I need/ want to increase my welding skills

[HWYCRZR]

A number of years ago (35). I took quite a few welding classes through high school and college. I wasn’t an expert but became pretty efficient with an arc welder (I believe they are called stick welders these days) and oxy acetylene torch. You don’t know how many things I welded with a metal coat hanger. This was before the small mig welders came available, so I never learned the proper techniques. Anyway I don’t have either an oxy acetylene torch or an arc welder. But I do have a small mig welder that I bought in 2006. To date I have only used it a few times to scab things together.
As I am starting to repair and weld my motorcycle frame, I am finding my skills are a little rusty. I tried looking for a local vo-tech that offers adult or hobby welding classes but am coming up short. My biggest thing is learning the basic setup for my mug welder. I did find a hobby welding school in the Chicago area that offers an all access video subscription on mig, Tigue and stick welding basics. It is about $30 a month. I think I will check it out.
Here’s my welder and project.
I drilled a through hole to weld in a splint through the frame crack.

 

[furious70]

Nothing like jumping back in the saddle with a low risk project!

I would buy some scrap of similar material and thickness to practice with. Maybe cut it apart to see if you're getting good penetration?

 

[Wrenchygeorgie]

Looks like your wirespeed may be just a tiny bit high, but that makes better sense if your going to grind them.
Wonder if tubing on either side of the welds will be more brittle too?
Any way to make a gusset that ties this area together for more strength over a longer area of tubing?
Maybe use some salvage steel from a Mopar anything?
Nice work!

 

[Rustyrodknocker]

As your discovering welding around a small diameter circle is difficult with that welding process. Material stacks up fast. That machine with solid wire snd a shielding gas is designed to run within the parameters of what is called short circuit or short arc transfer. Meaning the arc actually extiguishes and restarts at I don't remember what frequency, but that is why sound is so valuable when it comes to machine setting thats what creates the sizzle sound that most people look for.
It does not change the fact that when the setting is on it is going to be difficult to weld around a sub 1 inch pipe.

Alot of wire processes and stick and especially short arc have the characteristic of cold starts.
Metal piles up but does not penetrate the base material.
To compensate for this when welding a crack, start before the crack and weld into it. In cases where there is no runway you may be able to use a piece of scrap and tack on a run on plate then cut it off when done.
Creating a V groove is benificial when welding cracks. Wire sizing can also play a factor.
For work like that I would prefer .025" to minimize pile up.

Anyhow, I could carry on forever like a keyboard
Professor but it's largely about time spent. Access to in person tutoring will probably give you a 5x return on time spent.

As an aside that frame looks to have some design failure issues. I may be common for them to fail in that manner. Which means it will likely fail again, especially after a repair. So if you are going to ride it much you need to alter the design.
Most likely through gusseting. It looks like the factory had gussets in there.

If you move your gusset to the top of the tube rather than in the throat of the joint, it will be more effective. Often with this method you can do both sides and assure that the next time it breaks it will be somewhere else.


MIG Welding: Setting the Correct Parameters | MillerWelds

 

[HWYCRZR]

Thanks for w feedback. I am getting better and have watched and listened to a few tutorials. You are correct sound of the welding makes a difference. Adding the gas also made a world of difference. I am getting good penetration as I have had to fill in a few holes with good success.

As far as structural, I believe there were some design flaws in the structure. If you go to towards the top of this thread you will see where I drilled through the connecting structures and added a support rod. It is secured where it enters and exits the frame as well as to the bottom of the frame. Also on the kickstand side I am needing to add a bottom gusset plate as well. When I get done it should be better than factory. I don’t plan on freestyleing or moto-cross when I am done.

 

[Cobalt117]

There are a lot of schools where you can increase your welding skills. And I recommend you do it because for a man these skills are really important.

 

[Cobalt117]

Normally, your abilities are a little rusty. At least you don't have to learn everything from 0. It would help if you had a little improvement, and that's it. You need to find a welding school nearby and start classes. Community colleges or technical schools charge $ 5,000- $ 15,000 for welding training programs. In my case, it was generally that I started learning at 0. I never liked to weld in school, and I didn't pay much attention to this. But now that I'm a mature man, I realize that I should at least have basic welding knowledge. That's why I took courses, and now I'm very good at it.

 

[HWYCRZR]

This is funny timing.
It was a cool evening last night so I broke out the welder and did some practice on different size scraps. Just when I was getting a great weld and settings dialed in with.23 wire. I ran out. Switched to .30 (max for my welder) and a little thicker metal. I struggled a while to find the proper settings as I was at about the max thickness in my scrap 3/16. I did get it dialed in.
As far as training, I used to be a decent oxy acetylene welder, and could weld many things with an arc welder. Took welding in my high school shop classes as well as in college when going through diesel mechanics. If you ever saw my penmanship you could understand my difficulty with laying down a perfect bead.

Anyway I am figuring out my little mig welder and am slowly getting better. And am understanding the proper settings.
I have access to a good scrap bin.

 

[Rustyrodknocker]

Getting t a base line with mig settings can be calculated based on material thickness and wire diameter. For folks that dont weld very often I would recommend starting with wire speed for a couple reasons. The most pertinent is simplicity.

If you understand the inches per minute of wire required, you can pull the trigger and run out wire while counting to six. Doing the 1 one thousand or use your phone then multiply times 10.
This will get your current feed rate and associated amperage. You can reel back the wire to save material if it takes several tries.

After a couple times your amperage is dialed and you just adjust the voltage until it runs good. This allows you to tune one thing.

Some of the smaller machines do not have infinite voltage adjustment. You have to choose by clicking into A B,C etc. With those machines,
Set the wire speed, then choose the best voltage setting then go back to your wire speed and use it to fine tune.

https://www.millerwelds.com/resources/article-library/miggmaw-101-setting-the-correct-parameters

Lastly if your welding on cars, this stuff really only pertains to frame work or differential housings or something heavy.

Sheet metal is its own thing and should not really be welded continuously . It will be a warped up nightmare with a tone of grinding which further warps material followed by a ton of work to try to stretch and repair the warping.

For mig on body panels I prefer to use .023 set up fairly hot slightly more voltage than what would be correct for continuous welding. This will get you a nice tack in a very short time with less material build up.