Excellent information. For a novice like myself, the Titanium is hard to beat for the price and its performance is respectable, for a lightweight welder.
I did a follow up video that will be live tomorrow. In this video I used the us forge wire to weld that 1/4in plate. In the follow up I used the Lincoln wire and had noticeably different results (still not perfect). I am going to see if I can’t dial it in to get repeatable solid results. One thing is for sure though, the wire has penetration. No way would a 125 amp mig machine get penetration on 1/4in steel with hardwire mig with gas. I am pretty surprised it was able to get the penetration it did to be honest lol. Not a bad deal for sub 200$.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg To me, this is why your channel stands out. Not everyone has the money to purchase a red or blue machine as many RUclipsrs would like you to believe, in order to be successful. I am not looking to build a bridge, just getting in to the hobby to learn a new skill and have some fun. I am sure others feel the same way.
Best welding table I have had. It’s nice to not have to worry about damaging it, I can grind it clean/polish it as needed. Everyone should have a big slab of steel as a welding table 😀
I welded 1/4 to TWO inch with the mig 140 to mount the HF six ton winch. I’ve maxed out the winch many times pulling logs and rocks and the weld holds.
A welder here. You took your time to do anything right and it came out right. If people can`t swim these days, the swimsuit was the reason.... Fck this behavior. Well done Sir ! Greetings from germany.
I bought the titanium 125, it was a very busy sale day. They told me they would bring out my bigger items (a tool cart and the welder) on a cart to my truck. They ended up bringing me out a titanium mig 140. I didn't realize it until about 4 days later when i opened it.
Thank you for the Vid Greg. Wondering if pre-heating and a better quality FC wire might even be 'better'. I strictly use Blue Demon and don't look around anymore. It will obviously hold and looking through various comments, it apparently holds quite well for the DIYer projects who have commented. I personally have this machine in my inventory and though I don't cut and etch much, in over 3 years, I haven't had the welds from this on 1/4" fail - anywhere. Impressive machine overall, of course, not for Industrial work but clearly immensely capable for the garage/yard worker. Thanks for sharing!
So I have tested a ton of flux core wire since that video was shot, and on a bunch of different machines. Universally .035 flux core seems to produce internal weld porosity on 1/4in and above regardless of brand. There is no evidence of it on the surface, and on thinner steel it doesn’t seem to happen. The only logical reason for it is the molten pool is solidifying too fast and trapping gas bubbles. Stepping up to .045 wire would likely solve this, the higher heat input would produce a hotter weld pool. Considering how fast it freezes and the diameter of the wire (.035 being a hollow tube) there are limitations to what it will handle settings wise.
per Lincoln specs no more than 5/16 as a plate thickness limitation because of that quick cooling with .030-.045 wire. Would be interesting to see if you could heat plate up to boost that.
So you recommend using flux core 0.35 wire to weld 1/4 mild steel instead of 0.30. i have a 140 mig welder and am learning how to weld, I need to weld a 1/4in steel MOVE bumper. I love your videos. I've been watching them all day. Definitely SUBSCRIBED.
For 1/4 in .035 is the way to go. It will be less likely to produce porosity and on 1/4 it’s the way to go. Make sure to do atleast one test weld on 1/4in steel and cut it to see what the internal weld looks like. 140a with .035 should be able to weld 1/4in bumper without issue. You must run hot enough to get fusion. The key is proper settings (what your machine says for 1/4in) and moving slow& steady with a drag angle. Make sure to keep atleast a 1/2inch stickout to the molten pool. If you get too close you will have porosity. Make sure to use T11 wire and not -GS to make sure your welds are strong. You should have no issue welding it with some practice 👍
Hi, I think that the usf wire is better wound and looks alot better that the valcon wire. The lincoln wire was good wire but I didn't like the way it is wound. plus the cost is a little more for what you get. Greg keep up the great videos!!
Been watching a lot of your videos, thank you for sharing your knowledge! I'm new to welding - just got a yesweldee ds-205 which I'll primarily be using for flux, then I'll be moving to argon with aluminum (which is primarily why I got this model). Anyway, would you recommend preheating 1/8 steel for flux when making small welds outside when the temperature is at or below freezing? For that matter, even just preheating in general, where possible. Thanks again.
So generally speaking you shouldn’t need to preheat it. Super cold steel will take a pinch more amperage but not a lot (especially 1/8in). Any preheat will increase penetration but that’s mostly beneficial on 1/4in and over. Any machine above 120 amps could probably melt through 1/8th steel without preheat so you’re not gaining much. Preheating will allow you to weld thicker material than you should be able to, especially aluminum. Thick aluminum (over 3/16th thick) will benefit significantly with a decent preheat. Even 1/2in thick aluminum can be welded with a 200 amp machine with a 400 degree preheat. Again keep in mind having the proper sized welder should be used on critical jobs for repeatable results.
Never taken welding classes but would porosity be caused by the splatter bouncing back into the puddle because you’re down in a 90 degree corner vs a butt joint ?
So spatter doesn’t normally cause porosity. I actually did a ton of testing regarding what was found in this video (and off camera). What I determined was .030 and .035 wire can’t carry enough eat to keep the weld pool liquid long enough. Basically the as the molten metal solidifies gasses get trapped inside as porosity. It is possible to heat the base material hot and it will lower the porosity, but running much higher amperage with .045 or 1/16th wire is a far better solution. Your observation of the inside corner playing a roll is dead on, the fillet weld produces a thicker weld throat (distance from root to surface of the weld) which exasperates the problem due to more metal for the gas to flow through to escape. Porosity is far less on butt welds for this reason.
i sometimes wonder if water absorption by the flux inside the wire can be a problem if the wire is sitting around for a humid summer not being used. would be interesting to see if your fillet on the cold/first side is any different from the fillet on the second/hot side.
So the flux core wire can absorb moisture which can have a detrimental effect on the wire. Flux core wire is also very prone to rusting. It’s not copper coated like normal MiG wire so that’s why I keep desiccant in a machine to help lower moisture levels and I pull the spool when it won’t be used for a while 👍
I think the weld pool is cooling so fast that the gas doesn’t have to time to work itself out. Stitch welding keeps the pool liquid a bit longer and the “C”, or “e” method keeps the pool liquid even longer.
I wonder if it woiuld have helped to grind a small bevel on the vertical plate on each side. That way the roots of the welds from each side could fuse together. What do you think?
So I have a video on bevels coming out shortly. In the meantime I will say this: Bevels can help, however there is a ton of issues with them. On a fillet weld where only one plate is beveled, the fusion into the full thickness plate will not improve. Depending on the bevel the weld will still not fuse the root. Basically you will have a hole at the point the beveled upright plate meets the flat plate on a fillet. The weld will just bridge the two and not fuse the edge of the bevel. You will see a bending strength improvement towards the face of the weld from a slight bevel. Keep in mind that you still need a welder with adequate power, beveling will not give much improvement to an undersized welders welds due to lack heat input. The only true way to get max fusion on a bevel is to run open root and a gap, which isn’t commonly done on fillet weld, or needed. In the video I cover all those things in depth with better explanations. Hopefully that gives you some ideas for the time being 😀
Is your welding table grounded (to Earth)? I see you have a bolt and cable running down off that tab. I have read mixed reviews on grounding the table, what are your thoughts/reasons? Thanks for the videos! I’m learning a lot.
If you ground directly to the part (such as in the case of welding small “coupons”) you will damage the ground clamp over time with spatter and likely holes through it. It’s perfectly fine to ground to a welding table. Now it’s best if the table is thick, because if you use a thin one you can have heat warping issues. If what you’re welding or the table warps during welding you can have a poor ground. Generally what happens then is the piece will vibrate as it makes random ground connections. To help avoid this using a 3rd hand from the table top to what you’re welding (Google 3rd hand welding to see one) generally takes care of that.
perhaps the increased porosity on your second welds is due to the first weld pulling the vertical plate opening the root fitment a little. did you grind to clean metal the bottom edge of the vertical plate as well as the sides?
Great idea. I did clean the bottom with a grinder. However it’s still possible there was something I missed. Flux core tends to have random bits of porosity if everything isn’t dialed in. Had I cut back some of the voltage or increased the wire feed speed it would have likely fixed it. Honestly I think the machine really isn’t designed for 1/4 and it’s being pushed hard enough that it probably struggles a bit to keep stable voltage output, which could lead to the issues. Hard to say for sure really. My new welder (firepower 200 MiG machine) won’t have any issue with amperage so once I get back into flux core videos it will be interesting to see if it has the same issues with 1/4, I bet it won’t lol.
Honestly porosity with flux core is 99% a issue caused by gas/flux that’s escaping the weld pool takes too long to escape. If the molten pool cools too fast the end result will be porosity (or holes) in the material since the metal solidified around that gas. 1/4in material is a bit too much to weld with the titanium 125, it will do it but porosity will be a issue. My firepower fp-200 can weld 1/4 without issue or porosity, it simply has more power on tap to do it. So pretty much it’s the luck of the draw when it comes to porosity while using a 125amp flux core welder on 1/4in material that wasn’t preheated 😀
How much better would that weld be with .035 wire? I think that running several beads along the side of each other on thick metal will work better. Just a wild guess.
So .035 wire generally welds thicker steel far better. There is a limit to what .030 wire can handle before you wind up producing excessive spatter. .035 flux core also seems to have a higher flux to metal ratio which can help with poor material or when welding outside. .035 can single pass weld 1/4 steel no issue, thicker than that and multi pass is surely the way to go.
I personally run uphill with flux core as a stringer/straight in. With MiG you have to do a weave left/right or the molten metal drips. If you find doing a circle e allows you to run a flux core bead uphill better, I wouldn’t see that as a issue. Keep in mind the more metal you put down generally speaking the poorer the grain structure. As long as you’re not making a 5/8th in wide single pass weld you should be ok. I will do a video on this with cut and etch soon.
Spatter won’t really introduce porosity. With flux core wire you produce shielding gas via the flux inside the wire turning to gas. On thicker steel with .035 wire the plate cools so fast that the escaping gas can’t make it out before the metal solidifies. Unfortunately this is a limitation of the wire diameter and process. To fix this bigger wire at higher heat input needs to be used. On 1/4in and thicker steel you will likely find porosity inside of most cut and etches on .035 self shielded flux core welds. Sometimes it’s visible on the surface, most of the time it’s hidden. That’s why it’s really important to check welds with a cut&etch to see what’s going on.
That particular welder only runs on 110, so all results were on 110. Keep in mind it was on a 20amp circuit/outlet that had nothing else on it. Welding 1/4in will surely trip a 20amp breaker if you have other things powered off the same circuit. 😀
Absolutely preheat will work, in part two of the thick to thin welding I did just that. In a pinch with a undersized welder preheat will do wonders. It won’t solve a poor prep issue and it won’t do as much for gas shielded MiG as well as flux core, but it’s a good tool to use when the situation warrants it 😀
Excellent information. For a novice like myself, the Titanium is hard to beat for the price and its performance is respectable, for a lightweight welder.
I did a follow up video that will be live tomorrow. In this video I used the us forge wire to weld that 1/4in plate. In the follow up I used the Lincoln wire and had noticeably different results (still not perfect). I am going to see if I can’t dial it in to get repeatable solid results. One thing is for sure though, the wire has penetration. No way would a 125 amp mig machine get penetration on 1/4in steel with hardwire mig with gas. I am pretty surprised it was able to get the penetration it did to be honest lol. Not a bad deal for sub 200$.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg To me, this is why your channel stands out. Not everyone has the money to purchase a red or blue machine as many RUclipsrs would like you to believe, in order to be successful. I am not looking to build a bridge, just getting in to the hobby to learn a new skill and have some fun. I am sure others feel the same way.
preheat can help with thicker stuff with a 120V welder.
Your welding table is so cool. That is a thick piece of steel.
Best welding table I have had. It’s nice to not have to worry about damaging it, I can grind it clean/polish it as needed. Everyone should have a big slab of steel as a welding table 😀
I welded 1/4 to TWO inch with the mig 140 to mount the HF six ton winch. I’ve maxed out the winch many times pulling logs and rocks and the weld holds.
A welder here. You took your time to do anything right and it came out right. If people can`t swim these days, the swimsuit was the reason.... Fck this behavior.
Well done Sir !
Greetings from germany.
Glad to hear I just got a MiG 140 and need to weld drop pockets for my C10
I've done the circles since highschool, it's my favorite. The welds just look better 😅
I bought the titanium 125, it was a very busy sale day. They told me they would bring out my bigger items (a tool cart and the welder) on a cart to my truck. They ended up bringing me out a titanium mig 140. I didn't realize it until about 4 days later when i opened it.
Thank you for the Vid Greg. Wondering if pre-heating and a better quality FC wire might even be 'better'. I strictly use Blue Demon and don't look around anymore. It will obviously hold and looking through various comments, it apparently holds quite well for the DIYer projects who have commented. I personally have this machine in my inventory and though I don't cut and etch much, in over 3 years, I haven't had the welds from this on 1/4" fail - anywhere. Impressive machine overall, of course, not for Industrial work but clearly immensely capable for the garage/yard worker. Thanks for sharing!
So I have tested a ton of flux core wire since that video was shot, and on a bunch of different machines. Universally .035 flux core seems to produce internal weld porosity on 1/4in and above regardless of brand. There is no evidence of it on the surface, and on thinner steel it doesn’t seem to happen. The only logical reason for it is the molten pool is solidifying too fast and trapping gas bubbles. Stepping up to .045 wire would likely solve this, the higher heat input would produce a hotter weld pool. Considering how fast it freezes and the diameter of the wire (.035 being a hollow tube) there are limitations to what it will handle settings wise.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Appreciate your thoughtful insight as always!
per Lincoln specs no more than 5/16 as a plate thickness limitation because of that quick cooling with .030-.045 wire. Would be interesting to see if you could heat plate up to boost that.
So you recommend using flux core 0.35 wire to weld 1/4 mild steel instead of 0.30. i have a 140 mig welder and am learning how to weld, I need to weld a 1/4in steel MOVE bumper. I love your videos. I've been watching them all day. Definitely SUBSCRIBED.
For 1/4 in .035 is the way to go. It will be less likely to produce porosity and on 1/4 it’s the way to go. Make sure to do atleast one test weld on 1/4in steel and cut it to see what the internal weld looks like. 140a with .035 should be able to weld 1/4in bumper without issue. You must run hot enough to get fusion. The key is proper settings (what your machine says for 1/4in) and moving slow& steady with a drag angle. Make sure to keep atleast a 1/2inch stickout to the molten pool. If you get too close you will have porosity. Make sure to use T11 wire and not -GS to make sure your welds are strong. You should have no issue welding it with some practice 👍
Hi, I think that the usf wire is better wound and looks alot better that the valcon wire. The lincoln wire was good wire but I didn't like the way it is wound. plus the cost is a little more for what you get. Greg keep up the great videos!!
Thanks and I will do 😀.
if it slags you drag, that's the porosity cause, the stick and drag on the second go of the second t.
Been watching a lot of your videos, thank you for sharing your knowledge! I'm new to welding - just got a yesweldee ds-205 which I'll primarily be using for flux, then I'll be moving to argon with aluminum (which is primarily why I got this model). Anyway, would you recommend preheating 1/8 steel for flux when making small welds outside when the temperature is at or below freezing? For that matter, even just preheating in general, where possible. Thanks again.
So generally speaking you shouldn’t need to preheat it. Super cold steel will take a pinch more amperage but not a lot (especially 1/8in). Any preheat will increase penetration but that’s mostly beneficial on 1/4in and over. Any machine above 120 amps could probably melt through 1/8th steel without preheat so you’re not gaining much. Preheating will allow you to weld thicker material than you should be able to, especially aluminum. Thick aluminum (over 3/16th thick) will benefit significantly with a decent preheat. Even 1/2in thick aluminum can be welded with a 200 amp machine with a 400 degree preheat. Again keep in mind having the proper sized welder should be used on critical jobs for repeatable results.
Oh you could weld thru that milscale with a stick, np.
Never taken welding classes but would porosity be caused by the splatter bouncing back into the puddle because you’re down in a 90 degree corner vs a butt joint ?
So spatter doesn’t normally cause porosity. I actually did a ton of testing regarding what was found in this video (and off camera). What I determined was .030 and .035 wire can’t carry enough eat to keep the weld pool liquid long enough. Basically the as the molten metal solidifies gasses get trapped inside as porosity. It is possible to heat the base material hot and it will lower the porosity, but running much higher amperage with .045 or 1/16th wire is a far better solution. Your observation of the inside corner playing a roll is dead on, the fillet weld produces a thicker weld throat (distance from root to surface of the weld) which exasperates the problem due to more metal for the gas to flow through to escape. Porosity is far less on butt welds for this reason.
i sometimes wonder if water absorption by the flux inside the wire can be a problem if the wire is sitting around for a humid summer not being used. would be interesting to see if your fillet on the cold/first side is any different from the fillet on the second/hot side.
So the flux core wire can absorb moisture which can have a detrimental effect on the wire. Flux core wire is also very prone to rusting. It’s not copper coated like normal MiG wire so that’s why I keep desiccant in a machine to help lower moisture levels and I pull the spool when it won’t be used for a while 👍
@@makingmistakeswithgregp00
I think the weld pool is cooling so fast that the gas doesn’t have to time to work itself out. Stitch welding keeps the pool liquid a bit longer and the “C”, or “e” method keeps the pool liquid even longer.
In a couple videos I have done circle e movements and it does help to a certain extent with porosity. The trade off is poorer root fusion.
Are you using the original ground wire? Mine did horrible until I replaced the ground wire with 2 gauge copper wire.
I was in the video. I have no doubt an upgrade on the wire would help it. The ground clamp is also pretty suspect on making a decent ground too.
It all depends on what kind of wire you're using two will do that
I wonder if it woiuld have helped to grind a small bevel on the vertical plate on each side. That way the roots of the welds from each side could fuse together. What do you think?
So I have a video on bevels coming out shortly. In the meantime I will say this: Bevels can help, however there is a ton of issues with them. On a fillet weld where only one plate is beveled, the fusion into the full thickness plate will not improve. Depending on the bevel the weld will still not fuse the root. Basically you will have a hole at the point the beveled upright plate meets the flat plate on a fillet. The weld will just bridge the two and not fuse the edge of the bevel. You will see a bending strength improvement towards the face of the weld from a slight bevel. Keep in mind that you still need a welder with adequate power, beveling will not give much improvement to an undersized welders welds due to lack heat input.
The only true way to get max fusion on a bevel is to run open root and a gap, which isn’t commonly done on fillet weld, or needed. In the video I cover all those things in depth with better explanations. Hopefully that gives you some ideas for the time being 😀
Is your welding table grounded (to Earth)? I see you have a bolt and cable running down off that tab. I have read mixed reviews on grounding the table, what are your thoughts/reasons? Thanks for the videos! I’m learning a lot.
If you ground directly to the part (such as in the case of welding small “coupons”) you will damage the ground clamp over time with spatter and likely holes through it. It’s perfectly fine to ground to a welding table. Now it’s best if the table is thick, because if you use a thin one you can have heat warping issues. If what you’re welding or the table warps during welding you can have a poor ground. Generally what happens then is the piece will vibrate as it makes random ground connections. To help avoid this using a 3rd hand from the table top to what you’re welding (Google 3rd hand welding to see one) generally takes care of that.
perhaps the increased porosity on your second welds is due to the first weld pulling the vertical plate opening the root fitment a little. did you grind to clean metal the bottom edge of the vertical plate as well as the sides?
Great idea. I did clean the bottom with a grinder. However it’s still possible there was something I missed. Flux core tends to have random bits of porosity if everything isn’t dialed in. Had I cut back some of the voltage or increased the wire feed speed it would have likely fixed it. Honestly I think the machine really isn’t designed for 1/4 and it’s being pushed hard enough that it probably struggles a bit to keep stable voltage output, which could lead to the issues. Hard to say for sure really. My new welder (firepower 200 MiG machine) won’t have any issue with amperage so once I get back into flux core videos it will be interesting to see if it has the same issues with 1/4, I bet it won’t lol.
Any idea why the first piece had more porosity than the second? Can you guess?
Honestly porosity with flux core is 99% a issue caused by gas/flux that’s escaping the weld pool takes too long to escape. If the molten pool cools too fast the end result will be porosity (or holes) in the material since the metal solidified around that gas. 1/4in material is a bit too much to weld with the titanium 125, it will do it but porosity will be a issue. My firepower fp-200 can weld 1/4 without issue or porosity, it simply has more power on tap to do it. So pretty much it’s the luck of the draw when it comes to porosity while using a 125amp flux core welder on 1/4in material that wasn’t preheated 😀
How much better would that weld be with .035 wire? I think that running several beads along the side of each other on thick metal will work better. Just a wild guess.
So .035 wire generally welds thicker steel far better. There is a limit to what .030 wire can handle before you wind up producing excessive spatter. .035 flux core also seems to have a higher flux to metal ratio which can help with poor material or when welding outside. .035 can single pass weld 1/4 steel no issue, thicker than that and multi pass is surely the way to go.
Would you suggest using a circle E method running .30 wire on a uphill T joint weld of 1/4 in plate?
I personally run uphill with flux core as a stringer/straight in. With MiG you have to do a weave left/right or the molten metal drips. If you find doing a circle e allows you to run a flux core bead uphill better, I wouldn’t see that as a issue. Keep in mind the more metal you put down generally speaking the poorer the grain structure. As long as you’re not making a 5/8th in wide single pass weld you should be ok. I will do a video on this with cut and etch soon.
Lots of spatter. No Pam to keep spatter from sticking. Would welding over your spatter introduce the porosity?
Spatter won’t really introduce porosity. With flux core wire you produce shielding gas via the flux inside the wire turning to gas. On thicker steel with .035 wire the plate cools so fast that the escaping gas can’t make it out before the metal solidifies. Unfortunately this is a limitation of the wire diameter and process. To fix this bigger wire at higher heat input needs to be used. On 1/4in and thicker steel you will likely find porosity inside of most cut and etches on .035 self shielded flux core welds. Sometimes it’s visible on the surface, most of the time it’s hidden. That’s why it’s really important to check welds with a cut&etch to see what’s going on.
Thx. I've learned alot from you.
penetration looks better on your second welds.
what are you on 110 or 220?
That particular welder only runs on 110, so all results were on 110. Keep in mind it was on a 20amp circuit/outlet that had nothing else on it. Welding 1/4in will surely trip a 20amp breaker if you have other things powered off the same circuit. 😀
What about heating it before welding?
Absolutely preheat will work, in part two of the thick to thin welding I did just that. In a pinch with a undersized welder preheat will do wonders. It won’t solve a poor prep issue and it won’t do as much for gas shielded MiG as well as flux core, but it’s a good tool to use when the situation warrants it 😀
Was that a 110v or 240
That machine only welds on 120v 👍
🇺🇸👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍🙋♂️🙋♂️