Welding

[pompei]

You fellers who do your own - how did you get started? Did you have classes or lessons, or just buy a rig and get practicing? Wanting to get some skilz, but not to end up with another piece of kit stuck at the back of the garage ...

[dean36014]

I first bought a cheap second hand mig welder, and basically got on with it. It wasn't pretty to start with, but after doing some reading up, it improved to a stage where the cheap welder was at its limits. Had various welders new and old since, current one is about 25 years old and the size of a washing machine!, an old Butters, welds lovely even at 25 amps.

[stoterstangen90]

I did a class at Rustbusters.nl, a dutch company in weldingproducts and weldingclasses.I think, in the UK there must be too.

[Richard]

I've only welded in anger once and I made a reasonable job of it. A lot of grinding and underseal were required to make it look nice but the MOT tester was impressed. I expect that I'd need less grinding and underseal with more practice.Basically you can learn most of what you need from books or the internet, the rest is purely experience.Having said that, if your local tech does evening classes and they aren't too pricey it would be a good way to get some practice and find out if you can do it.Most of the theory goes out of the window when you are upside down in the rain with carpets and sound deadening on the other side though.

[dean36014]

I have to say i hat welding upside down, I prefer if possible to butt weld floor repairs, so do them from the top. Best money i spent was on a decent automatic welding mask.

[r.welfare]

See if you can borrow one from a mate first, and get him to give some quick lessons.I've got a gasless Sealey, and a gas SIP, both on "long term loan" (read "free") from my slightly barkers mate Colin. The SIP is a bit buggered at the moment, I think the motor for the wire feed needs looking at. I don't proclaim to be any good, but managed to plate a couple of patches into the inner wings of my Mk2 Cav well enough for my MOT tester to be satisfied. I've also welded up the spare wheel cradle in one of my 405's, where it had been cut with boltcroppers (must get round to fitting the security lock for that I got off of eBay some time ago), but I must admit I don't use them as much as I'd thought, although I have no resto projects! Still, when the local garage charges "£50 a plate", it's nice to have them on standby.I'd log on to www.mig-welding.co.uk, excellent site with videos and stuff to watch, plus a forum. You might find a secondhand bargain, I'm not sure I'd chance my arm with eBay or a boot sale - both Colin's welders came from the bootsales (he goes every Sunday and comes back with his Bedford Rascal full of crap) and seem to work OK, although they needed new wire, tips and stuff, and I sprang for a decent helmet and gauntlets.

[M'coli]

Best advice I can give if you take the plunge is:-1) wear earplugs to stop weld spatter getting in and puncturing your eardrums. They'll probably never heal!2) change to a lighter shade of glass, it means that you can see the job before there's too much heat in it and it all melts and blows holes.3) you know you've got the hang of it when you can weld up the holes that you've melted without creating more...!!!

[r.welfare]

1) wear earplugs to stop weld spatter getting in and puncturing your eardrums. They'll probably never heal!

Excellent advice! I had to grind out the spare wheel carrier bolt from my saloon, which entailed me lying under the car with the grinder above my head. Lots of sparks went into my ears and hurt like hell!

[seth]

I basically jumped in got a welder and gave it a go. Had done much reading of magazine articles before hand. I dare say now you could use the interweb for information. Its not difficult to get two pieces of metal to stick together and a lot of the time of doing good welding is in the preparation - making the panels fit properly and ensuring the metal is clean/shiny. Its easy to see when something is not going right too so you just need to work out what it is. Not rocket science though.

[pompei]

Thanks guys! It looks v complicated from what I've read - plug, spot, seam etc - I guess with zero experience you could do hidden plates/ underside etc, and for nice new arches etc, get a pro to do it?

[Dead_E23]

1) wear earplugs to stop weld spatter getting in and puncturing your eardrums. They'll probably never heal!

Excellent advice!

Seconded. I'd also suggest practicing on scrap of similar thickness to whatever the job is just to get the hang of things. Alternatively, if you want to get loads of practice then buy an old Range Rover with a 20p sized hole in its sill. I did that, and ended up fabricating all of one sill, most of the other, a couple of body mounts and about half of the floor to get it through the next MOT. By the end of it I could weld fairly confidently but still don't consider that I'm up to doing bits that show.

[M'coli]

Ah. The other welding rule that I go by:-

 

Cleanliness is next to welding godliness!!!

 

Basically, don't try to weld onto metal that's got rust, paint, seam sealer or underseal on it!!!! Be prepared to take back to really good metal.

For example, to take my metro front upper member from this:-

 

To this:-

 

Took taking back to this:-

Here also you can see where you need to seam weld, and where you can plug weld.

 

This is the scary bit, and it takes a lot of "brave" pills and the prep takes 2-3 times longer that the welding itself. This is also why it's good to buy some clean metal to practice on, as it gets the I MUST WELD NOW stuff out of your system before you strike an arc on a car!