Not a new built (yet) but running some weld beads for practice.

[realdocBBQ]

As many of ya'll know, I have over the last year been learning as I go, teaching myself via YouTube and other online sources, as well as some invaluable advice and support from folks like Ahumadora, SmokerBuilder, Jerod Broussard Henrik and others. These tips have been invaluable to me in building my first two smokers from scratch.

For those who may NOT have seen them, here are my 2 build threads:

My smallish (to me) backyard offset
80-gallon offset, insulated firebox, 30-gallon vertical holding/warming chamber.

The Big Baby
320-gallon offset on a boat trailer.

Anyways, I have some more projects to start and work on, several more smokers to build. I've got a lot of materials and tools I've accumulated, now I have to get creative and get to work. But, I have what I need personally for smokers at this point (yes, "for the moment", lol), so it is likely the next ones will eventually be sold - and if they look like shite and I can't get a decent price for them, I'll find someone to give them away to and call it a tax loss.

Anyways, if I'm thinking about someone else getting one of these, I'd like it to look a little more presentable than some of my previous "work" - a term I use lightly. So I spent yesterday afternoon just running some beads, practicing my welds. I use GMAW - gas metal arc welding - what is commonly called gas MIG. I just got some scrap pieces I had laying around and cleaned them up a bit with a flap disc and decided to play with the settings and various options on my buddy's Yeswelder MIG 250 Pro. I've been happy with this machine overall, it's an Amazon cheapie, was on sale for like $350 the other day, looks like $379 today. It'll do the job, as you can see above, you CAN build some things with it, without a doubt.

But I was just adjusting voltages and wire feed speed to run some lines, totally forgot to look at changing around inductance settings. So without further ado, here are some of my pics - don't be TOO harsh on me, I'm just a YouTube taught welder, and I'm still learning patience, practice and what works for me.


This one wasn't bad, you can see I wobble a little bit, not perfectly straight. Oh well, blame it on the Parkinson's (not really) or maybe it was the Negra Modello. The brown-looking flaky stuff is silica, I think, or 'glass' some call it - I hadn't brushed it off in this shot.



Not the cleanest 'toes' in the world - and some upcoming ones are a lot worse than this, even.



Oh yeah, and this is what happens to your sawhorses when you don't pay attention to what you're doing...



Some stop and restart practice here:




Then stacking one over the top of that one









And another on top of that one...



Now stacking more on the left:



And apparently this one on the right, I took a swig of beer mid-weld or something:

[PNWBrandon]

Inspiring! I’m hoping to get on starting to learn how to weld. Did you find any particular YouTube videos/creators to be helpful? Great work and thanks for sharing!

[realdocBBQ]

Oh absolutely! Bob Moffatt's videos with the Weld.com channel on YouTube, Jody from weldingtipsandtricks and Tim from Tim Welds. Those were some of the ones I watched the most. And I've watched hundreds and hundreds of these, many of them repetitively. Going back to see videos I KNOW I watched a year ago has made a difference too. Keep watching, keep practicing!

[PNWBrandon]

realdocBBQ thanks for sharing. I’ll have to check those out!

[realdocBBQ]

Second post - only 12 pics allowed.

Back to the left, stacking repetitively:


Angling upward on that last one - don't ask how many beers I'd had by then.


This one on the right I think looks pretty good, except for a hiccup or cough or something at the last ¼.


Looks like this one I turned the heat up a little bit (WFS) so it would wet in a little bit more, and it did, BUT... I need to go a little slower on my curving backward on making the "e" at the top so it fills in a little better and doesn't leave those pits on the upper toe.


You can see how it laid down more flat and looks more 'liquid' at the end of that one - this is due to more heat soaking of the material. By the end of these beads, with the higher settings, the weld and work metal piece would be glowing red for a while after. The heat soaking makes your bead melt in or 'wet in' more and it gets more liquid. Or that's how I understand it.


On the right again.



So here's an interesting difference in technique from left to right.

On the left weld, I was trying to space out my 'dimes' to make them more apparent. I was doing an "e" motion - I THINK I was doing it like normal cursive writing here - moving forward on the bottom toe relatively rapidly to the front of the puddle, then curving up and back to make the "e" motion, back down and more rapidly forward again to try to begin the next 'dime'. You can see the undercut on the bottom toe here in the first 1/3 or so of the bead. It got a LITTLE better as I went, but still apparent...



Now, conversely, moving to the right side of the plate, I definitely sped up my swirl or 'e' pattern here, and i THINK I was coming around the top and forward, and backwards along the bottom - I have found after lots of practice this is the method that seems to work best for me personally to get the best toes and hold the most consistent pattern. I think.


There is definitely still a little undercut on the bottom toe, but overall it is not too bad - maybe more hidden due to the shorter swirl spacing.

Turning up my settings a bit more - you can see this bead 'wet in' more and laid down flatter - due to the heat and liquidity of the weld pool as well as more heat soaking of the material, I'm sure. At this point I wasn't letting a lot of time elapse between running beads.


Again - a narrower 'stack' of dimes on the right here, and a decent bottom toe, but the top wouldn't pass in any welding class. Bob Moffatt is surely shaking his head at me somewhere... lol



So that's kind of where I ended it last night. It was getting dark out (5:30PM, hey) and I decided to come home, shower and take my wife out for drinks and appetizers and a pizza, then we came home, made more drinks - I make a killer eggnog with cognac and rum - and watched a couple episodes of Yellowjackets and had a nice "old couple" evening for a pair of empty nesters. Next weekend the kids will be home from college for the next three, so this is our last peace and quiet of the year. lol

Anyways, just documenting some of my progress and some of the differences in how things look with varying technique and changing settings. The YouTubers do a much better job than I of explaining and videoing things, but I thought as a typical schmuck on a cheap Chinese rig, self-taught, this might be helpful for some folks.

Cheers, all!

[barelfly]

Pretty cool to see! Looks like a Stack of dimes to me!

i’ve never been around welding, only have one friend that has welded in the past, so I truly know nothing about it. But it’s fun to watch you and a few others do these projects.

Thanks for sharing these practice runs and explaining a bit what you were doing!

[Henrik]

Very nice post, and you’re well on your way! That negra modelo sure is good, but doesn’t help with the welding 😄

I like the fact that you describe the “wet” and the puddle, that’s what it’s about. Being able to adjust the overall moving speed (in the general direction) on the fly to make sure the puddle is red enough and you get a wet enough seam, without slowing down too much. I always use two hands when I weld: one to hold the “gun”, and the other to steady my moves. Makes for MUCH more relaxed movement with better/smoother dimes. Try doing a consistent 8-10 inch straight weld over and over to get it as smooth and straight as you can. This is where my other hand really helps. Great job, you have the right approach and are picking up fast 👌👌!

[Jerod Broussard]

Don't be afraid to grind a little into the weld before restarting.

[texastweeter]

You're better than me bud. Mine are "functional" but look like a mud dauber did it!

[au4stree]

Very cool, thanks for bringing us along for the journey.