Well, I think it went quite well ;D
As discussed, if we are going to turn tis into a coherent "how to" or wiki entry I'm going to need help! I didn't get anywhere near as many photos as I was hoping to, but others did, so post what you got and we can figure out what goes where.
First a group shot. Some of you I know, some of you I'm meeting for the first time...
Nice assortment of welding machines to play with too.
First thing done was to have a quick test weld with my MIG just to get an idea of people's basic skill level. A door was rescued from the scrap pile for this.
cleaned and clamped, ready to weld.
Now, I promised not to name names whan showing this picture. All I'm going to say is mine is the bit above and to the left of the clamp
Seriously, considering some people never held a welder before, everyone did ok.
Next we went through the welders people had brought with them. A nice variety too,
Clarke TE150 (or similar? what were they guys?) Two of these, broadly similar both brand new (ish) Good stable wirefeed, nice range of power settings, both of them set up easily. Seems to be pretty much the same welder as the sealy branded 150 turbo I use.
SIP 130 (wonderboy) worked ok, bit jerky on the wirefeed and short on amps for its rating (needed MAX 2 setting where the clarkes were on MIN 2) but it's useable
Small blue gasless thing (no clue. sorry) was very odd to use at first. It has a permanantly live torch, the button only switches the wirefeed so its very awkward to place and I suspect would be a total nightmare to use inside a car. Still, I got an acceptable weld out of it. Gasless mig is a little like arc welding - you get lots of splatter and a coating of slag that you have to chip/grind/wirebrush off afterwards.
The left hand half of this weld was done with the little blue welder.
SIP 90 gasless. This made the huge messy blob
Quite why you would build a mig that doesn't have a wirefeed control is beyond me. It also had a stuck wire reel (paper jammed between spool and spindle) and the usual SIP wirefeed problem - the design!
But that's been discussed elsewhere plenty of times
Next, a quick chat about prep, and removing paint/grease/seam sealer etc from the area, demonstrating the grinder both with grinding disk and knotwheel on the scrap door again, followed by welding practice on the bits that we had just cleaned.
Everyone is getting better at it too!
Then we had lunch, Then we moved on to the capri, and some actual sticking metal to a car (less than I hoped, but trust me to pick a hard bit
So now I need help! I know I did loads of explaining stuff, but I can't get it into a coherent form! I might just be tired though So what did you learn today?
As discussed, if we are going to turn tis into a coherent "how to" or wiki entry I'm going to need help! I didn't get anywhere near as many photos as I was hoping to, but others did, so post what you got and we can figure out what goes where.
First a group shot. Some of you I know, some of you I'm meeting for the first time...
Nice assortment of welding machines to play with too.
First thing done was to have a quick test weld with my MIG just to get an idea of people's basic skill level. A door was rescued from the scrap pile for this.
cleaned and clamped, ready to weld.
Now, I promised not to name names whan showing this picture. All I'm going to say is mine is the bit above and to the left of the clamp
Seriously, considering some people never held a welder before, everyone did ok.
Next we went through the welders people had brought with them. A nice variety too,
Clarke TE150 (or similar? what were they guys?) Two of these, broadly similar both brand new (ish) Good stable wirefeed, nice range of power settings, both of them set up easily. Seems to be pretty much the same welder as the sealy branded 150 turbo I use.
SIP 130 (wonderboy) worked ok, bit jerky on the wirefeed and short on amps for its rating (needed MAX 2 setting where the clarkes were on MIN 2) but it's useable
Small blue gasless thing (no clue. sorry) was very odd to use at first. It has a permanantly live torch, the button only switches the wirefeed so its very awkward to place and I suspect would be a total nightmare to use inside a car. Still, I got an acceptable weld out of it. Gasless mig is a little like arc welding - you get lots of splatter and a coating of slag that you have to chip/grind/wirebrush off afterwards.
The left hand half of this weld was done with the little blue welder.
SIP 90 gasless. This made the huge messy blob
Quite why you would build a mig that doesn't have a wirefeed control is beyond me. It also had a stuck wire reel (paper jammed between spool and spindle) and the usual SIP wirefeed problem - the design!But that's been discussed elsewhere plenty of times
Next, a quick chat about prep, and removing paint/grease/seam sealer etc from the area, demonstrating the grinder both with grinding disk and knotwheel on the scrap door again, followed by welding practice on the bits that we had just cleaned.
Everyone is getting better at it too!
Then we had lunch, Then we moved on to the capri, and some actual sticking metal to a car (less than I hoped, but trust me to pick a hard bit
So now I need help! I know I did loads of explaining stuff, but I can't get it into a coherent form! I might just be tired though
So what did you learn today?
