Welcome to the channel for self-taught beginners in welding. Here we give simple working tips for beginners in welding to shorten their path to normal results. After all, to comprehend welding by trial and error is a long and expensive process.
Consider an important method for domestic use in the garage, at home, in the country - welding of vertical seams on thin metal without separation. Such welding is performed from top to bottom.
The photo above shows examples of such welding. On the left, 2 plates with a thickness of 1.5 mm were welded, and on the right, 2 plates with a thickness of 3 mm. The advantage of such welding is that the speed of welding with an electrode is not inferior to the speed of welding with a semiautomatic device. But here you need to follow certain rules, and we'll talk about them further.
We cook in this way the connection of thin sheets and profile pipes. The thickness for the vertical from top to bottom can conditionally be limited to 3 mm. Such seams turn out to be thin, so this welding will not work on serious structures with thick metal. Thin metal on irresponsible structures is just the thing.
We take electrodes with rutile or rutile cellulose coating. These are the brands ANO-21, MP-3, OK-46 00 and others. But there are also electrodes with a rutile coating, with which these seams cannot be welded. Always read the text on the pack, for example here.
Rutile electrodes OZS-12 in the recommendations it is written that they will not be able to cook the vertical from top to bottom. So it's better to spend a minute reading than thinking why it doesn't work.
What are the electrode diameters? We take the thickness of the metal. Metal 1.5 or 2 mm, we take electrodes with a diameter of 2.5 mm. Metal 3 mm thick, we take electrodes 3 mm.
But metal with a thickness of 3 mm can also be welded with electrodes of 2.5 mm, but it is very difficult to weld a thickness of 1.5 mm with electrodes of 3 mm due to possible burns. So that the diameter in thickness and welding will be comfortable.
It is better to put the polarity straight - we connect the holder with the electrode to the minus of the inverter. It's better not to burn it.
Before welding such a seam, we must clean the edges to metal. The slag already tends to flow onto the weld pool, and if there is rust or dirt in the edges, the slag will mix with it and become more fluid and mobile. It will leak under the arc and ruin the weld. So always clean edges.
Gaps between welded edges. The smaller, the easier it is to cook. But you can focus on this - the maximum gap is not more than half the diameter of the electrode. If the gap is large, closer to the diameter of the electrode, then it is better not to try to cook from top to bottom. Next, what welding current to put?
There are recommended ranges for welding current depending on the diameter of the electrode. When welding vertical from top to bottom, it is easiest to put exactly the middle of this welding range. It can be a little more or less, but it will be clear in practice. And so the reference point is the middle of the range. Now how do we lead the electrode and what to look at.
I made a visual layout of plasticine at the tip of the electrode. The red oval is the weld pool. At the top of the weld pool, the dark hill is slag.
We put the electrode at 45 degrees to the surface to be welded and ignite the arc. At the first moment, you need to catch your eye on the tip of the electrode, the weld pool behind it and this hill of slag.
We visually remember this distance from the tip of the electrode to this hill of slag. We go down with small oscillatory movements to the right to the left and try to maintain the speed so that this hill is always at the same distance from the tip of the electrode.
This is the whole point - keeping the same distance, which means the speed of reference will be uniform and the slag will not catch up and will not flood the weld pool. Slight fluctuations and keep one distance from the electrode to the slag hill. What is the distance of the electrode tip from the metal?
Here you can not rely on the electrode coating on the metal, otherwise there will be a very short arc. The arc should be kept medium - then the arc will have good pressure on the weld pool and this pressure will keep the slag at a decent distance from the tip of the electrode. And now let's cook our plate blanks and see the result in an enlarged form.
Brewed, beat off the slag and see what happened.
The seams are thin, visually quite nice. Welding from top to bottom is a great way and a beginner should master it. The main thing right away is not on the design, but to allocate pieces of iron for training. Everything will pay off with speed and quality.
Friends who are interested in this topic, I will upload a video with the process itself to the channel on January 14 on Saturday.