arse_sidewards
Contrary to everything
- Joined
- May 19, 2020
- Member Number
- 71
- Messages
- 8,382
Hundreds of thousands of people learned to weld with a way the fuck too dark fixed shade. You'll be fine with a HF special if that's the route you choose to go. Frankly, seeing all the shit going on around the weld is not going to be your issue when you are just laying bead after bead in a test setting. Get a nice helmet if you want but it's a nicety not a necessity.
Ignore anyone who says anything about the "puddle". It is absolute shit advice for a novice who doesn't know what they are looking for and the puddle is a lot less informative for a stick welder in the flat position where you will be starting than it is for the average monkey who's pushing a hot glue gun in the flat position.
Focus on your angles, speed and where you're putting the arc relative to the base metal and the bead of molten metal that's following you. After about 1-2lb in the flat position you will figure out what a "good" weld looks and feels like as you're laying it. By the time you know what you're looking for the puddle to be doing you won't need anyone to tell you what you're looking for.
You should err on the side of slow travel speed and a travel angle that is way the fuck closer to vertical than you think it should be. The problems that beginners tend to have is they move to fast, with too much travel angle so you will likely need to actively work to counter these. Once you're able to lay a consistant bead we'll talk about work angle.
Make sure you have some fume extraction. Even just a box fan sucking shit away will make it a million times easier to see WTF you're doing and make your helmet get dirty tons slower.
Ignore anyone who says anything about the "puddle". It is absolute shit advice for a novice who doesn't know what they are looking for and the puddle is a lot less informative for a stick welder in the flat position where you will be starting than it is for the average monkey who's pushing a hot glue gun in the flat position.
Focus on your angles, speed and where you're putting the arc relative to the base metal and the bead of molten metal that's following you. After about 1-2lb in the flat position you will figure out what a "good" weld looks and feels like as you're laying it. By the time you know what you're looking for the puddle to be doing you won't need anyone to tell you what you're looking for.
You should err on the side of slow travel speed and a travel angle that is way the fuck closer to vertical than you think it should be. The problems that beginners tend to have is they move to fast, with too much travel angle so you will likely need to actively work to counter these. Once you're able to lay a consistant bead we'll talk about work angle.
Make sure you have some fume extraction. Even just a box fan sucking shit away will make it a million times easier to see WTF you're doing and make your helmet get dirty tons slower.
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