be sure to give it a shot... I cut the wire if it gets really daggy, but I don't cut between each spot... And to be honest, i've had the same problem with poor conductivity even after cutting, which makes me thing it's the earth lead...

ra28_miles - I have thought about it, but I figured it's not much point learning to TIG if I come home to a MIG...

oldeskewltoy - I was wondering if there was any kind of paste available! I was thinking something along the lines of the heat transmitting paste you put on a PC heat sink... I've also seen people use large pieces of copper as a 'chill' like you would in castings... Have you (or anyone) tried these pastes? The fact I haven't seen one before makes me think their're not that good...

mullet - Got some 0.6mm wire today, gonna have to check to see if I have a tip to match now...

RA23 - my welder has pulse settings, you can change weld time, pause time, etc etc etc... As I mentioned before manually pulsing is met with issues with the mig wire not arcing properly...
Will be giving the 0.6mm wire a good test run too


LINK TO WELDING PICS

I've uploaded a bunch of pics of my welding efforts so far, it's not the best indicator, as I messed up plenty of the welds by running runs on top of runs just to get hang of the lower voltage setting, but there's still plenty to get a decent indication. The welds are pretty much chronologic order, most recent first, so you'll see there are some beeds early on that look half decent, and others later on that look like shite... Note also, that on each of the thin sheet practices I did, I welded up both sides, so one side will look better because it had the backing run to absorb the heat... There's also a few runs with the OXY on the sump, they'll looks alot different to the MIG... And finally, I included a few pics of welds on much thicker metal to show off (remember i'm still new to this) that i'm not TOTALLY lost

[oldeskewltoy]

Thanks again for the comments guys...



oldeskewltoy - Have you (or anyone) tried these pastes? The fact I haven't seen one before makes me think their're not that good...

Eastwood Company is a VERY well known company in the professional auto restoration business.... Do a search on Eastwood Company and see what comments you get..........

[marc280]

My suggestion for getting the settings right would be to first just try laying a bead on a flat sheet. Set the voltage and wire speed fairly low to start with. If you are getting a 'sputtering' where it is starting and stopping it usually means that the wire feed is too slow. Stop and increase the feed speed until you getting is sounding right.

I'm assuming that you are pulling or dragging the torch? as it is much easier to do that pushing (unless your doing out of position welds like vertical up).

It looks as though a lot of the welds in the pics 'cold' and sitting up on the surface. To get penetration you need to up the voltage (and the wire feed accordingly), but then you also need to increase the travel speed. Also if you hold the nozzle too far away from the weld it will cause sputtering, for a fillet weld you should be able to position the nozzle in the corner and have the nozzle just off the surface.

Also another good reason for cutting off that piece of discoloured wire before starting again is when the gas stops flowing oxygen attacks the filler wire and you will have a contaminated weld everytime you start...

Like some of the other suggestions, lots of tacks and backstep welding is a good way to reduce warping and bolting the sump to the block would definitely help.

I hope that helps....

[mullett]

I agree with pretty much everything Marc said, on the other hand it doesn't look like it's warping too much? Is it pulling the whole sump out of shape, or just the surrounding metal?

What I'd be trying to acheive (and it's a lot easier said than done) is to 'tack' every inch or so, then fill the gaps with hot, shallow tacks, so that the metal doesn't actually sit up much, rather penetrates the metal and melts the two pieces together. This way you should be able to do it in very short bursts.

To do that, try using a slower wire speed, and a higher amperage, and only fire for a fraction of a second, the wire hits, melts the two pieces together, and then pulls back as it can't keep running that much current. The result is a very neat, almost TIG looking weld. If you think about the shallow dip you get at the start of some MIG welds. There's a good writeup here:

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/thin-metal.htm
and some more interesting stuff
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/removing-floor.htm

-RM.

[RAd28]

marc280 - I'm a little puzzled by your suggestion to pull or drag... normally on thicker metals I would push, and this so far has yielded much better results I've found. However, it was also suggested that on this thin sheet in particular doing vertical down welds dragging would allow me to do longer beads, because the heat was being directed at the weld bead i've already laid.

I've also tried turning up the voltage a notch, and as I mentioned earlier it simply blew holes almost instantly...

mullett - I couldn't notice the sump itself warping too much, as mentioned I think is due mainly to the shape of the sump (relatively small flat surface with lots of bends to add strength) but when I tried on a un-restrained flat sheet, it warped like crazy.

I'll have to give your 'hot shallow tacks' idea a go too... though the link you posted doesn't do as you describe... they're basically the tacks i've been doing so far...

anyways, thanks all for the advice, hoping to have another shot today with the 0.6mm wire...

cheers