- Welcome to Weld.com, I'm Bob Moffatt with Cowley College.
I gotta throw this out here for the young guys
who are just getting started or the old guys
who are just getting started.
When we start out processes here, at the college,
people think I'm kind of rough on them or whatever,
but I don't care what process we start out with.
We need to be able to run straight lines consistently.
Straight lines, same width, same height.
Doesn't matter what electrode.
60-10, 60-11, 60-13, 70-14, 70-18,
70-24, it doesn't matter, okay?
And I see some people that start out
and, I don't know, I give some pretty detailed instructions
on how to do this, and I do some demos.
I ran the first bead of this over here
on the edge of the plate.
The edge of the plate was straight.
I now have a guide to go off of.
I could have started next to this weld
and the toe of the weld of this weld right here,
in the middle of this joint.
This is an old training coupon that we just,
we're not cutting it down anymore,
so that's what we save them for.
Sometimes we'll cut them and we'll do fillet welds,
and lap welds and stuff.
So, I ran on the edge.
I ran the first bead on the edge.
And now, in order to run straight lines,
we want to orient the rod up here.
This is a 5/32 70-18.
I have it set at 160 amps and I want to orient this
where I'm running, I'm gonna set it down
in the toe of this previous weld.
I want to blend into this weld about halfway up,
and I wanna run a straight line.
Same width, same height.
If I change my travel speed and start going real slow,
this bead is gonna widen out.
If I change my travel speed and race forward,
the bead is gonna narrow up a little bit.
I'm not gonna get the blend either.
By the way, if you're looking at this on the camera
and you're thinking wow, that's rough,
that looks kinda stupid there,
well, it probably does, 'cause it's got slag dripped
over the edge, and I'll clean that up after a while.
Matter of fact, I can clean it up while I'm talking to you.
Boom!
I'm done.
Edge of that weld is kinda just barely hanging
over the edge of the plate there.
So, bad habits, bad habits to get into
is to weld towards yourself, I think, anyway.
Later on, we will learn how to manipulate in all positions
and everything, but right now, let's just concentrate
on doing this, and hopefully, we'll see some slag peel
out of it, too.
Come on, darling, light up here.
Don't be that way.
Here we go.
I need to explain what I'm seeing and what I'm feeling here.
I have this rod leaning back probably
about 40 degrees or so.
I also have it pointed toward me about 10 degrees.
That's how I can get that slag running behind me.
The whole weld pool, and I'm barely touching the plate.
I can feel the plate.
Woo!
There we go.
Welcome to stick welding.
I see what happened here.
I've got a big old crack in my slag here,
it just kinda fell off, so I've got an electrode that...
Hmm, not good, not good, not good.
Got an electrode, you need to check the flux on it.
I found some here lately, I found a 60-10 the other day
that had about 1/3 of the way up from the start of the rod.
I'm gonna leave that little dingus on there
and see if I can weld over the top of it.
When I re-strike this rod, I'm gonna re-strike it
out here, in the direction that I'm going.
I wanna kinda long art lift over
and bring it back into the top
of this pool here and take off again.
Here, we're back in business.
Again, I think I was just getting ready
to say I'm barely dragging the rod,
touching the material, barely.
Last thing you wanna do with one of these rods
is gauge the plate.
Now, here's something to pay attention to
when we come out here and terminate the weld.
Please, do not get into the habit
of running this crater right here
on the edge of the weld and blowing it up.
Run the rod back in and fill that up a little bit.
Please, please, do that for me.
It's good craftsmanship.
Not getting a slag peel,
but it doesn't take that much to get this off here.
Okay?
Also, what this is training you, you may not realize it yet,
but this is training you to run multiple beads
when you go to build up a big fillet weld.
By the way, right here is our restart,
where we stuck the rod.
I'm good at sticking rods.
Gonna run one more.
I said I was gonna run one more bead
and I'm gonna run two and the reason
is this plate is now getting saturated with heat.
So I'm seeing a slight difference
in the size of my weld pool.
I'm watching the drag lines, or freeze lines,
that's where the weld pool turns
from bright red to dark red.
Hey, lookie there, little slag peel.
I wonder what this stuff tastes like.
Better not.
Okay, here's a little slag peel right here.
Lookie there.
That's always fun.
Always like to remove my slag like that.
Don't be wanting to beat the daylights out of your slags.
Your slags are not coming off your beads,
especially these rods right here.
60-13
70-14, 70-18, 70-24, there's no reason
to beat the daylights out of them.
Matter of fact, it's dangerous.
This stuff stays hot for a long time.
And I have actually been wearing safety glasses,
face shield, and I've got stuff in my eye.
So, just kinda avoid the projectile part of welding
and don't beat on stuff.
Plus, it makes it a lot quieter in the weld shop
and your welding instructor will appreciate it.
Nothing makes a welding instructor more irritable
than somebody banging around on the plate all the time.
I know this rascal is super hot, super hot.
I'm gonna leave the machine the way it is,
160 amps, but I'm gonna go take all the heat
out of this plate, okay?
I'm just gonna dip it real quick.
I just wanna get a lot of that latent heat out of there.
Be right back.
Come on.
I must have a slide cutting into the end
of the old rod here.
Okay, I went over and cooled the plate off.
I left the amperage alone.
I'm still running the same size rod.
And I can tell, it's a different bead shape,
and it's fine, it's close.
I can feel the rod touching the toe of the previous weld.
I'm using it as a guide.
If you see me leaning slightly back and forth,
'cause I'm old and not quite as steady as I used to be.
That's my excuse anyway.
Well, it's almost like I'm not gonna make it all the way.
Ooh, that was a nice little explosion.
Looks like this rod isn't gonna make it
all the way to the end.
Maybe it will.
It's gonna be pushing it.
One thing about it is I'm not gonna speed up.
If I run out of rod, I run out of rod.
Barely made it.
That's another thing I see people do.
They can see where the end of the plate is,
and they know they're running out of rod,
so they hurry up and get over there,
and it changes the width of their bead.
Don't do it!
Don't do it.
You need to practice restarting anyway.
When that electrode exploded a minute ago,
it left a nice little, oh, but it's loose.
Okay, I'm good.
So I'm not getting a slag peel this time,
but my slag is cracked
and it flew right up off there for me.
I'm gonna brush the toe of the weld.
By doing this method, I know this seems boring,
but you need to challenge yourself.
Run the exact same straight line,
run as straight as you can possibly run.
I'm starting out, and I've already
got a little curvature to mine.
I could correct it by, I could do it.
You know, it's okay to run a straight line.
Grab a piece of soapstone and leave yourself a guide mark
in there, whether you measure it off of here,
just make a straight line so that
when you're running the toe of the weld,
you can kinda pause or do something,
and then you'll straighten them right back up.
But challenge yourself to run really straight beads,
because when you get into stacking multiple passes,
they need to be the same size, the same width.
Here, I'll just throw this out there.
Go look at MIG Man.
Let's call out MIG Man on Instagram.
Go look at some of the work he does
on enormous beams work and stuff.
And look how straight his multiple pass welds are,
absolutely phenomenal quality.
So, my whole point is, when you're learning,
challenge yourself to do straight, quality work,
and from there, we'll teach you how to do some weaves.
There's very few techniques in welding,
as far as motions and stuff,
very few of them that you really need to know.
I know what the textbook says.
I know what the textbook says, but keep it simple, okay?
Thanks for watching.
I hope this helps.
Bob Moffatt with Weld.com.
Welding instructor with Cowley College, in Ark City, Kansas.
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Thank you!
(metal softly sizzling)