Friends, I welcome you to our channel for all self-taught beginners in welding and locksmiths. The very first steps in electrode welding should be about understanding how to distinguish between metal and slag. Only then will it be possible to continue learning how to weld seams in different positions.
In general, there are quite a few recommendations for beginners on how to distinguish metal from slag on the Internet. Also on this channel there are old articles with different ways to see this difference. But just recently I got an interesting idea how to do it as simply and quickly as possible.
You need to take a piece of metal with a good thickness. Minimum millimeter 4. Grinding the surface to a metallic sheen is important. Otherwise, dirt and rust will mix with the slag and this mass will be more mobile and fluid than just slag from the electrode. It will be difficult to see the normal boundary between metal and slag.
Put the welding machine next to the place where this piece of iron is welded. Place it at such a distance that you can guide the electrode with one hand, and hold the other on the welding current adjustment knob.
By the way, this is my Torus 200 inverter. A Russian-made apparatus with honest 200 amperes is an excellent power reserve for welding in the garage, plot, summer cottage. I have been working for them for 4 months already, the feeling is like a device from the Soviet Union, a simple powerful one, without glamorous plastic parts, nothing more!
We connect welding cables with reverse polarity. This means we connect the holder to the plus of the device, the mass wire to the minus. Now I will show a visual theory of this method.
The grinder discs laid out in the track will be a mock-up of the weld. We light the electrode, guide it and begin to make small oscillatory movements.
Right under the tip of the electrode we will have a weld pool - a red lake of molten metal. But a little further, slag is formed. The slag flows in a wave on the surface of the weld pool. Well, it completely covers the already welded seam, and the visible wave will be the boundary of the slag and the metal.
We need to see, to catch our eye on this wave-border. Then there will be an understanding of where is the metal and where is the slag. See how you can learn to see the slag wave at the border with the weld pool metal for sure.
We light the electrode, we begin to lead it along the surface of our thick, clean piece of iron. And immediately we begin to smoothly change the values of the welding current. It doesn't matter to us what these values will be, we just twist more less during the welding itself. And here such things happen.
At low current, this wave will be close to the tip of the electrode. As soon as we add current, then this wave boundary begins to move further and further.
And so we try to catch the movement of this border wave with our eyes. Everything will be very clear and intuitive, even for those who have just picked up welding.
Add the current-wave moves further from the tip of the electrode, reduce the current-wave approaches the tip of the electrode. It's simple, just a few minutes are enough to understand all this. And so beginners will see and remember how this difference between slag and metal can be seen. Further, it will be easier and more fun to master electrode welding!