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Arc welding

cervelorod

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 14, 2022
Member Number
5762
Messages
120
Loc
Near the sand dunes
Found some cracks in the frame of my trailer and started cleaning it up to weld. My buddy said I should stick weld it instead of MIG. I haven’t stick welded since high school. I have a Thermal Arc 185TSW, which I thought came with a rod holder when I bought it ( which was 3 moves ago, and isn’t spotted in the garage ). I can put together a rod holder but wanted some additional advice from the IBB on whether the juice is worth the squeeze. I have a Miller MIG machine also.

I got one side trued up and ground out the open crack today. Planning to weld the crack up, grind it flat, then plate with 1/4” on the web and 1/4” strap on the top flange. I found 4 cracks that have been welded up on this side. Essentially a crack over the front spring perch, 2 cracks at the transfer, and the last crack at the back hangar. I am trying to decide if I should get some plate to span the entire length or do it in 3 pieces. If I do a single piece, I’d probably do some rosettes to tie things together. The other welds are not cracked, but I am going to grind them flat for plating, and maybe open them up with the burr to re-weld if needed.

So MIG or stick, single plate or 3?
 
I'm dumb and I think ER70S wire is just as strong as 70## stick welding. I'm sure someone more familiar with professional welding (2big bronco ) can chime in with industry standards and mathematical justifications.

If you have MiG and are more comfortable with MiG than arc/Stick then do it. Maybe go with 0.035 wire instead of 0.030.
 
RunningProblem said:
I'm dumb and I think ER70S wire is just as strong as 70## stick welding. I'm sure someone more familiar with professional welding (2big bronco ) can chime in with industry standards and mathematical justifications.

If you have MiG and are more comfortable with MiG than arc/Stick then do it. Maybe go with 0.035 wire instead of 0.030.
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Based on how they fixed it before, if the stabilizers hadn’t have sunk when I loaded my skid steer, it may not have cracked yet. 😂. That will be easy to MiG it, I am reasonably comfortable with that. Thanks!
 
RunningProblem said:
I'm dumb and I think ER70S wire is just as strong as 70## stick welding. I'm sure someone more familiar with professional welding (2big bronco ) can chime in with industry standards and mathematical justifications.

If you have MiG and are more comfortable with MiG than arc/Stick then do it. Maybe go with 0.035 wire instead of 0.030.
Click to expand...

Techically they are both a 70,000lb rated electrode. But weld an inch of 7018 and an inch with whatever 70 series wire you choose and break both. The stick weld will seem multiple times harder to break.

Thats all the scientific data I have. With that said a decent weld out of a linoln sp125 with 211 will hold a lot.
 
RunningProblem said:
I'm dumb and I think ER70S wire is just as strong as 70## stick welding. I'm sure someone more familiar with professional welding (2big bronco ) can chime in with industry standards and mathematical justifications.

If you have MiG and are more comfortable with MiG than arc/Stick then do it. Maybe go with 0.035 wire instead of 0.030.
Click to expand...
You can put a fair amount more heat in with a stick electrode than you can with a short circuit mig. It's not just about the electrode its about how much grab the weld has.

Considering it's a trailer that was probably short circuit migged together in the first place I would probably grind out the cracks and weld them up without worrying about plating them. I would use dual shield if I had the wire handy otherwise short circuit will be good enough.
 
grind it out, preheat it a little bit with fire, fill it up with the mig and grind it flush-ish

don't worry about it
 
MIG will easily make a pretty weld that has no strength. With stick you at least know if it's good or bad. Personally I don't trust mig/flux core for anything important, but instead use stick.

IIRC my unit is a 175, and I think the max is 1/8", though it's been a while since I looked.

Trailer is one of those things were getting it right really seems rather important. Perhaps wise taking it to someone who actually knows what they're doing? :flipoff2:
 
SomeGuyFromOlympia said:
just get a friend that knows how to weld
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speed bump said:
You can put a fair amount more heat in with a stick electrode than you can with a short circuit mig. It's not just about the electrode its about how much grab the weld has.

Considering it's a trailer that was probably short circuit migged together in the first place I would probably grind out the cracks and weld them up without worrying about plating them. I would use dual shield if I had the wire handy otherwise short circuit will be good enough.
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To late. Ground out the cracks, welded them up, ground it flush and put a 1/4” plate over it and welded around the edges. I am very bad at upside down fillet welds. Also cut 4 holes in the plate and welded rosettes in. Now the frame will probably crack at the ends of the plate, but that center section is strong now…
 
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