Good quality electrode welding takes a lot of practice. But besides practice, right advice from practicing welders is needed from the very beginning. These tips will give beginners a big time-saver to good results. The photo above shows a vertical seam made without tearing with an electrode. The seam scales are very dense, the seam is of high quality and beautiful. I will show you all the details and little things on how to cook such seams.
A vertical seam without tearing is welded with electrodes with a basic coating. The most optimal in terms of price and quality is the UONI 1355 brand. With a rutile coating, it is problematic to weld a vertical without tearing - they have a very fluid weld pool and the metal can simply flow downward under gravity.
Cheap Chinese inverters do not pull these electrodes all right. I have long wanted to change my inverter to an honest 200 amp. I scoured a bunch of information on the Internet and chose our Russian device TORUS 200. My old inverter, although 200 ampere according to the documents, but I knew that these amperes were not reported there very much! When I worked on the TORUS, I realized that they missed the old one even more than I thought.
It's like when I was a teenager I had a Minsk motorcycle. Then I changed it to Dnepr k-650. That's the same feeling in the power reserve. Whoever had motorcycles will understand.
A clear theory
Here we have a vertical joint track with chalk. The pipe will supposedly be an electrode. We light the electrode and begin to heat up the metal until a weld pool is formed.
Basic electrodes do not tolerate haste, the arc burns as if lazily. Don't move it quickly. For the first moments we hold the arc longer, 3-4 millimeters. So it is less likely that the electrode will stick until the weld pool is heated.
When the weld pool is normally formed, it will be perfectly visible. The shape of this bath on electrodes with basic coating will be like this oval. Now we start the correct welding.
The electrode is brought closer first to one edge, then to the other. The path of movement of the electrode tip from edge to edge is like a rocker. In the middle part, we move the electrode a little, and bring it closer to the edges. And here the most important thing is to keep the same welding speed. See how.
You need to catch your eye on the upper contour of the weld pool. It looks like a rocker. The weld pool goes up the joint and we need to try to follow this rocker with the upper part of the end of the electrode. Try to keep this end at the level of the rocker arm! In this case, the seam will be formed at the same speed.
Let's cook these 2 blanks. Made a chamfer for penetration. Of course, here you need to boil the root, clean it, and then apply the final facing seam. But let's not waste time, I want to immediately show the principle of correct vertical welding without separation. How to keep the same speed and what will come of it.
I picked up the welding current, I will cook at 90 amperes, the electrode is 3 mm. Beginners should not be guided by this value, since different inverters will show different values even if in fact the welding current is the same. Torus has an honest 200 amps, so the meaning is. On an old inverter, I would set a higher current on the twist.
Cook on reverse polarity. This means that the holder with the electrode is connected to the plus of the device. We hold the electrode at 45 degrees to the vertical workpiece. All movements are as described above.
Finished welding, waited a little while it cools down. I just hit it with a hammer next to the seam and almost all the slag crumbled. This means that the seam is of high quality and has small dense scales. Take a look at a few photos in multiple zoom.
The result of welding with the same electrode guidance speed will not be inferior to the seam from a semiautomatic device. The seam will be tight and strong, and the aesthetics will pleasantly surprise you.
3 components of a good vertical seam without tearing. Basic electrodes. Same electrode tracking speed. Normal welding inverter to easily pull basic coated electrodes.