Posted by john k. seidts on August 01, 1999 at 19:03:32:
In Reply to: Welding question. posted by Moby on August 01, 1999 at 18:21:45:
TAKE A COURSE! The Vocational/ Technical Schools have evening courses for adults who didn't make the most of their high school training. They are usually well taught, and you get the personal critique of some one who has been welding for quite some time. Until then, practice on stuff you don't need, with different settings, and different thicknesses of materials. MIG is not good for materials over 1/4 inch, unless you want to be there all day. From your symptoms, I'd say you probably are running your beads too fast. The key thing is to wait for a pool of molten metal to form, and then move at a pace which keeps the pool of metal about 1 and a half times the diameter of the rod. When you finish, your welds should look like a stack of quarters, layed down and pushed over, like little waves. It should stand above the surface 2-3 millimeters.
SAFETY, SAFETY, SAFETY!
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!