Please Evaluate my Crummy Welds!

[Peter D.]

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to all!

I have some free time before returning to work so I've been playing in my garage. I'm going to be welding in new floors soon and thought it would be smart to practice first with a bit of scrap tunnel.

I sanded down the tunnel lip and sprayed some weld through primer. I have a test piece of 18 gauge that I drilled 1/4 inch holes into, 1 inch apart. I also painted with weld-through primer. The sheet metal was screwed tight into the tunnel lip through every other hole.

I'm using an Eastwood 135 Mig Welder with .03 wire. I pretty much cranked it all the way up. The tunnel lips is 4mm thick so I assume I should be trying to penetrate all the way through.

I've been playing with long and short stick out with the wire. Closer/shorter stick out seems to work better? Not really sure.

Are my welds supposed to be flatter than this? The sheet metal seems to be sticking pretty well to the tunnel. And I can see round marks on the other side from the heat.

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2019 Golf Alltrack, '65 Ghia Coupe Restoration in Progress

[Matt Wilson]

Looks pretty good to me. If you are worried about weld penetration, cut one of your test pieces through the weld to see how it looks.
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[beetlenut]

Where are you starting your weld? I wasn't a huge fan of the weld through primer on the spot I was going to weld. Around it was OK, but I wanted to start my welds on bright shinny metal. I felt the weld through primer contaminated my welds. Hotter would get you flatter, but you need to start your weld in the center of the hole on the thicker tunnel metal below. Once you do that and let it pool up, it will flow outward to the edges of the hole in the thinner replacement metal on top and give you good penetration.

The second weld from the left in the second pic didn't flow out and make contact completely with the edges of the entire hole. The first weld on the left in the third pic looks like it did.
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[theKbStockpiler]

I weld the seam and go around in a circle and drill the hole big enough that the beads meet in the center. This helps avoid Cold Welds. You can tell if it's a Cold Weld while you are doing them if the Heat Zone does not effect the outside piece. The Heat Zone will not travel outside the hole at all.

Weld Through Primer really should be referred to ' Welding Temp Rated Primer' because there is no advantage to using it unless you are enclosing up a cavity and will no longer have access to paint it. I don't advise trying to arc through it from previous experiences
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My beetle is not competing with your beetle. I have the yellow beetle in my town. There is a red one, a green one ......
Use all safety devices including a mask.

[Peter D.]

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm holding the tip of the welding perpendicular to the hole and just counting to two or three. Any longer and the sheet metal starts to blow through.

The 1/4 inch hole feels too small to swirl around a weld puddle. I did scratch away a bit of the primer in the center of the hole before I started welding.

I'll try a new test tomorrow with larger holes and no primer and see how that works. And I'll split open the other welds and see if they penetrated the tunnel lip.
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2019 Golf Alltrack, '65 Ghia Coupe Restoration in Progress

[67ctbug]

Those welds look pretty good to me. I was using that welder for a bit and still have it (Need to send back for replacement), but now have a used miller. 4mm is about 8 or 9 gauge and 18 gauge is about 1mm thick. Add those together and you've got some thick steel to weld. Eastwood 135 maxes at 1/8" right, you're well past that even just trying to weld on the tunnel. I'd say overall I'd be very happy with those welds and if you can see the marks on the back you're good. Always set the welder to the thicker steel too when you're weld, not the thinner one. With the weld through primer, like beetlenut said, I don't really use it. I normally put actually primer and just grind where I'm welding or if you're doing plugs, you can use an awl and scrape the primer away in the holes, of course it's easier to just grind on all the spots where holes are.
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[theKbStockpiler]

[Peter D.]

Okay, I'll definitely switch out the weld through primer. I wonder if there's any use in heating up the area with a propane torch? Hopefully I'll be alright with this welder. I'm going to chisel and cut the test welds apart and see what I got.
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2019 Golf Alltrack, '65 Ghia Coupe Restoration in Progress

[Evil_Fiz]

I have the Eastwood 135 and used it to weld my rotisserie using .035 Flux core wire. I welded 1/8" wall tubing to 3/16" plate with the welder set at G.5 and 3.5. The welds pentrated well and sat flat but ugly.

I am replying on my phone. PM me if you want more details. I have pictures I can send you.

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Emil
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[theKbStockpiler]

[Peter D.]

I did another more test this afternoon. "Don't set the garage on fire again!" my wife said on my way into the garage. Acetone-soaked rags and welding don't mix.

Heating up the welding area with a torch was definitely impractical. I had to heat up the area while wearing my welding gloves, set the torch aside at a safe distance, get the welder ready, lower my helmet, make the weld then repeat. It might work better if I had someone helping me and heating the tunnel lip from behind.

Here are the results with no primer and the heated welds. The welds marked with red sharpie are the ones where the screws had been. Overall I think the welds were a bit flatter.

I then broke out the air chisel and removed the last welding test that was the piece I had used weld-through primer on. The welds were very hard to remove and if my memory isn't too faulty, harder to remove than the factory original floor pan spot I removed last summer (age and rust were surely a factor). The space between welds is nicely protected with primer which I like.

Then I took off the piece I just did (without weld-through primer and pre-heated with the torch). Surprisingly, I thought they were actually easier to chisel off.

In the end I guess it boils down to personal preference. I did notice that the welds that were done through the screw holes in the tunnel lip were much stronger. I may still try flux welding. Ideally I should upgrade to a more powerful welder.
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2019 Golf Alltrack, '65 Ghia Coupe Restoration in Progress

[theKbStockpiler]

They should have all had uniform strength when trying to separate the top from the bottom piece and that is why letting the bead build up and spread out without moving the arc can be unreliable.

Part of the issue with the screw holes being stronger is that when the others were welded , the top thin piece probably warped slightly away from the bottom piece. If I stitch thin metal down ,I found it has to be anchored no more than 1 1/4" apart.

One of my welders is a 105 amp Century. With flux core and the power grid on a good day , it will do anything automotive that you throw at it. Flux Core is a lot more challenging and will increase your skills quite a bit plus if you run out of supplies you can do emergency repairs by just picking up a roll of wire at a Home Center. I only MIG on a restoration repair now. The two hundred amp machines get into stick welding amps so they can do maybe 3/16" single pass which is pretty thick for a automotive repair. The inverter welders have a superior arc which is much more stable and has a much wider range of wire speed capacity. If you get a big welder with post and pre gas settings, it's a pain to fill holes with it because there is a delay between when you press the trigger to arc and also one when you let off of the trigger to stop the arc. They don't have a zero setting on them and some of them are not adjustable at all.
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My beetle is not competing with your beetle. I have the yellow beetle in my town. There is a red one, a green one ......
Use all safety devices including a mask.

[BeetL62]

I work at Eastwood and also have the MIG 135. It will handle up to 3/16” with solid wire and 1/4” with flux core, so you shouldn’t have any issues with it for installing pans. I just used mine to install pans in the buggy I am building. I used the settings on the set up chart and then backed off wire speed just a bit to get my welds flatter.

If you decide to try flux core, make sure you get a knurled drive roller, as the roller that comes on the machine is for solid wire (you will not get a consistent wire feed).

If you want to email me a cell number, I could have Matt, who does a lot of our videos and training, give you a call on Monday. My work email is [email protected]. Thank you for your business.

Thanks,
Nick

[theKbStockpiler]

If you can tighten the tension enough on the drive roller it won't slip but the outside of the wire flakes off and makes a big mess in the cabinet. With a plastic wire feeder ,it might actually be too much force for it. Some welders only come with a knurled roller and you leave it on for either solid or flux core. I leave the knurled rollers on for solid core even if a smooth one is made for it. That way you don't have to have a lot of force on a plastic tensioner.
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My beetle is not competing with your beetle. I have the yellow beetle in my town. There is a red one, a green one ......
Use all safety devices including a mask.

[Peter D.]

[Peter D.]

[modok]

I take it you are doing rosette, or "plug" welds so that it is more similar to the stock spot welds, but, it's not fooling anybody , especially since you don't have really enough power to do it....the way you are doing it.

I'd cut it shorter and do a lap weld, just normal along the edge. well. probably not over the whole thing but, 50%. 3/4 long beads spaced that far apart. Weld back toward the last weld you did to get less distortion.


The first second, or sometimes two seconds of a mig weld are usually cold and brittle IF........ you have the power set at a level for making a nice continuous bead. Knowing this, sometimes I'll start welding 1/4 inch or more away from the joint, like I have terrible aim So that gets it HOT before i hit the actual joint, and can go back and grind off the excess later, if desired. BUT....you can't do that with those plug welds. OR, you could take the holes and cut to the edge and make them into U shape SLOTS, then you could do that.

You DO have enough power to make a good bead but not enough to do those plug welds because the tunnel is THICK. welding a thin piece to a thick piece is always tricky and usually a bad idea. Good job for tig.

MIG welding is a one trick pony but it's a GOOD trick!

It's great for filling in holes, but only a specific size in a specific thickness. Sometimes I'll fit and tack a part in place, THEN cut grooves for me to fill in, because then I can control the gap easy. Speaking of that, you could do that too. You could fit and tack the panel in place, then drill into both pieces, (not all the way through) and thus make a larger hole for you to fill Although, sure is a lot of work.

I have a eastwood 135, and a hobart 180
the 135 IS superior tool for sheetmetal up to 14 gauge. But, filling in groove or hole on heavy thickness or solid material the 180 is what you want to use. Preheating can help in a lot of cases, but....not for sheetmetal because it will warp everything just terrible.

And, it may be true that flux core will work better for the way you are doing it, that will slow down the process and let you get more heat into it before the hole is filled. It's a possibility, but, is that the best way to do it? I don't think so. Those areas of the car where they stack many layers of metal is often where they rust out, so personally I try NOT to duplicate that, and sometimes that works out slick and sometimes it doesn't, but I try.

[theKbStockpiler]

If you want a reliable way to tell if your welder has enough amps, do a stitch weld about 1/4" on the test tunnel piece.

As long as you can pull the bead with the nozzle, your speed is not too fast. I see no reason why the nozzle can't follow the seam in the holes. Stick the nozzle straight down with no push or pull angle and go in a circle on the seam or close enough that the pool overlaps the thin piece slightly.
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My beetle is not competing with your beetle. I have the yellow beetle in my town. There is a red one, a green one ......
Use all safety devices including a mask.

[Peter D.]

Okay, I will try that and post another test.

I appreciate all the advice. I'm really hoping I can make this welder work without having to upgrade.
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2019 Golf Alltrack, '65 Ghia Coupe Restoration in Progress

[Mellow Yellow 74]

Your plug welds look pretty good but try with a bit more stick out and they will be a bit hotter and will end up flatter rather than having the lump.

Most inexperienced welders (including myself) weld too cold due to fear of blowing through and often this is simply due to incorrect stock out rather than welder settings.
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