Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

Timber, sir, ooopppsss, the SIR word is just my way of showing respect to the admin people since you guys are way way ahead of me and the administrators of this site though I may be older than the other admin guys, like sometimes I call JayL, " kuya Jay " or jarod as " sir or tito jarod ",
I hope naman na hindi yon nakaka irita but then if its making you uncomfortable, THEN I'll just do away with it and call you sir, kuya or tito, !!!! waaahhh he he he he , joke joke lang, ok I'll just call you by your avatar's name. 😀

Regarding the " C L A M S " by MILLER, IIRC , I mentioned it to you already on your thread,
" My journey with ASEA 200amp " or was it on your other thread " ASEA 200amps Inverter Tig Welder ". AHA, you were not reading or serious on my suggestions ha ? huhuhuhuhuhu, LOL. :p

Anyway SEE IF YOU HAVE SOME SCRAP METALS AROUND AND DO PRACTICE ON THEM, try simply dragging slowly the welding rod towards you or horizontally left to right. I f you still have the rods that I gave you, use them and then lower ampere settings to 35, 40, 45 or 50. Try to differentiate also each setting, how the rod will react while doing practice welding, kung mahina o malakas ang buga sa dulo ng rod. At first in lower settings have patience with the rod reaction coz medyo mabagal ang pag init ng tip ng rod, just continue scratching it on the metals para uminit at mag tuloy sa pag tunaw ng rod and also maintain distance of rod to the metal surface. 😉

If you increase your ampere settings to maybe 80, 90 or 100 using that rod, the 3/32 Best Weld, sunog agad welding rod na yan, meaning mangingitim agad the whole rod and not nice to use na for welding. 😮

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

Here's just an info or reminder on the most common Ampere Settings based on electrode diameter :

-----1/16 X 12" welding rod --------------- 15 - 40 AMPS
-----5/64 X 12" welding rod --------------- 30 - 60 AMPS
-----3/32 X 12" welding rod --------------- 50 - 80 AMPS

These first three settings are good for thin sheet metals.

-----1/8 X 14" welding rod --------------- 70 - 100 AMPS
-----5/32 X 14" welding rod --------------- 100 - 140 AMPS
-----3/16 X I4" welding rod --------------- 130 - 180 AMPS
-----1/4 X 14" welding rod --------------- 175 - 220 AMPS

These four settings are good for thicker metals or plates.

Hope these guides will help us understand the right/correct welding rod to use when welding.
This guide is useful only for stick welding or SMAW or MMAW. 😉 🙂

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

To continue with the practice welding on thin sheet metal, here I have prepared some scraps of GI sheets with 1.6 mm thickness. If you may recall I have marked the 1.6 mm thin sheet metals with red orange and some black lines in the first postings in this thread for the purpose of easy identifications.

Now for these exercises, I'll be continuing using the 1.6 mm thin GI sheets scraps.

In these pics, these are the scrap metals that I will be doing my welding practice/exercises.
Pardon me please if I have utilized the full size of the pics in each post since I wanted viewers to see clearly the results of my welding exercises/practice.

MAY I START AGAIN WITH THIS EXERCISE TO SEE AND FIND OUT THE GREAT IMPROVEMENT THAT HAS BEEN ATTAINED OR ACCOMPLISHED ALL THESE WEEKS OF PRACTICE WELDING ON THIN SHEET METALS. 😀

So sorry but I forgot to rotate this first image. If you will compare this exercise with the past same exercises, you will see the very big difference on how the beads or welds have been applied., though there is burn through at the end of the plate coz I was trying to prolong my weld application on that area and see how the sheet will take or react since its a bit thicker than the 0.98 mm thick previous plate exercises, well there it is punched a hole in the end but that is very negligible, this is only an exercise.

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

Pardon again for the full utilization of the images, but this is very necessary, I think, so that it can be clearly seen.

Tack welded the two sheets to be joined.

Applied the weld.

Then removed the slags over the weld.

Here's a closer look at the finished weld.

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

A much closer look at the finished weld.

Here is the other side of the sheet metal showing a complete penetration/fusion of the metals.

Since this exercise is already done, I've decided to play some more with the application of more welds on or beside the finished weld and try a new welding technique application that I have learned.

Here I applied another weld pass beside the previous finished weld.

Then applied another weld over the two welds underneath using the forward and retract way of weld application,

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

To continue with the exercise :

There is the weld with out the slags.

These are two images of close-up views of the welds.

This is the last pic for this exercise showing the finished weld using the technique of "forward and retract, forward and retract " way of applying a weld.

'TILL THE NEXT EXERCISE in the coming days and thanks again for viewing !!!!

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

Probably the welding table is acting as a heat sink. Have you tried this bro while the plates are hanging? It would be good to see how stick weld will behave in this scenario.

The latest pics are a lot lot better welds now than when you started this PIP.

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

Yes JayL, the welds have become so much, much better than when I first started this PIP, thanks a lot for the compliment on the welds, but the truth of the matter is its really hard and so tricky doing stick welding on thin sheet metal. It has become really a challenge for me doing this PIP but am so glad I did this, the results of the exercises has given me lots and lots of confidence in applying the welds specially on thin sheet metals. :p 😉

Have to be honest, all this years that I have been using these machines for welding, that I have this much confidence, oh yes its very easy to apply welds on thicker metals that you won't think ever of doing burn through or punching a hole on the metal surface. But with thinner sheet metals , I have developed and learned some techniques on how to apply welds now with great confidence, minimizing the cause for burn throughs which can also be easily used or applied on thicker metals. :rolleyes: 🙂

Doing the PIPs on thin sheet metals were well worth it . Have to attest to that.
I will just have to continue practicing the hand control and travel speed in applying the welds.

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

HERE I GO AGAIN !!!!, to continue and nearing the last leg of this PIPs , welding on thin sheet metals.

On this set of postings, I'll be working on the top most set of thin sheet metals, sheet #1, sheets A & B, and sheet #2.

On this image, I started to apply or tacked weld one in each end and one in the middle. Sorry I forgot to take a photo of that, and just played with it by applying multiple beads in between each beads until almost all the gaps are filled and covered, after which I applied a light pass of stringer weld and then sanded or grinded the welds.

The sanded or grinded metal surface.

A more closer look at the grinded metal surface.

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

TO continue with the exercises : :p

Here on the left side of this pic, I started to join the sheet #1 with sheets A & B by tack welding
both ends and the middle.

And likewise with the right side of the sheet metal,

Here's the image as a whole piece of sheet metal.

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

Again to continue with the PIP. :p

After tacking the metal joints, I applied several stich welds on the joints until almost all the gaps were covered, then sanded or grinded the surface then re applied a light pass of stringer weld by just dragging the welding rod on top of the welded surface, so sorry I forgot again to take a photo of the detailed step by step procedure. Anyway I sanded of grinded the surface again.
The weld beads you see on the metal joints are just initial weld applications, intended to be sanded or grinded.

Here'is the image where all the welds have been sanded of grinded. Now I can leave it as is since thin sheet metals are welded flat like this, OR !!!!!!!!!!!

I'll continue later, I have not completed uploading some more pics in the photobucket yet. 🙁

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

Again to continue with the PIP.

Here'is the image where all the welds have been sanded or grinded. Now I can leave it as is since thin sheet metals are welded flat like this, OR !!!!!!!!!!!

I'll continue later, I have not completed uploading some more pics in the photobucket yet. 🙁

In the following pics, I have already applied several layers of welds so to be able to do different welding techniques of applications since I have been practicing this kind of welds on thicker metals already, about 1/4" or 3/8" thick metal plates, its easier to apply these kinds of welds on thick plates, you won't worry about punching a hole or two on your work surface. Again on this sheet metal, I decided to play with it and see how the sheet metal will react or take the thick applications of the different weld techniques.

Pardon me again please if I have utilized the full size for each pic, I just wanted for viewers to see clearly the finished welds.

This is how the welded sheet metal would look now, with several weld technique applications.

A more closer look at the different welds applied.

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

Again to continue the PIP :

The following pics are only close ups of the different welds that I have applied on the thin sheet metal.

These two images shows how I applied the inverted Cs or smileys moving from left to right then right to left. It needs complete hand and arm control while traveling downwards or sideways.

This is the same weld application, I just moved the subject in a different direction. In the manipulation of the welds, I used the push and pull technique here while applying the welds. Again it needed complete control of the hand and arm plus control of the overlapping puddles.
I was so surprised with the outcome of this one, it looks like very similar to a TIG weld finish.

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

And again, few more pics to share :

On this pic, I am trying to show the middle portion where I used letter Cs, starting the welds from left to right.

On this pic, its again the middle portion where I used the inverted Cs starting from the right towards the left or middle part of the sheet metal.

THANKS again for having the patience of viewing these exercises and really hoping that this PIPs are in a way helping you out understand how to weld on thin sheet metals. I have another exercise to post on the coming days and this will be a different one.
Thank you. :thanks:

Re: STICK WELDING on thin sheet metal

TO continue with the welding exercises or practice, I have prepared some 1.6mm thin sheets again but with a different configurations. I have made the materials to be welded in an upright position, welding the corner joints and attaching it to the flat sheet metal.

On this image I will be working on the two lower steel sheets with an upright configurations.

But then I decided to add two items to be welded and cut more thin sheets for the exercise

I cut the thin sheet panel with a very thin cutting disc mounted on my B & D angle grinder.
By the way the cutting disc is only 1.0mm thick. The reason I used this disc was to minimize metal wastage.

If you can see in this image, the kerf made by the 1.0mm thick cutting disc are so thin or ( fino ) and it measures only about 1.25mm unlike the usual cutting disc of 3.0mm thickness.