Adventures of an amateur welder - PT 2 24/04

[Danblez]

I love reading threads of rust repairs and it is something I have always wanted to have a bash at. So I thought I would share with this lovely forum my first foray into the world of welding.

 

For many years I have been inspired by the work of people over on RR and here cutting out rusty bits on cars and sticking new metal in (Mr B you are a god amongst chod rust repairers). So a year or so ago I scoured ebay for a welder and bought myself a Clarke Pro 90 as it supposedly goes to nice low ampage which is good for body work.

 

I am getting my camper ready for sale shortly (good deal for AS members!) and there are a couple of areas that needed a little tickle up before sale. It didn’t feel right bodging with filler as it is in such good shape overall so I thought I would have a go at repairing it properly. I think I have picked up a lot of tips over the years from reading some very enjoyable threads (Mr B and Tony BMW in particular, if you haven't read these on RR get over there now!) and the only thing I needed to master was the welding bit, how hard could it be I asked myself? (hmmmmmmm only time will tell.

 

So here is the patch of rust in question. When I got the van 4 years ago there was a little rust along the bottom and now matter how I treated it, it only got worse.

 

 

At this point I was getting it ready for MOT but I couldn’t help myself picking at it, before I knew it I had gathered all my welding equipment from the shed and knew it was now or never. If you haven't ever attacked the body work of your vehicle with a grinder before it is bloody nerve wracking, all the time I am asking myself what the hell am I doing and will I ever be able to get it patched together again. Anyway after a few deep breaths I got out the angle grinder and did ,choppy choppy.

 

Hmmm it looks a little worse than expected, I am fairly certain this must always be the case!

 

 

Bit more choppy choppy. Oh bugger, that inner skin is looking a bit fragile, a poke of the screwdriver indeed confirmed this. Now I was soreley tempted to ignore this inner rust, but would I ever be able to sleep at night? Probably not. It was also at this point that I spotted two small spot welds (see I have been paying attention) and so whipped out the spot weld drill bit I had procured in advance. Bit of drill action saw these liberated.

 

 

A little more choppy choppy saw all of the rust removed, result!

 

 

It was at this point my confidence started to grow, yes I can do this was started to play in my head. There is something amazingly satisfying about removing the rust, a feeling I had never experienced before and I LIKE IT! No I suppose this is the very easy bit of the process I now needed to start making metal to be stuck back in.

 

Years ago I had cunningly stashed, behind the shed where the wife cant see, the old back bumper I had replaced. This was in fact the only metal at my disposal and so I whipped it out. The curve of the edge of the bumper seemed perfect and so I marked out the old piece and cut around it with the angle grinder.

 

How fortunate it looks almost perfect.

 

 

RESULT! Oh my god this is all going too well!

 

 

In actual fact yes it was all going too well. I whipped off the negative to the battery (did I need to do this?) and wondered if I needed to do anything else. I had been practicing on the back bumper and with help from the tutorials on the Mig-welding forum managed to start laying a half decent weld. Basically it is getting the right power setting, wire speed and the speed of your weld to come together in metal melting harmony and I tell you at first IT IS NOT EASY! With some perseverance and lots of messing with the controls I start to understand the black magic involved. So onto the actual van, now I must point that what may be possible in a sheltered garage standing over the top of the metal does not quite translate to be outside in the wind and welding on my back (this is my excuse and I, for now am sticking to it). I found it very difficult to get the weld in the right place at first before getting a little frustrated and burning a rather large hole on the new piece, FUGG NUTTS! You can see the hole at the bottom and it actually got twice as big as this at one point.

 

Professional welders LOOK AWAY NOW.

 

A cup of tea was now in order to steady the nerves before giving it another bash when the welder decides to throw a strop and snap the wire. After a small bout of swearing I pull the snapped wire through the torch where it gets stuck. TOP TIP if the snapped wire isn't straight at the end, snip it off before pulling it through. I now had the wire well and truly stuck and dissembled the whole gun before realising it was just in the tip. After 40 mins I finally managed to get the thing back together and working again.

 

At this point I was starting to doubt my ability but I persevered and eventually, almost got the two pieces stuck together and most of the hole zipped up. Yes it is a bit of a mess but 100% better than the rusty hole that was there previously

 

 

With a little confidence restored I moved onto the next stage, making metal for the outer skin. I decided to take the template approach to making the new piece and so located some cardboard and the only pair of scissors I can find. Why Mrs D needs kitchen scissors I don’t know but sure I will find out soon. Snippy snippy and cardboard template complete!

 

 

Right back to the bumper where I marked out the piece (generously as it is easier to cut it down than make it bigger) again from the corner.

 

 

After I got the piece cut off, even though it was roughly the right size it took ruddy ages getting it shaped properly, it must have been a good hour of tweaking it before I was relatively happy with it but I got there in the end.

 

 

Wooohoooooo, with my confidence rising again I was determined not to blow holes in this one and so stripped the paint of the bumper and started practicing again. I really struggled to get a decent weld on the lower settings which was frustrating me, I couldn't get the wire speed right, it was either too fast or too slow and there seemed to be very little penetration. It was at this point I noticed that the welder was behaving slightly oddly, it seem to be speeding up and slowing down the wire feed which made it difficult keeping a decent arc, I decided to ignore this and thought if I had it on the higher setting and stitch welded it I would get away with it.

 

So I cart my welder back outside and set up a wind break (apparently neat welds in wind aren’t easy as the gas shielding the weld is blown away). Feeling nervous once again I start when there is a strange noise from the welder and no wire feed. Oh for F**K sake not now, unbelievable!

 

I investigate the fault thinking it will be the motor that’s fugged, nope 12v battery across it and it works fine which most probably leaves the PCB, a fairly common problem apparently and I am loathed to spend £70+ when it may not be that! Great, I have got a whole 3 metres of welding out of my ebay special. Why is it whenever I buy anything 2nd hand I always end up worse off?

 

So this is where I am up to at the moment, I have a fugged welder, a hole in my van and an MOT looming! Anyone in the northwest have a welder going spare or fancy zipping the piece on for a few beers?

 

So lessons learnt so far.

 

1. It can be quite hard.

2. It is massively satisfying taking rust out and sticking new metal in. Even more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be.

3. Welding on your side outside is not as easy as welding the right way up in your garage.

4. If anything is going to go wrong it will always happen at the most inappropriate times.

5. If I had bought a new welder I would now have the same amount of money in the bank but a working welder.

6. Metal which has just been welded is HOT HOT HOT!

 

Hopefully this will be updated in the near future!

[The Moog]

Good write up.

 

Making me feel like I should do somethign about the crusty cab step on mine. Not sure if the Missus would go for me buying a welder just when we are thinking of going abroad.

[cort16]

Good effort.

Buy yourself a joggler as it lets you slip the repair section in under the existing metal making it MUCH easier to weld without blowing holes in it and you're more likely to get a better join than butt welding it.

This is a lesson I learned the hard way,

The punch in it also makes it a doddle to make holes to puddle weld through rather than trying to drill everthing.

 

 

They're 50 quid but I bet if you go to auto jumbles and the like you can get one much cheaper.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sealey-RE92-31-Joggler-Combined-Bending-Punch-Tool-/190587836855?pt=UK_Hand_Tools_Equipment&hash=item2c5feb99b7

[Cavcraft]

Good stuff Dan. It's this kind of thing that inspires hopeless cases like me to have a go, you've certainly made a damned nice job of it so far.

[Des]

Those C220 vans are getting near extincion, that looks like the bit under the door step where they all go, only that isn't as bad as usual. If you trace back the motor wires on your mig, to a circuit board probably, you might find something like a poorly soldered joint, the board could have a small relay, and probably a rectifier, a dab of a soldering iron could see the mig good for years.

[Danblez]

Cheers all, I am fairly happy with how it has gone so far!Go on give it a go, what is the worst that could happen? (It did get a bit flamey yesterday! )

 

Billy if you fancy giving it a bash I could pop over some time with the equipment and practise on your cars

 

 

Good effort.

Buy yourself a joggler as it lets you slip the repair section in under the existing metal making it MUCH easier to weld without blowing holes in it and you're more likely to get a better join than butt welding it.

This is a lesson I learned the hard way,

The punch in it also makes it a doddle to make holes to puddle weld through rather than trying to drill everthing.

 

 

They're 50 quid but I bet if you go to auto jumbles and the like you can get one much cheaper.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sealey-RE92-31-Joggler-Combined-Bending-Punch-Tool-/190587836855?pt=UK_Hand_Tools_Equipment&hash=item2c5feb99b7

 

I have seen these and I reckon they look pretty handy. Not sure how I would have used it on this piece though with the curved bits?

 

Those C220 vans are getting near extincion, that looks like the bit under the door step where they all go, only that isn't as bad as usual. If you trace back the motor wires on your mig, to a circuit board probably, you might find something like a poorly soldered joint, the board could have a small relay, and probably a rectifier, a dab of a soldering iron could see the mig good for years.

 

There are indeed not many left, the body work on this is pretty bloody good as it was fully waxolyed and cavity waxed from new. You see some right horrors at this age.

 

I will have another look tonight but everything seemed ok, there is a relay contact thingy which is working fine although it was sparking a bit which someone says means it is faulty. Someone also said to check the switches with a multimeter, how would I do that? I know how to test a normal switch for resistance but these switches are not simply on off as they have different settings for each position.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Great work danblez man. If my first efforts at welding up my old VP1500 back in the day were as good as those i'd be wearing TonyBMW's crown now I reckon! as it is i'll have to carry on looking up at him from 4th place on the podium or whatever.

[HillmanImp]

That is very good for a first try. Well done. Also impressed with the repair sections you have made.

 

Instead of having a joggler what I like to do is blow a small hole in the metal and then chase it 3/4 of the way up the panel I am repairing. As a result of this I would say that about 65% of my imp is actually made from slag. In the whole of the UK, the Imp is only 2nd to Hull in slag statistics.

[catsinthewelder]

I know exactly what you mean about welders giving up at just the wrong time. A couple of years back when we got the BX, it had about a weeks MOT on and the top n/s door hinge was coming away from the A post. I'd fixed the other problems and booked the test leaving me with a sunny sunday afternoon to weld a patch in place.

 

Dismantled the car and made a patch from some scrap computer equipment, put the 1st tack weld on and my Clarke mig spat its wire liner through the torch.

 

Ended up welding the patch in place with a 180 amp arc welder, fortunately the steel that I was using as a patch was fairly thick so I could keep the heat in that rather than the bodywork.

 

 

Looks like you're doing pretty well with the welding. I've still got the Clarke 100 in the shed, would you like it to try and fix yours? Its old and battered but everything inside the blue casing works ok, just everything around the torch and the cable up to it is knackered.

[Guest mjrose]

Great job Dan. Welding is my to learn list and your write up is inspiration to start!

 

And :

the Imp is only 2nd to Hull in slag statistics.

[John F]

That is very good for a first try. Well done. Also impressed with the repair sections you have made.

 

Instead of having a joggler what I like to do is blow a small hole in the metal and then chase it 3/4 of the way up the panel I am repairing. As a result of this I would say that about 65% of my imp is actually made from slag. In the whole of the UK, the Imp is only 2nd to Hull in slag statistics.

 

 

I feel your pain... I sometimes wonder whether I'd not have been better just knitting new bodywork for my Maserati using welding wire.

[cort16]

With my old welder I spent more time trying to fix it than I did actually welding. It constantly jammed, failed, gave an uneven wire feed and generally shat itself. I just bit the bullet and bought a new power mig in the end.

It was expensive but the best thing I bought as far as welding up old crocks go as I don't have to worry about it jamming every 5 minutes.

I stuck old one on ebay and got £120 for it too!

[Danblez]

I know exactly what you mean about welders giving up at just the wrong time. A couple of years back when we got the BX, it had about a weeks MOT on and the top n/s door hinge was coming away from the A post. I'd fixed the other problems and booked the test leaving me with a sunny sunday afternoon to weld a patch in place.

 

Dismantled the car and made a patch from some scrap computer equipment, put the 1st tack weld on and my Clarke mig spat its wire liner through the torch.

 

Ended up welding the patch in place with a 180 amp arc welder, fortunately the steel that I was using as a patch was fairly thick so I could keep the heat in that rather than the bodywork.

 

 

Looks like you're doing pretty well with the welding. I've still got the Clarke 100 in the shed, would you like it to try and fix yours? Its old and battered but everything inside the blue casing works ok, just everything around the torch and the cable up to it is knackered.

 

Thats a very kind offer catsinthewelder thanks, do I get the cat free too? If we could forumlate a cunning plan on transport that would be excellent as it seems everything but my torch and cable is knackered!

[Minimad5]

If you have wire and gas left, you are more than welcome to lend my Clarke welder for a weekend.

I want to invest in a new MIG, but don't know what brand or model to go for

[catsinthewelder]

I'll try a post on the Cholmondeley castle thread, I live right next to the A49 so hopefully someone will be passing on the way up

 

The cat shows no interest in either of the welders anymore

[Danblez]

Catsinthewelder and Minimad, thanks for the offers, I whipped off the pcb today and found a broken wire. Hopefully a bit of solder and I should be back on track!

[Danblez]

So after welder stopped play I took the PCB board out and found a wire which had come loose. After soldering it back on and reassembling my welder it worked, woo! Apart from the wire was stuck in the tip and the tip was stuck on the swan neck. Cue me snapping off the welding tip, attempting to drill it out and walking into Machine Mart the day after for new swan neck and liner!

 

Anyway, back up and running I had a tinker with the welder again and got it set up and started to understand what it is like to weld when there is a constant arc rather than it spitting and cracking everywhere. Got the power set on 2/4 and wire speed set at 6 which is strangely what is recommended in the instruction manual which of course I had only just read!

 

You may remember this is where I was up to, I was reasonably happy with this but there were a few pin holes still and so I decided to go over it a little. Now it is normally at this point that 20 minutes later I am looking at an unholy mess think why could I just have left it alone!

 

 

But hold on a minute, this was magical, the welding gods looked down upon me and blessed me with 3 minutes of welding skill. Unfortunately this wasn't going to continue but I bathed in this glorious bit of weld for a good few minutes I went and got some zinc weld through primer, lathered it on and waited for it to dry

 

 

Feeling confident and enthused by my recent success I grabbed the top skin, and went for it. I decided to go for a continuous spot weld technique so I didn’t blow holes and of course within 20 seconds had a humongous hole. Feckin nora! No pics at this point as my adrenalin was running and I wanted to crack on. So with some patience I managed to get the thing more or less stitched up.

 

I believe this is what is commonly referred to as pigeon shit welding

 

 

So what went wrong? Well I think it was a combination of things, the wind had got up and instead of getting the wind break out I decided to ignore it and use this as an excuse later on. I also think it was my panic from the hole I blew and rather than taking a moment and taking stock just randomly started chucking blobs of weld everywhere.

 

Still, it felt pretty sturdy and so I gave it a dressing down. Both verbally and with a flap disk.

 

Hmmm not looking too bad now, it was at this point in my excitement I almost forgot to take photos, you can see the hole I blew and here I am with attempt 1 out of 3 trying to get it closed up.

 

 

After a few more bits of weld and sanding I think this is reasonably acceptable. I am pretty chuffed at this stage.

 

Now onto a skim of filler. Now considering the last time I filled a vehicle was the rear wheel arch of a bedford van crica 1991, and not being exactly good at it then I thought I would carry on blindly.

 

Bloody hell it goes off quickly. Now I am not want to stop messing before I have ruined it generally and this is a fine example. I just couldn’t stop messing with it until it had started to go off and made a bit of a mess. But still it is only filler and easily remedied.

 

 

I did more sanding more filling more sanding and more filling. If I was in the body repair business I can safely say I would be bankrupt by now. Why is it that some things that look so simple are far from it.

 

Still I think it looks alright.

 

 

Now it has paint on (phone died at this point) I can see the finish of the filler wasn't perfect but where there was once rust is now shiney metal and this is a nice feeling of acheivement!

 

So van off for MOT. I had spent a bit of time making sure everything was OK, given it a service and as I was taking it off the ramps (30 minutes before MOT time I noticed a brake binding slightly, still too late now. Off I went and sure enough, failed on nearside rear brake binding. What are the bloody odds on that going wrong more or less on the way to the MOT station. Still, brakes freed off and cleaned up and it passed again for the 4th year running withgout a single advisory! WHOOP!

[catsinthewelder]

Well done

 

glad you got the welder sorted, you're doing well with it.

[Louise2cv]

Nice one.

 

I loves a fresh MOT.

[cort16]

Nice work. Nowt wrong with a bit of glen miller as long as it's solid underneath.

[dieselnutjob]

that looks fine

 

I am also looking at welders and I see that you have Clarke Pro 90. Other people seem to say that I should spend the extra £50 and by a bigger welder. As you have actually used one what do you think?

[Danblez]

that looks fine

 

I am also looking at welders and I see that you have Clarke Pro 90. Other people seem to say that I should spend the extra £50 and by a bigger welder. As you have actually used one what do you think?

 

Fine is OK to strive for right?

 

Obviosuly not very experienced but for thin metal work you cant really get better as I think it drops down to 25 amps good for 0.6mm metal apparently. In practice I find that setting 2/4 is OK though and I am not sure what ampage that is running but higher than the lowest setting on the 110 and 135 I expect. So unless you are welding a lot of very fragile metal I would probably go for the 110, 135 or 151, then you have the option of welding heavier stuff if required.

[barrett]

That looks a canny good bit of welding there! Proof that even a bit of pigeon shit can turn out absolutely fine if you take the effort to tidy it up properly. I've never even been near a mig but I can guarantee that when I eventually do my first attempts will be considerably worse than these. I'd be genuinely very proud of your efforts if it were me.

[HillmanImp]

Some of that welding might have 'looked' a little messy but you can see that you got some good penentration (hur-hur) and have actually done a good weld. What it looks like at that point is irrelevant, its whether or not its gone through that matters and as you can see yours did when you have ground it back.

 

That is an infinitely better job than one that would be done at the garage.

[eddyramrod]

I'm no judge, having never learned to weld, but if your MoT man says it passes, good enough! Something to be proud of there. Well done.

[Danblez]

Thanks chaps, its a great feeling. I just need to find something else to practice on now!

[scooters]

Well done mate and thanks for sharing ...helps us other learners get some confidence. I'm considering applying for a night school course in mug welding at the local college.

[Danblez]

Well done mate and thanks for sharing ...helps us other learners get some confidence. I'm considering applying for a night school course in mug welding at the local college.

 

Thanks, I was going to do this but really I dont think it's necessary. Get you welder set up properley, read the fantastic mig-welding.co.uk tutorials and just practice on a piece of scrap and you will pick it up in no time.

[jonathan_dyane]

Excellent job, that's tremendous for a first attempt.

 

I have to say though, I learnt to weld with a pro-90, and found it a difficult thing. Essentially (and I don't know whether this is true of all of them or whether ours was fucked) I found that as you welded it's power characteristics were constantly changing (it would start off trying to burn holes then become weaker) which led you to have to be juggling all the settings to maintain a good weld, which continued until the thermal cut out came into play.

 

We then got a better Clarke welder (the type with a fan) which was a revelation, much more controllable and consistant results.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I just need to find something else to practice on now!

 

Theres no shortage of 'rust donors' out there, get on it!