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Kansas | A little bit more advice.
Forget trying to glue metal to metal for starters.
Take a piece of flat plate iron. Oh......5" by 5" or so. In that neighborhood. Just start practicing laying down beads. Run a bead the full length. For starters. Use your 6011 as Dutch suggested. Best no prep rod there is as he said. Burns through rust and paint and you pretty much can always just grab that rod and run it. Set your heat at 110. Now dry run it. Power off, Helmet up. Lay your stick at about a 45 degree angle. Practice bringing the stick down to contact to start the arc and then back up away from the steel. You need contact to start the arc but after that you want to stay away from your steel. Figure around or near 1/4 " I spose. You will develop a sweet spot for the spacing after you practice alot.
With a stick welder always drag your rod to weld. Do not push it. As in.........do not go the direction the bottom of the stick is pointing (in general, I realize at a 45 it's at an angle. If it's pointing to the right and down.....go left. If your pointing to the left and down.......go right)
Lay bead after bead side by side on that plate. When you get done. Flip it over or continue on laying more beads perpendicular across what you just did. This will start to get you used to uneven surfaces and start moving your hand to adjust and accompany for the uneveness. Now your doing what is called a pad weld. After 4 or 5 layers cut the thing in half with a chopsaw and investigate your work. You will tell if you are getting penetration or not. Always beat the slag off afterwards to with a chippin hammer. You can make one perty dang easy with a couple small pieces of rebar rod or similar. oh shoot......ya gotta weld the handle to the T part. Well, maybe you better just buy one to start with. heh heh.
The advice your given to seek outside help is very good. So much better with an expert standing over your shoulder or grab your hand and walk you through the first weld to give you an idea. It takes time and practice to purr fect the art of moving sideways while moving down as the rod decreases in size.
You also need to learn how to back and forth or circle weld. It isn't just start welding, build a puddle, move forwards a little, build a puddle, move forwards a little. Oh, you can, and you'll get away with it on some projects till your working with some light stuff and still need the heat and then you'll burn holes fast. Your going to burn alot of holes to start with anyways. Good practice for filling them in.
That should get you started on some practice tricks to learn on your own a bit. Heed the advice of everyone else though on here that suggested getting some help. Even if it is nothing more than a buddy that knows how to do it well and you splurge on a 12 pack of your flavor for the nite to entice him to show up and help you.
It really isn't that big of a deal once you get the handle of it. Like anything though, practice makes perfect.
Good Luck. You got alot of good advice on this thread. | |
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Cant weld worth a crap
