Friends, who are on the channel for the first time, information is collected here for self-taught beginners in welding and locksmiths. When you just start mastering electrode welding, these most common problems immediately appear.
Frequent metal burn-throughs - when you weld thin, or lack of fusion of the edges, the metal from the electrode sticks to only one of the pieces of iron. Consider today the reasons why this happens - incomplete welding of both edges.
The most important reason for such a bad phenomenon is the inability of a beginner to distinguish between slag and metal during electrode welding. Other minor errors follow from this. Now let's try to identify them.
When you see the difference between metal and slag during welding, then you melt the edges of the metal with the welding arc correctly and evenly and add metal from the electrode to them.
It turns out the correct weld pool, which, like a lake, washes both banks at the same time - this is an analogy. And in welding, uniform wetting of both edges by molten liquid metal is obtained.
This weld pool, when we drive the electrode further along the edges, no longer receives heat from the welding arc. At this point, it quickly crystallizes and we get a normal weld. This seam has tightly and evenly joined our weldable pieces along the edges.
But when you do not see the difference between metal and slag, the following happens. You can lead the electrode too quickly. The weld pool simply does not have time to evenly wet both welding edges at the same time. Therefore, we will only get a seam problem on one edge.
Or you put too little welding current. Here, too, the normal formation of the weld pool does not work. There is not enough energy for this lake of molten metal to be such that it washes well both edges of the piece of iron being welded. We get the same picture.
Another reason for this error. This is a discrepancy between the diameter of the electrode and the thickness of the metal being welded. For a more or less experienced in welding, this is not critical, but for a beginner it is better not to neglect it. And roughly figure it out like this:
Metal 1.5-2 mm must be welded with an electrode with a diameter of 2 mm.
Metal 2-3 mm, take a diameter of 2.5 mm.
Metal 3-5 mm, electrode 3 mm.
This can also happen if the edges of the welded metal are too dirty, or a thick layer of rust. Here the metal simply will not melt normally and evenly from the welding arc. And you get a chaotic uneven adhesion of metal to one or the other edge.
There are even more minor reasons, but we have listed the main ones. So the main task at the first stages of acquaintance with welding is to focus on learning how to distinguish between slag and metal in the weld pool under the burning electrode. There are several articles on this topic on our channel. Just flip through our old articles and you will find different ways to learn it.