[fakky]

Hey Guys
Bought a HF 90a welder and did some welds around 1 year back. Have a reason to use it now .... so decided to upgrade to a TWECO 211i comming this week.
In mean time I thought I might as well practice on my HF 90A. So here are a couple of welds. Would like some advice/tips.

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipN ... 9MU3ZIaE53



Here's what I think I notice.

1) Areas where I moved to much and not good flow bead.
2) Too much wire in a lot of places - "humps and width".
3) Too high in join at times meaning to much weld in once piece but not in other.


Notes
a) I seemed to have a hard time following the puddle with my HF helmet - visibility.

b) Wasnt sure which way the gun should be angled in realtion to my head .... to the left or to the right ...... need to look at some videos and if it matters regarding pulling or pushing so to speak.

c) When you weld - how much of the base metal do you expect to burn out ..... meaning your kinda melting the base metal and backfilling it with metal from rod ...... but sometimes in seems to border on burnthrough ..... but not sure hot to tell how much is normal/good versus bad.

Overall seems ok for 90 A - but really dont know. Got good penetration on first weld.

Excited about the new welder coming and getting into this. Do a car restoration.

[Poland308]

From the looks of the pics most of your issues come from the quality of the machine and size that you have from harbor. You will notice a world of difference once you fire up that 211. Your adjustments will be much more precise and the quality of the arc will be much better.

[ex framie]

Facky,
Practice and preparation are the answers.
Clean back to shiny metal where the weld and earth clamp are going.
On thicker material bevel the two edges of the joint before welding and leave a gap of a couple of mm.
Weldingtipsandtricks.com has lots of videos on all types of processes and preparation, watch them.
Practice.
Practice etc etc etc.
Visibility, a quality helmet helps a lot, good ones with 4 sensors are available for not a lot more than $100, clean lenses, good lighting, clean glasses, new batteries if its an auto that uses batteries, if its "solar" stick it out in the sun for half an hour before you start welding.
If your eye sight is aging a cheater lense might help.


Cheers

[Farmwelding]

What I noticed right of way is you seem to be moving at an inconsistent speed like you had mentioned. A better hood may help and make sure to take a dry run a time or two to make sure you aren't going to get hung up on anything. A new machine may help with fine tuned settings like Poland mentioned. You also mentioned which way to go for direction. Overall for MIG/MAG welding it doesn't make a world of difference. As long as you drive the wire into the root of the joint and fuse both pieces of metal well and get as much penetration you should be fine. There are videos that show break test with push/pull but you cant always get that angle. For autobody it definitely isn't critical. If you are doing thicker as long as you melt both pieces and take an appropriate number of passes.