I totally agree. I am pretty unskilled with getting people involved with stuff but I think doing some actual “projects” of building some stuff will help with that. Due to the last few months of basically being homeless and shopless it’s been a bit crazy to tackle projects, but now that I am ready I think some challenges/projects are in order.
There is a ton of bad info out there. I have done probably 80 hours of testing welds and the one universal constant is that you need power to weld thick plate. Preheat, bevels, and any other miracle solution is simply not effective on 3/8th and thicker material like what a more powerful welder is. The gas mixture used and the power capability of the machine is the most important deal breaker on thick material.
If you have a 200amp mig machine you can safety weld 1/4inch plate. If you use 100% co2 gas you could get solid results on 5/16th thick material. If it’s over that thickness your best off with tig, stick, spray arc, or dual shield. If you were butt welding two pieces with a gap you could weld 3/8th or thicker with short circuit mig.
I weld ¼ and 3/8 plate, tube and flat stock every day with .035 wire. The welder is 100% duty cycle and hooked up to 440v line. Works great. Torch gets a bit hot after 15 minutes of continuous welding but the machine does its thing and stays cool. It’s a thing. It works.
3/8th plate is beyond the reasonable capability of most home hobbyists machines which typically are 180-210a. A bigger machine such as what you’re running can weld 3/8th plate with proper penetration, however there is no prequalified procedure for welding that thick of material with short circuit from a structural standpoint. Universally spray arc or dual shield would be used on 3/8th and above steel because they offer far better performance on thick plate than short circuit. The practical limit with short circuit is 5/16th.
Your videos are definitely educational. Thank you for that. For anything over 1/8" I just use stick - 6010, 7014, 7024, and on rare occasions 7018 which I stay away from if it's old even if it's been in a rod holding oven.. I grew up with torch and stick welding. Back then (nineteen fifties) I never saw a MIG welding machine and Heli-Arc was technology sufficiently advanced that it appeared as magic. I have an SP100 Lincoln for thin stuff that's inconvenient to.do with stick. I'm teaching myself TIG - just bought a Prime Weld 225X to see if I can learn to do thin aluminum sheet.
Stick welding is great, other than for thin stuff lol. With tig thin becomes much easier. I have filmed a few how to tig weld videos and will be releasing them starting next week. You should have problem welding thinner aluminum with the primeweld. It is very capable and with practice I am sure you will be able to do it.
Interested to see the other processes. Curious to see if it would improve much with your welder cranked all the way up. Now you got me questioning my 3 link mount... It's held up to 2 beatings so far. Guess I'll keep an eye on it.
I will test it on wall power soon to see what happens. A 3 link mount that has weld on all sides of the mount will likely be ok even if it has poor penetration. I have shot a bunch of videos coming out shortly where I bend test welds like in this video, with a actual torque measuring device. That will give some hard data for sure.
When I have to weld 1/4 and up I use stick or dual shield fluxcore and sometimes pulse spray. My preferance is dual shield fluxcore in good conditions then stick if things are in poor conditions. Arc one welding uses dual shield and Esab 12.50 and stick of course. He does very good real world work.
Definitely the way to go on thick plate. There is no question if it’s “stuck” together. That’s what I don’t like about thicker plates and mig. There are a lot of ways it might work (like preheating the plates) but ultimately it’s a crap shoot. Stick and flux core are consistent and reliable, which is definitely that you want.
Would love to see the Mig,Tig, Flux Core,Stick comparison. If you’ve already done it, my bad, I just haven’t found it yet. Excellent presentation. Thanks!
I definitely will be doing that soon 😀. The hard part about such a comparison is that the actual strength difference is negligible given all welds are equal in size and free of defects. Tig produces the most consistent defect free welds and would likely have the most consistent destructive testing. I will definitely do it though, I just need to find a way to make it as fair as possible 😀
I definitely will be doing that soon 😀. The hard part about such a comparison is that the actual strength difference is negligible given all welds are equal in size and free of defects. Tig produces the most consistent defect free welds and would likely have the most consistent destructive testing. I will definitely do it though, I just need to find a way to make it as fair as possible 😀
Have you ever tried a stick root pass to get the initial penetration. Then welding a cap with mig to build up to proper weld size? Switching to Mig just to reduce the amount of smoke in a small garage shop
So you can do that but there are potential issues. Thick plate limits short circuit migs ability to get any penetration. Putting a root in with a higher penetration process will solve the root issue, but short circuit welding thicker plate you could still have poor fusion into the sides of the weld on every weld after the root. Short circuit migs ability to weld thick material comes down to the joint, position, how thick, and if there is a gap and a bevel. In simple terms a lot of variables must be right or the performance will be poor. If you have a 200+ amp mig welder, it is possible to weld 1/4inch steel no problem and up to 5/16th would be the limit. At 3/8th steel on a fillet weld you will not be able to match 7018s performance with short circuit. To match the strength you would need to switch processes to spray or dual shield, both of which require more power than most 200 amp class machines can do. The best way to eliminate smoke and weld unlimited thickness is to tig weld. With 160+ amp tig machine you can weld unlimited thickness material. It’s just painfully slow compared to mig or stick. Beyond that using a fan to blow the smoke out of the garage is possible with stick, and it won’t affect the weld like it will with gas shielded wire.
The biggest issue with welding 3/8th plate is that most people don’t have enough amperage or voltage with a home hobby MiG welder to get proper root fusion on thick plate. It’s far safer to use stick on thicker plate than most home hobby level Mig machines.
Yes you certainly can. With metaloy/metalcore hallow wire, spray arc or flux core as he just proved. I have been noticing this too recently with short circuit mig hard wire. It's garbage and not meant for thick material.
Love what you’re doing here Greg, the demonstration along with methodical testing and your commentary is really instructive 👍🏼-looking forward to watching more. So 3/8” is clearly not a great idea, but what are your thoughts on the practical capability (material thickness) of say 200A short circuit mig running solid wire with an average skilled operator? I realize there are a lot of variables here but in general? Depending on who you ask I feel like I most commonly hear as low as 1/8” or as high as 3/16-1/4”. Love to hear your thoughts.
So a legit 200 amp MiG welder can weld 1/4in steel no real issue. At 3/8th there is risk of a lack of fusion and weak welds. I have not actually seen this with my welder at 200 amps, but I am pushing 200a and 22-23 volts. Many 200a home hobby welders don’t go above 20-21 volts which is somewhat of a issue. I am also limited on my generator to around 200a of output, the welder can actually hit 215 or so if it was on wall power (as can many 200a welders). So if it’s a solid 200amp machine short circuit MiG can do 1/4, maybe 5/16 safely, and 3/8th is pushing it. Assuming a decently skilled operator. The bigger issue to me is the duty cycle, most 200amp machines will go out on thermal overload fast welding more than 1-2 feet of weld at high values. Edit: I forgot to mention, using 100% c02 gas could help penetration on thicker steel, but it requires more voltage, which is a detriment when using high settings (aka the welder is stressed enough already).
Greg, I never did any kind of welding till I started watching your channel, I may have made a mistake with my first welder but it does stick, mig and has tig capability. The welder I got is the arccaptain 130, its a 110 volt welder. My issue is that it's a sinergy welder that sets the wire speed with amperage setting. I get lost when you say what you set your Voltage at. Is there a conversion for voltage to amp setting? Thank you for all that you do,, Vic
Hopefully this helps: Some welders have a built in table that sets voltage based on wire feed speed. With such machines you can’t independently adjust settings. This is somewhat of a detriment because it limits your ability to adjust things the way you want to. In the case of your machine likely what is going on is the output voltage has say 4 steps: 13/15/17/19 volts. The wire speed may be adjustable and for every 50 or 75 increase/decrease on wire speed it goes up or down on the voltage automatically. That type of setup won’t likely have anyway to control the output of voltage. It is possible to make solid welds with that type of machine but you may run into a issue where you can’t quite get it dialed in on a particular joint or thickness of material. The wire feed speed should be adjusted to make a weld appropriate in size for the material, the voltage should be adjusted to flatten/wet out the weld to the material. Not having control of voltage independently will limit your ability to “dial in” welds based on what you see. Again on a narrow range of material (say 16ga to 1/8th) it probably won’t be a huge issue not having full control. That is provided the machine has decent voltage ratios setup.
What exact wire are you using? Some MIG wire is simply not meant for thicker plate work. The same is true for flux core. I have solid results from ER70T11 on anything above 1/4".
The main issues that come up with thicker steel and short arc are root fusion. It tends to be limited. With normal c02 and c25 gas it can be difficult to achieve root fusion. Switching to 90-10 and spray arcing solves this issue, but many peoples welders can’t run spray. Wire size wise .035 tends to perform way better than .030 (hardwire wise), it can carry more amperage. Flux core wise the wire can make a huge difference. Many cheaper -gs Gasless flux core wires perform poor on steel over 3/16th thick. Definitely better off sticking with a coded wire like you mentioned for sure.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Some time ago I was considering ways to approach welding thicker steel with MIG. On a butt weld, vertical up, 3/8" plate, I tried beveling the plates and leaving a 3/32" gap and welding with 3/32" 6011 for the root pass. After that was in, I followed with a fill and cap with 0.035" MIG. I tried it a few times and gave up because the MIG welds over the 6011 seemed to have a "bad look" to them. I don't recall what it was, but might have been porosity or something, it just looked like it wouldn't be strong. Have you ever tried something like that to get better root fusion?
Running gasses and settings outside of the normal short arc mig (aka 100% co2 or c25 and sub 22v) will generally net much more penetration. However you are changing the mode of transfer from short arc to globular or spray. Due to the oxygen content the gas would also justify the process a MAG (metal active gas) process. The limitation of running certain mixtures of gas is to reach their performance you need a welder capable of hitting the WFS and voltage to see the benefit of the gas. In the case of simple c10 gas, you need atleast 25v to get to spray mode. Many home hobby machines can’t hit high enough output of voltage to achieve spray. So basically if you have enough power in the welder you can reliably achieve fusion on thick plates. I will be doing a few videos on spray arc and 100% co2 soon.
These videos are always interesting to me. Looks like the short arc Mig process does not give you enough penetration for 3/8. You mention you would get better penetration with dual shield fluxcore I'm guessing the extra shielding gives you better penetration. You mention Spray Mig I don't even know what that is since my unit a Miller 220 this is the first I've heard the term. Also just wondering if you have tried the Diablo Steel Demon either 71/4 circle saw or 10 inch miter blades. They cut thru steel like it's a 2x4. The 71/4 blade can be bought for 35 dollars and it's a game changer for us home hobbyist. I was using a cutting torch before which is not nearly as clean.
So dual shield flux core and self shielded flux core operates on a different “mode of transfer” than short arc Mig. Because the wire is thin walled/hollow the wire itself becomes liquid before it really touches the puddle. It deposits less weld metal generally but the metal is far hotter and penetrates deeper. The flux also aids in cleaning/protecting the molten pool. Dual shield has shielding gas which really helps with random porosity that self shielded flux core has. Dual shield is capable of welding far thicker material than short arc mig with decent penetration. Spray arc uses the same wire as you use with mig (er70s6) but uses such high voltage that the wire is liquid within a very short distance from the tip. It requires high wire feed speeds or the wire will burn back to the contact tip. High wire speeds combined with very high voltage requires a big welder. Voltage should be around 26 minimum (often over 28v) which many home hobby welders can’t sustain (if even hit). The benefit is much greater penetration, less spatter (it sounds like a hiss), bigger single pass welds, etc. In simple terms it solves all the issues with short arc when welding thick plate. The primary downside is the puddle is extremely liquid, running vertical up requires a pulse spray capable machine (even higher cost), and a special gas mixture is required (can’t use c25 or c02) so it’s an added bottle you have to buy. Great tip on the saw blades, I will have to check them out. I have heard other good things about them. I finally broke down and bought a new blade for my dry cut saw, sucks they are so expensive lol.
My Eastwood 250i will sprayarc they say up to 1/2 inch steel with .045 wire. Never tried probably need to bevel my question is flux core or solid. And can I reliably weld 1/4 to 3/8 building smokers out of 350 gallon propane tanks and trailers to pull them. I also have 200 amp dedicated stick welder and old Lincoln tombstone which is ac dc model
The 250 definitely has the horsepower to weld thicker steel. If most people had MiG machines of that size there wouldn’t be as many bad MiG welds (aka too cold) out there lol. The home hobby 200amp machines are extremely limiting when it comes to performance above 1/4inch steel. Even more so because they often lack the voltage output to achieve spray with even thin wire, and they often times won’t even run .045 wire at all. That’s why I tell people if they are serious about MiG and want to weld over 3/16th steel, go for a 220+ amp machine from the start. The limitations brought on at 200amp or less are huge.
Hi Greg. I plan to weld four bolts to a massive I-beam to hold an anvil in place. The flange thickness is around 16 mm (5/8"), and the bolts are M8 (i.e. 8 mm). My options are using my multi-process 160 Ampere MIG welder with flux-core wire or stick welding the bolts with 6011, 6013, 7018, not 6010 since it is hard to find here in Europe. What is your recommended approach? It makes sense to me not to be overconfident by pre-heating thick steel unless you have control of the heat distribution and maintain it properly. Cheers.
A dual shield wire would probably be the best option bc the dual shield process itself creates a more ductile weld which is good in a high stress situation
@@beyondmiddleagedman7240 I completely understand what you are saying and it’s definitely easier and more economical to smoke it in there with stick. Only reason that I said dualshield is bc I know for a fact that you can run esab’s .035 dualshield at 140-160 amps you’ll just have a lower deposition rate.
Sorry for the delay in response. You have a ton of options, it comes down to how much torque the bolts are going to see. The the bolts have to be held to the face of the I beam (not drilled through it) I would suggest 7018. If the bolts pass through a hole with the head on the opposite side any rod will work since the weld only needs to hold the bolt from spinning. 160 amp MiG welder will not be ideal, the reason being gas shielded wire won’t have any penetration on thick steel and flux core wire will almost certainly have porosity issues. .035 dual shield wire would likely work at that amperage, but may be very hard for you to get. I have been doing a bunch of screwing around with Gasless flux core and on 3/8th plate I can’t get it to weld without porosity issues with .035 wire. I also break tested welds (videos will be out soon) and based on all of that I would definitely say go stick weld. One thing to consider as well is a grade 8 bolt is capable of becoming weakened by hydrogen embrittlement, so using 7018 will be the smartest given your options.
If I have to weld thick plate, I will use spray transfer. My machine has spray and pulse spray settings. Only down side with spray transfer is the positions.
100% right, spray transfer is far superior to short arc on thick metal. The penetration is way better, there is no question it’s solid. It’s just too bad most home machines can’t hit high enough values to do it.
C'est bien et cela change un peu de tous les faiseurs de bla bla sur internet, qui nous montrent tout content d'eux ce qu'ils pensent être de jolies soudures qui en fait sont des collages. Une macrographie au moins cela ne ment pas.
Interesting, I'm looking at building my own table and have access to some thick stock from scrap. 3/4" flat bars but only have a MIG and not even a 220v outlet, yet. I wasn't really considering this and should have. I'm sure I could get enough penetration for a table.. but maybe not!! Edit - I suppose if ai bevel every weld I might be able to get by
So I have a video on bevels coming out soon. Bevels only help to a certain point. 3/4 plate would be significantly thick for even a 200amp output on mig. On 120v you will be limited to around 120-140amp, which will have virtually no penetration on 3/4. Stick with 1/8th or 5/32 rods would be the way to go on something like that. With a 120v mig you will need to 100% max out the machine to get any fusion. If you were to hammer on it the welds may crack due to lack of fusion. It may help to preheat the parts a bit and weld fast. A solid preheat may be the difference maker.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Hey I appreciate the response and information! Yeah 3/4" I would be just scratching the surface on 120v! haha. i will take this all into consideration, very much appreciated.
Bevels are not cure alls unfortunately. Take a fillet weld for example. If the plate is thick and you only bevel the top plate, how are you going to get increased penetration into the bottom plate? You won’t unfortunately. Short arc mig should not be used to weld thick plates regardless of beveling unless very specific rules are followed, such as a butt joint that is two beveled plates with an open root. I have a video out on this shortly.
Does anybody ever bevel their upright pieces to get better penetration…especially over 1/4”…bevel allows for good root passes no matter kind of welding you’re doing … overhead , vertical, horizontal,flat….stick , mig or tig….anyone can put lipstick on a pig…..😊🫣😵💫 ??!!
Ya gotta get people to engage in the comments - will feed the algorithm and promote the channel better - this is awesome content btw
I totally agree. I am pretty unskilled with getting people involved with stuff but I think doing some actual “projects” of building some stuff will help with that. Due to the last few months of basically being homeless and shopless it’s been a bit crazy to tackle projects, but now that I am ready I think some challenges/projects are in order.
Excellent video/information! Looking forward to seeing your process comparison video- Thanks!
You’re welcome 😀.
What a great learning video to help learn and debunk the bs out there.
There is a ton of bad info out there. I have done probably 80 hours of testing welds and the one universal constant is that you need power to weld thick plate. Preheat, bevels, and any other miracle solution is simply not effective on 3/8th and thicker material like what a more powerful welder is. The gas mixture used and the power capability of the machine is the most important deal breaker on thick material.
Excellent video again! Thank you for all the understanding of what a weld really is versus looks.
No problem, glad the video helped 😀
great Vid thank you. This proof that what I though of doing wasn't going to work. Saved me a lot of time. I need another welder other than the MIG.
If you have a 200amp mig machine you can safety weld 1/4inch plate. If you use 100% co2 gas you could get solid results on 5/16th thick material. If it’s over that thickness your best off with tig, stick, spray arc, or dual shield. If you were butt welding two pieces with a gap you could weld 3/8th or thicker with short circuit mig.
I weld ¼ and 3/8 plate, tube and flat stock every day with .035 wire. The welder is 100% duty cycle and hooked up to 440v line. Works great. Torch gets a bit hot after 15 minutes of continuous welding but the machine does its thing and stays cool.
It’s a thing. It works.
3/8th plate is beyond the reasonable capability of most home hobbyists machines which typically are 180-210a. A bigger machine such as what you’re running can weld 3/8th plate with proper penetration, however there is no prequalified procedure for welding that thick of material with short circuit from a structural standpoint. Universally spray arc or dual shield would be used on 3/8th and above steel because they offer far better performance on thick plate than short circuit. The practical limit with short circuit is 5/16th.
Your videos are definitely educational. Thank you for that. For anything over 1/8" I just use stick - 6010, 7014, 7024, and on rare occasions 7018 which I stay away from if it's old even if it's been in a rod holding oven.. I grew up with torch and stick welding. Back then (nineteen fifties) I never saw a MIG welding machine and Heli-Arc was technology sufficiently advanced that it appeared as magic. I have an SP100 Lincoln for thin stuff that's inconvenient to.do with stick. I'm teaching myself TIG - just bought a Prime Weld 225X to see if I can learn to do thin aluminum sheet.
Stick welding is great, other than for thin stuff lol. With tig thin becomes much easier. I have filmed a few how to tig weld videos and will be releasing them starting next week. You should have problem welding thinner aluminum with the primeweld. It is very capable and with practice I am sure you will be able to do it.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Outstanding. I subscribed so I won't miss your TIG videos.
Thank you great content I'm big on stick for thick stuff just learning mig
No problem 😀
Very informative Greg, thamks.
You’re welcome 😀
very informative video, thanks!
You’re welcome 😀
Great explanation
Interested to see the other processes. Curious to see if it would improve much with your welder cranked all the way up. Now you got me questioning my 3 link mount... It's held up to 2 beatings so far. Guess I'll keep an eye on it.
I will test it on wall power soon to see what happens. A 3 link mount that has weld on all sides of the mount will likely be ok even if it has poor penetration. I have shot a bunch of videos coming out shortly where I bend test welds like in this video, with a actual torque measuring device. That will give some hard data for sure.
When I have to weld 1/4 and up I use stick or dual shield fluxcore and sometimes pulse spray. My preferance is dual shield fluxcore in good conditions then stick if things are in poor conditions. Arc one welding uses dual shield and Esab 12.50 and stick of course. He does very good real world work.
Definitely the way to go on thick plate. There is no question if it’s “stuck” together. That’s what I don’t like about thicker plates and mig. There are a lot of ways it might work (like preheating the plates) but ultimately it’s a crap shoot. Stick and flux core are consistent and reliable, which is definitely that you want.
Would love to see the Mig,Tig, Flux Core,Stick comparison. If you’ve already done it, my bad, I just haven’t found it yet. Excellent presentation. Thanks!
I definitely will be doing that soon 😀. The hard part about such a comparison is that the actual strength difference is negligible given all welds are equal in size and free of defects. Tig produces the most consistent defect free welds and would likely have the most consistent destructive testing. I will definitely do it though, I just need to find a way to make it as fair as possible 😀
I definitely will be doing that soon 😀. The hard part about such a comparison is that the actual strength difference is negligible given all welds are equal in size and free of defects. Tig produces the most consistent defect free welds and would likely have the most consistent destructive testing. I will definitely do it though, I just need to find a way to make it as fair as possible 😀
Have you ever tried a stick root pass to get the initial penetration. Then welding a cap with mig to build up to proper weld size? Switching to Mig just to reduce the amount of smoke in a small garage shop
So you can do that but there are potential issues. Thick plate limits short circuit migs ability to get any penetration. Putting a root in with a higher penetration process will solve the root issue, but short circuit welding thicker plate you could still have poor fusion into the sides of the weld on every weld after the root. Short circuit migs ability to weld thick material comes down to the joint, position, how thick, and if there is a gap and a bevel. In simple terms a lot of variables must be right or the performance will be poor.
If you have a 200+ amp mig welder, it is possible to weld 1/4inch steel no problem and up to 5/16th would be the limit. At 3/8th steel on a fillet weld you will not be able to match 7018s performance with short circuit. To match the strength you would need to switch processes to spray or dual shield, both of which require more power than most 200 amp class machines can do.
The best way to eliminate smoke and weld unlimited thickness is to tig weld. With 160+ amp tig machine you can weld unlimited thickness material. It’s just painfully slow compared to mig or stick. Beyond that using a fan to blow the smoke out of the garage is possible with stick, and it won’t affect the weld like it will with gas shielded wire.
Of course a person can weld thick plate (3/8") with a MIG welder. You have to use the correct amperage and prep the welding area of course.
The biggest issue with welding 3/8th plate is that most people don’t have enough amperage or voltage with a home hobby MiG welder to get proper root fusion on thick plate. It’s far safer to use stick on thicker plate than most home hobby level Mig machines.
Yes you certainly can. With metaloy/metalcore hallow wire, spray arc or flux core as he just proved. I have been noticing this too recently with short circuit mig hard wire. It's garbage and not meant for thick material.
Love what you’re doing here Greg, the demonstration along with methodical testing and your commentary is really instructive 👍🏼-looking forward to watching more. So 3/8” is clearly not a great idea, but what are your thoughts on the practical capability (material thickness) of say 200A short circuit mig running solid wire with an average skilled operator? I realize there are a lot of variables here but in general? Depending on who you ask I feel like I most commonly hear as low as 1/8” or as high as 3/16-1/4”. Love to hear your thoughts.
So a legit 200 amp MiG welder can weld 1/4in steel no real issue. At 3/8th there is risk of a lack of fusion and weak welds. I have not actually seen this with my welder at 200 amps, but I am pushing 200a and 22-23 volts. Many 200a home hobby welders don’t go above 20-21 volts which is somewhat of a issue. I am also limited on my generator to around 200a of output, the welder can actually hit 215 or so if it was on wall power (as can many 200a welders).
So if it’s a solid 200amp machine short circuit MiG can do 1/4, maybe 5/16 safely, and 3/8th is pushing it. Assuming a decently skilled operator. The bigger issue to me is the duty cycle, most 200amp machines will go out on thermal overload fast welding more than 1-2 feet of weld at high values.
Edit: I forgot to mention, using 100% c02 gas could help penetration on thicker steel, but it requires more voltage, which is a detriment when using high settings (aka the welder is stressed enough already).
Another excellent video. Thanks
Greg, I never did any kind of welding till I started watching your channel, I may have made a mistake with my first welder but it does stick, mig and has tig capability. The welder I got is the arccaptain 130, its a 110 volt welder. My issue is that it's a sinergy welder that sets the wire speed with amperage setting. I get lost when you say what you set your Voltage at. Is there a conversion for voltage to amp setting? Thank you for all that you do,, Vic
Hopefully this helps: Some welders have a built in table that sets voltage based on wire feed speed. With such machines you can’t independently adjust settings. This is somewhat of a detriment because it limits your ability to adjust things the way you want to. In the case of your machine likely what is going on is the output voltage has say 4 steps: 13/15/17/19 volts. The wire speed may be adjustable and for every 50 or 75 increase/decrease on wire speed it goes up or down on the voltage automatically. That type of setup won’t likely have anyway to control the output of voltage. It is possible to make solid welds with that type of machine but you may run into a issue where you can’t quite get it dialed in on a particular joint or thickness of material. The wire feed speed should be adjusted to make a weld appropriate in size for the material, the voltage should be adjusted to flatten/wet out the weld to the material. Not having control of voltage independently will limit your ability to “dial in” welds based on what you see. Again on a narrow range of material (say 16ga to 1/8th) it probably won’t be a huge issue not having full control. That is provided the machine has decent voltage ratios setup.
Thank you, helps somewhat, the only adjustment I can make is the amperage which then will adjust the wire speed automatically @@makingmistakeswithgreg
What exact wire are you using? Some MIG wire is simply not meant for thicker plate work. The same is true for flux core. I have solid results from ER70T11 on anything above 1/4".
The main issues that come up with thicker steel and short arc are root fusion. It tends to be limited. With normal c02 and c25 gas it can be difficult to achieve root fusion. Switching to 90-10 and spray arcing solves this issue, but many peoples welders can’t run spray. Wire size wise .035 tends to perform way better than .030 (hardwire wise), it can carry more amperage. Flux core wise the wire can make a huge difference. Many cheaper -gs Gasless flux core wires perform poor on steel over 3/16th thick. Definitely better off sticking with a coded wire like you mentioned for sure.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Some time ago I was considering ways to approach welding thicker steel with MIG. On a butt weld, vertical up, 3/8" plate, I tried beveling the plates and leaving a 3/32" gap and welding with 3/32" 6011 for the root pass. After that was in, I followed with a fill and cap with 0.035" MIG. I tried it a few times and gave up because the MIG welds over the 6011 seemed to have a "bad look" to them. I don't recall what it was, but might have been porosity or something, it just looked like it wouldn't be strong. Have you ever tried something like that to get better root fusion?
Hi Greg thanks for the great content. how dose using a different gas affect penetration. would a 86% Argon 12% CO2 2% Oxygen make any difference?
Running gasses and settings outside of the normal short arc mig (aka 100% co2 or c25 and sub 22v) will generally net much more penetration. However you are changing the mode of transfer from short arc to globular or spray. Due to the oxygen content the gas would also justify the process a MAG (metal active gas) process.
The limitation of running certain mixtures of gas is to reach their performance you need a welder capable of hitting the WFS and voltage to see the benefit of the gas. In the case of simple c10 gas, you need atleast 25v to get to spray mode. Many home hobby machines can’t hit high enough output of voltage to achieve spray. So basically if you have enough power in the welder you can reliably achieve fusion on thick plates. I will be doing a few videos on spray arc and 100% co2 soon.
These videos are always interesting to me. Looks like the short arc Mig process does not give you enough penetration for 3/8. You mention you would get better penetration with dual shield fluxcore I'm guessing the extra shielding gives you better penetration. You mention Spray Mig I don't even know what that is since my unit a Miller 220 this is the first I've heard the term. Also just wondering if you have tried the Diablo Steel Demon either 71/4 circle saw or 10 inch miter blades. They cut thru steel like it's a 2x4. The 71/4 blade can be bought for 35 dollars and it's a game changer for us home hobbyist. I was using a cutting torch before which is not nearly as clean.
So dual shield flux core and self shielded flux core operates on a different “mode of transfer” than short arc Mig. Because the wire is thin walled/hollow the wire itself becomes liquid before it really touches the puddle. It deposits less weld metal generally but the metal is far hotter and penetrates deeper. The flux also aids in cleaning/protecting the molten pool. Dual shield has shielding gas which really helps with random porosity that self shielded flux core has. Dual shield is capable of welding far thicker material than short arc mig with decent penetration.
Spray arc uses the same wire as you use with mig (er70s6) but uses such high voltage that the wire is liquid within a very short distance from the tip. It requires high wire feed speeds or the wire will burn back to the contact tip. High wire speeds combined with very high voltage requires a big welder. Voltage should be around 26 minimum (often over 28v) which many home hobby welders can’t sustain (if even hit). The benefit is much greater penetration, less spatter (it sounds like a hiss), bigger single pass welds, etc. In simple terms it solves all the issues with short arc when welding thick plate. The primary downside is the puddle is extremely liquid, running vertical up requires a pulse spray capable machine (even higher cost), and a special gas mixture is required (can’t use c25 or c02) so it’s an added bottle you have to buy.
Great tip on the saw blades, I will have to check them out. I have heard other good things about them. I finally broke down and bought a new blade for my dry cut saw, sucks they are so expensive lol.
My Eastwood 250i will sprayarc they say up to 1/2 inch steel with .045 wire. Never tried probably need to bevel my question is flux core or solid. And can I reliably weld 1/4 to 3/8 building smokers out of 350 gallon propane tanks and trailers to pull them. I also have 200 amp dedicated stick welder and old Lincoln tombstone which is ac dc model
The 250 definitely has the horsepower to weld thicker steel. If most people had MiG machines of that size there wouldn’t be as many bad MiG welds (aka too cold) out there lol. The home hobby 200amp machines are extremely limiting when it comes to performance above 1/4inch steel. Even more so because they often lack the voltage output to achieve spray with even thin wire, and they often times won’t even run .045 wire at all. That’s why I tell people if they are serious about MiG and want to weld over 3/16th steel, go for a 220+ amp machine from the start. The limitations brought on at 200amp or less are huge.
Hi Greg. I plan to weld four bolts to a massive I-beam to hold an anvil in place. The flange thickness is around 16 mm (5/8"), and the bolts are M8 (i.e. 8 mm). My options are using my multi-process 160 Ampere MIG welder with flux-core wire or stick welding the bolts with 6011, 6013, 7018, not 6010 since it is hard to find here in Europe.
What is your recommended approach?
It makes sense to me not to be overconfident by pre-heating thick steel unless you have control of the heat distribution and maintain it properly. Cheers.
7018 or then 6011. 13 won't be strong enough. 18 is stronger than 11. But the ability to handle shock may be better with 11.
A dual shield wire would probably be the best option bc the dual shield process itself creates a more ductile weld which is good in a high stress situation
@@mkearn724 He is only 165 amps. Seems a tad cold for that thick of parent material. Why I suggested SMAW.
@@beyondmiddleagedman7240 I completely understand what you are saying and it’s definitely easier and more economical to smoke it in there with stick. Only reason that I said dualshield is bc I know for a fact that you can run esab’s .035 dualshield at 140-160 amps you’ll just have a lower deposition rate.
Sorry for the delay in response. You have a ton of options, it comes down to how much torque the bolts are going to see. The the bolts have to be held to the face of the I beam (not drilled through it) I would suggest 7018. If the bolts pass through a hole with the head on the opposite side any rod will work since the weld only needs to hold the bolt from spinning. 160 amp MiG welder will not be ideal, the reason being gas shielded wire won’t have any penetration on thick steel and flux core wire will almost certainly have porosity issues. .035 dual shield wire would likely work at that amperage, but may be very hard for you to get. I have been doing a bunch of screwing around with Gasless flux core and on 3/8th plate I can’t get it to weld without porosity issues with .035 wire. I also break tested welds (videos will be out soon) and based on all of that I would definitely say go stick weld.
One thing to consider as well is a grade 8 bolt is capable of becoming weakened by hydrogen embrittlement, so using 7018 will be the smartest given your options.
If I have to weld thick plate, I will use spray transfer. My machine has spray and pulse spray settings. Only down side with spray transfer is the positions.
with pulse spray you should be able to weld out of postion, I have.
100% right, spray transfer is far superior to short arc on thick metal. The penetration is way better, there is no question it’s solid. It’s just too bad most home machines can’t hit high enough values to do it.
I may have missed it. What size wire on you using?
In that video I likely used .035. I have done random tests with .030 and .035 and they seem to have similar results on thicker steel.
C'est bien et cela change un peu de tous les faiseurs de bla bla sur internet, qui nous montrent tout content d'eux ce qu'ils pensent être de jolies soudures qui en fait sont des collages. Une
macrographie au moins cela ne ment pas.
Interesting, I'm looking at building my own table and have access to some thick stock from scrap. 3/4" flat bars but only have a MIG and not even a 220v outlet, yet. I wasn't really considering this and should have. I'm sure I could get enough penetration for a table.. but maybe not!!
Edit - I suppose if ai bevel every weld I might be able to get by
So I have a video on bevels coming out soon. Bevels only help to a certain point. 3/4 plate would be significantly thick for even a 200amp output on mig. On 120v you will be limited to around 120-140amp, which will have virtually no penetration on 3/4. Stick with 1/8th or 5/32 rods would be the way to go on something like that. With a 120v mig you will need to 100% max out the machine to get any fusion. If you were to hammer on it the welds may crack due to lack of fusion. It may help to preheat the parts a bit and weld fast. A solid preheat may be the difference maker.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Hey I appreciate the response and information! Yeah 3/4" I would be just scratching the surface on 120v! haha. i will take this all into consideration, very much appreciated.
What welding machine are you using? ESAB?
In that video I believe I used a firepower fp200 (same as esab 210em). More recent videos I use the esab rebel 235 😀
@@makingmistakeswithgreg ok thanks. I have been looking at getting the ESAB emp 210 pro, it's about 1500 dollars in sweden at the moment.
They sure do bring projects over when they know you can weld! 😂
Yep, that’s how I got to be a decent welder, everyone always giving me their stuff to fix 😅
No bevel
Bevels are not cure alls unfortunately. Take a fillet weld for example. If the plate is thick and you only bevel the top plate, how are you going to get increased penetration into the bottom plate? You won’t unfortunately. Short arc mig should not be used to weld thick plates regardless of beveling unless very specific rules are followed, such as a butt joint that is two beveled plates with an open root. I have a video out on this shortly.
Does anybody ever bevel their upright pieces to get better penetration…especially over 1/4”…bevel allows for good root passes no matter kind of welding you’re doing … overhead , vertical, horizontal,flat….stick , mig or tig….anyone can put lipstick on a pig…..😊🫣😵💫 ??!!