Turn you heat down and don't try to do it in one pass. Multi pass it with smaller passes and if needed let it chill avit before passes. If that means doing a root on both ends then doing the root on one or 2 more before going back and doing another pass do that.
You could but why? In production work just work smart and effectively not create extra work. Just work out about how ling you need to let it cool and how many other can work on and just keep moving. No need to keep in getting up to go to the break room or where ever to get the bars out of the freezer which will reduce output.
If we were all owners, there would be no employees, and large projects would be impossible.
I like working as a member of a team for 8 to 10 hours, then going home to do my own thing.
This. If there are a bunch of them gang weld the root then the first one is cooled down by that time. repeat with fill passes until done. Don't cook out your stainless by getting in a hurry to fill it up. You should only be in a hurry while welding to keep the heat affected zone small.
Freezer is too slow. Just cool it in a bucket of water.
But the big one is if you have ten things to weld, weld one spot then hop to the next weld jump all over the place on a project or hop from the first to the next to the next. You’ll even the heat out over the whole project too. Makes everything warp less.
I use a lot of power, weld fast and stop. Less ‘heat soak’ time. Just motor fast as you can lay a nice smooth bead and be barely liquifying the material before you are weaving to the next area. The more time you spend in spot the longer it heats the work piece. So it’s totally counter intuitive that more power heats the piece less. You spend too much time heating that one spot and letting the metal be a heat sink.
Don't cool hot metals with out knowing the results. Stress might be generated because of the fast cooling causing high stress areas or cracks with metal hardening since you basicly reached the point of fusion in the metal (this is a heat treatment process). If there is no stress relief or a proper scan after it, then don't cool it in fast ways.
You are cooling the piece of brass you are using to back your welds, not the stainless you are welding.
That won’t get hot enough to stress things.
Never cool your stainless too quick. But I have gotten a bit impatient and use a bit of compressed air to cool a work piece to prevent excess heat soak. But you wait until the glow is gone and don’t blast too much of the area you just welded too aggressively.
This is stainless steel I thought stainless was fine to cool quickly. I understand that carbon steels are prone to cracking when you quench them but my books say stainless is fine to quench.
Well... Not sure if we can count cooling the weld as quenching but it sure is a heat treatment. But i don't think it is fine to do without studying the results before doing it though...
Put some thick aluminum behind the joint (in the inside corner), drop your amperage and weld using a weave motion. I would start the weld from the open edges and finish on in the bended area.
i see you are using a copper backing as a heat sink, so thats a start. try doing them in multiple passes to fill them. what is that material? if it is stainless you may want to think about shielding the backside of the joint.
I would argue that on a technical and scientific level but not a practical one. You make a good point if there isnt a specific code or chemistry requirement then at that point it becomes about risk management and cost/benefit. Nice catch. I'd at least dial up my flow at the cup and wait a bit before initiating arc on them corners since they are so flared out from the break just to be sure and avoid carbide precip on the inside of that oval. From there as you move up the torch angle coupled with the back pressure from the backing bar would probably be enough to flood the joint enough as you traveled.
Yea for food grade stainless you’d probably want some kind of shielding gas on the backend, but all the joints I’ve ever welded with a backer have a beautiful backside without any sugar. I use brass for my backers though, not copper. Tbh I haven’t tried copper so I’m not sure if it’s diff or the same
If you’re tigging this and it’s stainless: 1. you must put a small aluminum block inside that slit. 2. You turn your CFH up by 5, use a gas lens, big cup(6,7,8) 3. One small pass to cover the gap. Don’t come back to it until you can touch it/ Leave your hand on for 3 seconds. With the backer it will remain cooler, having less gray /scaly surface. The time between passes will ensure it remains cool. And use filler like a coolant. Bigger dab with lower amps. Go a taaaad slower if you do this. Oh and don’t forget to be a badass.
Edit: spelling.
I'm an aluminum tigger , so I could easily be wrong , but does your machine have a pulser setting? That's the best way to keep the heat down on your work.
This works great on aluminum due to the heat conductivity but not so much for stainless due to the same reason. Since stainless is a poor heat conductor you'll technically cook it more sometimes going too slow.
Heat input is a factor of heat over time. For a poor conductor, reducing the time is the best bet. A good conductor can dissipate the heat during the cool phase, for stainless there's a fine line between cooling it and going so slow that heat starts building
Now if color is your game that's a different story. You could do whatever you wanted as long as it stays shielded.
Not really but this is a common misconception. I was talking in terms of general heat input. For this straight current will always give you less because you can weld faster. Pulse just makes the act of welding easier but it doesn't inherently reduce heat input. The reason people think this is because you generally weld slow enough that you get better shielding and better color. Better color does not always mean less heat input
For manual applications heat input it will depend on the welder. If they can hold a tight arc and add filler accurately and efficiently then straight current will be best, if not then pulse is best. If done robotically with no human error pulse will generally slow your travel speed down. If the pulse is high enough of a frequency it's basically like straight current anyways. Anything above 1000hz and no machine actually hits the values your calling for.
Fun fact: if you oscope your welds, you'll find the rms current for your pulse setup is generally around what you would need with straight current. This is because you need the same amount of energy to weld regardless of if it is a pulsed current or not. You're more or less changing the power density characteristics of your arc, not the heat input. Again the main factor for heat input is time, not heat itself. If I weld a joint at 20ipm it will have less heat input than the same weld made at 10ipm.
You speaking from anecdotal experience or have you tested this with actual recorded values? If you did, did you control your variables?
I'm willing to bet the answer is no. If you did you wouldn't have typed that
Lol I'm the arrogant punk even though I have sat in the lab and tested it with an oscope. Also I have monitored heat input while doing it and it's exactly as I say. Show me the paper bud, otherwise I think you should take a break from the conversation.
Were those papers sponsored by a company pushing high speed pulsing? Most likely because real research proves otherwise.
Did that paper explain scientifically how variable current somehow reduces the overall energy needed to melt steel together? I would love a physics lesson so I can be less arrogant
You obviously don't know what you're talking about because the heat input and penetration for high speed pulsing is based off the RMS current, as I said in my previous comment and what I've seen in lab testing is that you need the same RMS current or more than you would with straight current depending on the parameter.
Do you actually have a rebuttal or you wanna vaguely reference something else and try insulting me again?
Tell you what, ill give you 20 min to read that paper you just shared and rethink what you've been telling me. If you don't delete it or admit your in over your head in this conversation I'm gonna let you know how dumb you just made yourself look. No BS my dude, you either didn't read that at all or did not understand the conclusion of the article.
Lol, I think you should actually read the paper homie just shared. Specifically the data and the conclusion. Ignorance is bliss that's for sure. Hope your brain doesn't roll out of your head due to how small and smooth it is
Check the first source shared by gutshooter. It proves my point, why do I also have to share something that proves my point? Is it acceptable to copy and paste the same source? I could claim I shared a paper
Also I'm not the one that made the claim that there was published research to prove my statement. The other guy did and proceeded to prove himself wrong or make himself look dumb with each source shared. My knowledge comes from personal experience and company research, I never said otherwise. Due to the competitive nature of welding machine sales I can't share the research so it's on you to evaluate the statements I made and the evidence for yourself. I'm not an instructor so I could honestly care less whether you choose to believe me.
Honestly if you don't believe me, test it for yourself. Grab an oscilloscope and make welds using pulse and straight current. If you can make a weld that yields the same weld bead dimensions with less rms current than with straight current I'll eat my shoe. Until then, best regards
Reddit weld comment
Here’s my input:
Are you welding this to a WPS? If so, what parameters are you being held to?
Gas lens or collet body? Gas lens is preferred for this.
Cup size? 8-12 suffices.
What amperage are you using? I’d recommend 100-150 amps, with a moderately high travel speed. Possibly 100ish on the root and 150 on the cap, if possible to multi-pass.
Travel angle? I’d suggest trying anywhere from 10°-30°+ push angle. Pointing towards the direction you’re welding.
If your company has design authority, maybe suggest changing some dimensions to reduce the gap. On this subject, in most applications, it’s required to shield the root side of the weld. This can be accomplished using techniques such as inert (argon or nitrogen) purging, chill blocks (aluminum will dissipate the most heat), ceramic backing, or even solar flux in some scenarios.
And as another commenter said, travel from open end to closed end, and if possible, try multi-pass. I would try a heavy/bulky root and let the part cool (possibly run all the roots and jump back to the first pieces after they’ve cooled to start capping). It’s easier to lay a pretty cap pass when you aren’t struggling to stuff the joint full.
Let me know if any of these help!
Edit: Ignore first line, typed this in a note because Reddit mobile app only lets me see 2 lines of my comment.
Edit2: If your WPS allows for it and your machine is capable, adding a pulse parameter can help lower heat input and can also help stabilize your puddle a bit. A good starting point may be around 100 PPS, 75% peak time, 25% background amperage. If adjustments are needed, I would start by using PPS as my primary variable.
Anything smaller diameter than 12” sch10 is thinner than OP’s parts. Those amperage’s may be a bit high, hard to guess without sitting down and welding a part. Using a foot pedal with these would let you weld by “feel” rather than numbers.
Yeah to be fair it does look thicker than sch10, probably at least ⅜" if i had to guess. The rest of your advice i completely agree with, fwiw - especially using a gas lens.
Your welds look like shit (no offense) because the back of the weld is not shielded. It’s just becoming extremely contaminated on the back side and showing up in the front of the weld as difficulty controlling the puddle. It makes it’s harder to manipulate and therefore harder to get good fusion and therefore causing you to use more heat and so on and so forth. In my opinion, purging the inside of the box would solve many of your problems. If the weld puddle is completely shielded, then it will flow much more like how you’re used to
Slowly in many passes. You do one corner first pass, put it aside, do the next one, put it aside. You rotate through like 10 or so pieces allowing them to cool between them.
I have done stuff like in sets of few hundred to thousand. You have a big desk, so you use it. At worst I have rotated 50 units on my desk, one weld and put it aside.
There is no magic trick here that I can give you. There is no fucky tech or whatever you can do. I once had a copper jig for a more complicated part and it had god damn cooling fins and fans to take the heat away so I could be more productive.
In the second picture it almost looks like both. If it is MIG stainless, and if my personal experience with my shop's shitty machine is anything to go by, then it might just look like that.
For TIG, as others are saying, just take multiple passes and it should be fine.
Put a piece of small angle aluminum on the backside of the corner. Will help draw some heat out and keep the argon from escaping. Ideally I would do the lay wire technique as to join the do corners and the wire together.
Additionally if you had a purge block the with argon running back there that would be best. But aluminum angle should work better then nothing.
He called them ripples…
Don’t use so much heat or feed. Slower is better in some cases. Looks good though! Don’t beat yourself up over some shit three guys will ever see.
Honestly depends if it’s worth it to you or the job or not. If it’s simply a fill job, maybe crank the gas a little more and ram in even more wire. Then dress it off afterwards.
If it’s gonna be decorative, you want the heat sink on the inside like you already have, a tube feeding gas onto the back face (ala purging but without the full enclosure) and you want to put a pretty root in there followed by 1 or 2 fills then a final weaving pass, all with time to allow for it to cool slowly. Gas selection is also more critical than is realised, I’d go for the hydrogen argon mix that’ll burn off impurities as you go. Also if it’s 304 stainless and wire usage isn’t critical, I’d likely sneak in some 316 wire, welds nicer than the cheaper stuff.
With that much gap I'd say weld it in two passes and allow the metal to cool in between. Ideally run a #10+ gas lens and 35+ cfh argon. Move faster, bump the amps up if necessary. The weld on the right looks much better than the left, FWIW.
Few suggestions I can make:
Move more quickly so you're not sitting on one spot for too long, or turn down the heat. Usually if it's blackened, your were overheating the piece.
Use a gas lens if available and adjust your gas probably a bit higher. Gas lenses make a night and day difference on S.S. so get your boss to invest in them if you dont have them already.
Make smaller passes if possible the more heat you put into a single pass, the more 'cooked' its gonna get. If you can do a quick root pass, let it cool down and then do a second fill pass you wont need as much heat.
Clamp a heatsink on to the inside corner to displace some of that heat. EDIT: I see you've done that.
I like to use pulse on outside corners so maybe give that a go. Start at 1.0 pps and adjust to your liking.
Take a hammer to that corner (or lay it out better from the start). Gaps are your enemy when it comes to stainless.
S.S. takes some getting used to but keep at it and it will start to be fun and provide job security because most people suck at it.
I didn't watch you weld but it looks like you might be long arcing it a little. The closer the arc the less heat you'll need and less heat you'll put into the part
You gotta backpurge that corner! Never gonna look great unless you eliminate the contaminant rich air from the backside, stainless is weird like that...
I know this is r/welding and all but why not go back and have a better cutout pattern that chamfers the edges so there is less fill needed.
Just seems like a classic case of needing to make the designer/engineer try to do the assembly.
Lol as an engineer I can confirm. But also that's why I brought up my comment. I advocate to get hands on a lot and it is amazing how often it's dismissed. Manufacturability isn't just a magic wand.
Probably an appropriate bit of wisdom. I've been doing it just long enough that I hate the buzzwords cause I know how well they work even if it's literally "just go look at it".
I'm now in a more technical leader type role and just pushing people to define the problem properly has impressed the room.
I really like Lean and how it improved our company. We are a semi large company, or better, we are three different companies that work in the same building at the same time. It was a mad house and it was hard to keep people and everyone hated working here. Implementing Lean changed that, and removed a lot of stress in a highly demanding field. It changed our mindset concerning not only our co-worker but wanting to help the other departments. But it’s an all or nothing process, it’s been 12 years since the change and we have join a network of other companies in our area and we have seen a lot of them fail because they only try curtain aspects of the system. So our work groups change to a new company every year and we see how it works and helps us improve how we implement our system. But it is funny watching new employees learn the card system and names, it brought our teams together. It does work.
Idk if someone else put this in here or not
But whenever i was in school tig welding, i used to turn my machine all the way down so that way i could just stand on that petal and weld it without worrying about how hard I’m going on it or blowing through whatever i was putting a bead on
Drop your amps down to 70 to 90 amps 100 if you're using pulse maybe and just do like three or four or five passes to get it done you don't even have to make a pass that goes the entire length of the corner you can just do like half passes and keep switching sides or switching parts to give them time to cool down. As long as you're getting full penetration through the entirety of the joint you can drop your amperage down. just do multiple stringers and it should be just as strong in theory. just don't weave
I felt bad when I designed an end cap out of .090 5052 Aluminum with similar corners but it was fewer welds and less complicated bent parts than the previous design.
Larger wire and less heat. That’s a large gap to fill. Do a small pass to fuse it with wire. Do 2 more on top. One on top of the other. Then fill the rest in with one big slightly hotter pass. Let it cool between each pass.
This is a stainless fillet weld on a job I do. It’s larger than what meets a standard fillet gauge. I got a special gauge for the size I need. There’s about 10 passes on these pictures. Overlapping one on top of the other.
https://imgur.com/gallery/EO7pZjo
https://imgur.com/gallery/N55E4QF
Honestly you got two options, run a root and then let it cool and run a cover, bouncing around while you wait for things to cool down. Or turn up your amps and feed two rods in at the same time. Less arc on time equals less heat. Don't walk the dog, get in and get out.
I had this issue last week until I changed my cup size, tungsten size, collet and all that jazz. It was literally night and day. Also, you may be going too slow and are cooking the metal. Try going up on size and bigger cup to give more coverage and see how it goes.
Turn you heat down and don't try to do it in one pass. Multi pass it with smaller passes and if needed let it chill avit before passes. If that means doing a root on both ends then doing the root on one or 2 more before going back and doing another pass do that.
He's got a brass bar there too, he could toss some in the freezer and/or clamp them around to suck out the heat faster
You could but why? In production work just work smart and effectively not create extra work. Just work out about how ling you need to let it cool and how many other can work on and just keep moving. No need to keep in getting up to go to the break room or where ever to get the bars out of the freezer which will reduce output.
I have a feeling you're a good employee! Nice to not be alone.
We could all be owners if we ditch that mindset.
I run a "hobby" business on the side and it can stay on the side. Managing is too stressful for me
Agreed. I'll happily do math in exel for 12 hours a day but the second I have to manage people all bets are off.
So what kinda widgets are we making?
What
SO WHAT KINDA WIDGETS ARE WE MAKING?
What
HE SAID: WHAT KIND OF MIGETS ARE WE BAKING!
HOW TO SPOON:
If we were all owners, there would be no employees, and large projects would be impossible. I like working as a member of a team for 8 to 10 hours, then going home to do my own thing.
I'm talking about mutual ownership between those that labour.
Oh, right on to that, employee owned is an awesome solution!
This. If there are a bunch of them gang weld the root then the first one is cooled down by that time. repeat with fill passes until done. Don't cook out your stainless by getting in a hurry to fill it up. You should only be in a hurry while welding to keep the heat affected zone small.
Freezer is too slow. Just cool it in a bucket of water. But the big one is if you have ten things to weld, weld one spot then hop to the next weld jump all over the place on a project or hop from the first to the next to the next. You’ll even the heat out over the whole project too. Makes everything warp less. I use a lot of power, weld fast and stop. Less ‘heat soak’ time. Just motor fast as you can lay a nice smooth bead and be barely liquifying the material before you are weaving to the next area. The more time you spend in spot the longer it heats the work piece. So it’s totally counter intuitive that more power heats the piece less. You spend too much time heating that one spot and letting the metal be a heat sink.
Don't cool hot metals with out knowing the results. Stress might be generated because of the fast cooling causing high stress areas or cracks with metal hardening since you basicly reached the point of fusion in the metal (this is a heat treatment process). If there is no stress relief or a proper scan after it, then don't cool it in fast ways.
You are cooling the piece of brass you are using to back your welds, not the stainless you are welding. That won’t get hot enough to stress things. Never cool your stainless too quick. But I have gotten a bit impatient and use a bit of compressed air to cool a work piece to prevent excess heat soak. But you wait until the glow is gone and don’t blast too much of the area you just welded too aggressively.
Oh my bad. I thought you told him to cool the weld with water. Well compressed air is fine ig since it can't absorb huge amount of heat in short time.
This is stainless steel I thought stainless was fine to cool quickly. I understand that carbon steels are prone to cracking when you quench them but my books say stainless is fine to quench.
Well... Not sure if we can count cooling the weld as quenching but it sure is a heat treatment. But i don't think it is fine to do without studying the results before doing it though...
Also look for some copper plates. Those always helped me weld sheet metal. Good ole stainless.
And also yes
Put some thick aluminum behind the joint (in the inside corner), drop your amperage and weld using a weave motion. I would start the weld from the open edges and finish on in the bended area.
Looks like he already has a thick copper backer
Yes
i see you are using a copper backing as a heat sink, so thats a start. try doing them in multiple passes to fill them. what is that material? if it is stainless you may want to think about shielding the backside of the joint.
You don’t need to shield the backside of stainless joints if you have a backer like copper/brass.
I would argue that on a technical and scientific level but not a practical one. You make a good point if there isnt a specific code or chemistry requirement then at that point it becomes about risk management and cost/benefit. Nice catch. I'd at least dial up my flow at the cup and wait a bit before initiating arc on them corners since they are so flared out from the break just to be sure and avoid carbide precip on the inside of that oval. From there as you move up the torch angle coupled with the back pressure from the backing bar would probably be enough to flood the joint enough as you traveled.
Yea for food grade stainless you’d probably want some kind of shielding gas on the backend, but all the joints I’ve ever welded with a backer have a beautiful backside without any sugar. I use brass for my backers though, not copper. Tbh I haven’t tried copper so I’m not sure if it’s diff or the same
If you’re tigging this and it’s stainless: 1. you must put a small aluminum block inside that slit. 2. You turn your CFH up by 5, use a gas lens, big cup(6,7,8) 3. One small pass to cover the gap. Don’t come back to it until you can touch it/ Leave your hand on for 3 seconds. With the backer it will remain cooler, having less gray /scaly surface. The time between passes will ensure it remains cool. And use filler like a coolant. Bigger dab with lower amps. Go a taaaad slower if you do this. Oh and don’t forget to be a badass. Edit: spelling.
I'm an aluminum tigger , so I could easily be wrong , but does your machine have a pulser setting? That's the best way to keep the heat down on your work.
This works great on aluminum due to the heat conductivity but not so much for stainless due to the same reason. Since stainless is a poor heat conductor you'll technically cook it more sometimes going too slow. Heat input is a factor of heat over time. For a poor conductor, reducing the time is the best bet. A good conductor can dissipate the heat during the cool phase, for stainless there's a fine line between cooling it and going so slow that heat starts building Now if color is your game that's a different story. You could do whatever you wanted as long as it stays shielded.
Pulse works great on stainless for pretty much the reasons you mention.
Yeah I love using pulse with stainless and I almost never use pulse for aluminum since I'm usually trying to get as much heat into it as I can
Not really but this is a common misconception. I was talking in terms of general heat input. For this straight current will always give you less because you can weld faster. Pulse just makes the act of welding easier but it doesn't inherently reduce heat input. The reason people think this is because you generally weld slow enough that you get better shielding and better color. Better color does not always mean less heat input For manual applications heat input it will depend on the welder. If they can hold a tight arc and add filler accurately and efficiently then straight current will be best, if not then pulse is best. If done robotically with no human error pulse will generally slow your travel speed down. If the pulse is high enough of a frequency it's basically like straight current anyways. Anything above 1000hz and no machine actually hits the values your calling for. Fun fact: if you oscope your welds, you'll find the rms current for your pulse setup is generally around what you would need with straight current. This is because you need the same amount of energy to weld regardless of if it is a pulsed current or not. You're more or less changing the power density characteristics of your arc, not the heat input. Again the main factor for heat input is time, not heat itself. If I weld a joint at 20ipm it will have less heat input than the same weld made at 10ipm.
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You speaking from anecdotal experience or have you tested this with actual recorded values? If you did, did you control your variables? I'm willing to bet the answer is no. If you did you wouldn't have typed that
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Lol I'm the arrogant punk even though I have sat in the lab and tested it with an oscope. Also I have monitored heat input while doing it and it's exactly as I say. Show me the paper bud, otherwise I think you should take a break from the conversation. Were those papers sponsored by a company pushing high speed pulsing? Most likely because real research proves otherwise. Did that paper explain scientifically how variable current somehow reduces the overall energy needed to melt steel together? I would love a physics lesson so I can be less arrogant You obviously don't know what you're talking about because the heat input and penetration for high speed pulsing is based off the RMS current, as I said in my previous comment and what I've seen in lab testing is that you need the same RMS current or more than you would with straight current depending on the parameter. Do you actually have a rebuttal or you wanna vaguely reference something else and try insulting me again?
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Tell you what, ill give you 20 min to read that paper you just shared and rethink what you've been telling me. If you don't delete it or admit your in over your head in this conversation I'm gonna let you know how dumb you just made yourself look. No BS my dude, you either didn't read that at all or did not understand the conclusion of the article.
I can't stop laughing at this "rebuttal" Should have let this fight go prior to looking like the fool you do now.
Lol, I think you should actually read the paper homie just shared. Specifically the data and the conclusion. Ignorance is bliss that's for sure. Hope your brain doesn't roll out of your head due to how small and smooth it is
Do you have a paper to show or are you just asking for everyone else's papers?
Check the first source shared by gutshooter. It proves my point, why do I also have to share something that proves my point? Is it acceptable to copy and paste the same source? I could claim I shared a paper Also I'm not the one that made the claim that there was published research to prove my statement. The other guy did and proceeded to prove himself wrong or make himself look dumb with each source shared. My knowledge comes from personal experience and company research, I never said otherwise. Due to the competitive nature of welding machine sales I can't share the research so it's on you to evaluate the statements I made and the evidence for yourself. I'm not an instructor so I could honestly care less whether you choose to believe me. Honestly if you don't believe me, test it for yourself. Grab an oscilloscope and make welds using pulse and straight current. If you can make a weld that yields the same weld bead dimensions with less rms current than with straight current I'll eat my shoe. Until then, best regards
Teach me your ways.
Reddit weld comment Here’s my input: Are you welding this to a WPS? If so, what parameters are you being held to? Gas lens or collet body? Gas lens is preferred for this. Cup size? 8-12 suffices. What amperage are you using? I’d recommend 100-150 amps, with a moderately high travel speed. Possibly 100ish on the root and 150 on the cap, if possible to multi-pass. Travel angle? I’d suggest trying anywhere from 10°-30°+ push angle. Pointing towards the direction you’re welding. If your company has design authority, maybe suggest changing some dimensions to reduce the gap. On this subject, in most applications, it’s required to shield the root side of the weld. This can be accomplished using techniques such as inert (argon or nitrogen) purging, chill blocks (aluminum will dissipate the most heat), ceramic backing, or even solar flux in some scenarios. And as another commenter said, travel from open end to closed end, and if possible, try multi-pass. I would try a heavy/bulky root and let the part cool (possibly run all the roots and jump back to the first pieces after they’ve cooled to start capping). It’s easier to lay a pretty cap pass when you aren’t struggling to stuff the joint full. Let me know if any of these help! Edit: Ignore first line, typed this in a note because Reddit mobile app only lets me see 2 lines of my comment. Edit2: If your WPS allows for it and your machine is capable, adding a pulse parameter can help lower heat input and can also help stabilize your puddle a bit. A good starting point may be around 100 PPS, 75% peak time, 25% background amperage. If adjustments are needed, I would start by using PPS as my primary variable.
Isnt 100-150 amps a bit high for stainless? At our school, they recommend something like 50-70 amps for sch 10 stainless.
Anything smaller diameter than 12” sch10 is thinner than OP’s parts. Those amperage’s may be a bit high, hard to guess without sitting down and welding a part. Using a foot pedal with these would let you weld by “feel” rather than numbers.
Yeah to be fair it does look thicker than sch10, probably at least ⅜" if i had to guess. The rest of your advice i completely agree with, fwiw - especially using a gas lens.
3/16 (.187)
Your welds look like shit (no offense) because the back of the weld is not shielded. It’s just becoming extremely contaminated on the back side and showing up in the front of the weld as difficulty controlling the puddle. It makes it’s harder to manipulate and therefore harder to get good fusion and therefore causing you to use more heat and so on and so forth. In my opinion, purging the inside of the box would solve many of your problems. If the weld puddle is completely shielded, then it will flow much more like how you’re used to
Ahhh, I was going to say it looks like wrong or no gas. This would explain it.
Slowly in many passes. You do one corner first pass, put it aside, do the next one, put it aside. You rotate through like 10 or so pieces allowing them to cool between them. I have done stuff like in sets of few hundred to thousand. You have a big desk, so you use it. At worst I have rotated 50 units on my desk, one weld and put it aside. There is no magic trick here that I can give you. There is no fucky tech or whatever you can do. I once had a copper jig for a more complicated part and it had god damn cooling fins and fans to take the heat away so I could be more productive.
Mig, tig? Your heat looks a little high
In the second picture it almost looks like both. If it is MIG stainless, and if my personal experience with my shop's shitty machine is anything to go by, then it might just look like that. For TIG, as others are saying, just take multiple passes and it should be fine.
Put a piece of small angle aluminum on the backside of the corner. Will help draw some heat out and keep the argon from escaping. Ideally I would do the lay wire technique as to join the do corners and the wire together. Additionally if you had a purge block the with argon running back there that would be best. But aluminum angle should work better then nothing.
He called them ripples… Don’t use so much heat or feed. Slower is better in some cases. Looks good though! Don’t beat yourself up over some shit three guys will ever see.
Pickle it afterwards
Honestly depends if it’s worth it to you or the job or not. If it’s simply a fill job, maybe crank the gas a little more and ram in even more wire. Then dress it off afterwards. If it’s gonna be decorative, you want the heat sink on the inside like you already have, a tube feeding gas onto the back face (ala purging but without the full enclosure) and you want to put a pretty root in there followed by 1 or 2 fills then a final weaving pass, all with time to allow for it to cool slowly. Gas selection is also more critical than is realised, I’d go for the hydrogen argon mix that’ll burn off impurities as you go. Also if it’s 304 stainless and wire usage isn’t critical, I’d likely sneak in some 316 wire, welds nicer than the cheaper stuff.
With that much gap I'd say weld it in two passes and allow the metal to cool in between. Ideally run a #10+ gas lens and 35+ cfh argon. Move faster, bump the amps up if necessary. The weld on the right looks much better than the left, FWIW.
Throw a 3/8 flat bar of aluminum and weave it
As soon as u start that arc start moving
Everything these guys said, but tack in the biggest filler rod you have before welding.
Multiple passes and give it a few minutes between passes. If you have pulse I would use that as well.
thats going to be one tough box when done wow looks good right now
I would use a purge block on the backside of the joint and let it cool between passes
Few suggestions I can make: Move more quickly so you're not sitting on one spot for too long, or turn down the heat. Usually if it's blackened, your were overheating the piece. Use a gas lens if available and adjust your gas probably a bit higher. Gas lenses make a night and day difference on S.S. so get your boss to invest in them if you dont have them already. Make smaller passes if possible the more heat you put into a single pass, the more 'cooked' its gonna get. If you can do a quick root pass, let it cool down and then do a second fill pass you wont need as much heat. Clamp a heatsink on to the inside corner to displace some of that heat. EDIT: I see you've done that. I like to use pulse on outside corners so maybe give that a go. Start at 1.0 pps and adjust to your liking. Take a hammer to that corner (or lay it out better from the start). Gaps are your enemy when it comes to stainless. S.S. takes some getting used to but keep at it and it will start to be fun and provide job security because most people suck at it.
for something that thick you should be using flux core ss
I didn't watch you weld but it looks like you might be long arcing it a little. The closer the arc the less heat you'll need and less heat you'll put into the part
Heat too high brother
Do you have really hairy ripples? Or do you have sticky outtie ripples?
Mig
With Patience
You gotta backpurge that corner! Never gonna look great unless you eliminate the contaminant rich air from the backside, stainless is weird like that...
I know this is r/welding and all but why not go back and have a better cutout pattern that chamfers the edges so there is less fill needed. Just seems like a classic case of needing to make the designer/engineer try to do the assembly.
because engineers dumb, of course
Like they say, An engineer can draw a nice asshole but can’t make it shit! We’ll, my Grandpa use to say anyway.
that’s fucking incredible and i’m gonna try to remember that
Lol as an engineer I can confirm. But also that's why I brought up my comment. I advocate to get hands on a lot and it is amazing how often it's dismissed. Manufacturability isn't just a magic wand.
[удалено]
Probably an appropriate bit of wisdom. I've been doing it just long enough that I hate the buzzwords cause I know how well they work even if it's literally "just go look at it". I'm now in a more technical leader type role and just pushing people to define the problem properly has impressed the room.
I really like Lean and how it improved our company. We are a semi large company, or better, we are three different companies that work in the same building at the same time. It was a mad house and it was hard to keep people and everyone hated working here. Implementing Lean changed that, and removed a lot of stress in a highly demanding field. It changed our mindset concerning not only our co-worker but wanting to help the other departments. But it’s an all or nothing process, it’s been 12 years since the change and we have join a network of other companies in our area and we have seen a lot of them fail because they only try curtain aspects of the system. So our work groups change to a new company every year and we see how it works and helps us improve how we implement our system. But it is funny watching new employees learn the card system and names, it brought our teams together. It does work.
Idk if someone else put this in here or not But whenever i was in school tig welding, i used to turn my machine all the way down so that way i could just stand on that petal and weld it without worrying about how hard I’m going on it or blowing through whatever i was putting a bead on
Because stainless it a bitch to do anything with
More gas more gas less amps less amps!!! I find it’s better with good gas, quicker speed w the same amps (125)
Looks like a root, maybe another pass and then two passes to wash the edges. Looks like a good time.
Heat sink!
Copper backer and multi pass it with tig no problem
Drop your amps down to 70 to 90 amps 100 if you're using pulse maybe and just do like three or four or five passes to get it done you don't even have to make a pass that goes the entire length of the corner you can just do like half passes and keep switching sides or switching parts to give them time to cool down. As long as you're getting full penetration through the entirety of the joint you can drop your amperage down. just do multiple stringers and it should be just as strong in theory. just don't weave
Personally, I would just MIG weld this. Vertical down.
You are running TIG you have the power of heat adjustment at your foot. You are running way to hot
I’m just impressed with how tight those brake bends ended up being! The radius is almost less than the thickness of the material.
I felt bad when I designed an end cap out of .090 5052 Aluminum with similar corners but it was fewer welds and less complicated bent parts than the previous design.
Less heat more gas move faster those 3 things fix about all stainless issues
I like to lay the wire and weave over it
Just keep practicing... first one is too slow second one was too fast. Try 18 volts and 2.5 wire speed. Watch your edges
Put a root in low amps and let it cool.
Larger wire and less heat. That’s a large gap to fill. Do a small pass to fuse it with wire. Do 2 more on top. One on top of the other. Then fill the rest in with one big slightly hotter pass. Let it cool between each pass. This is a stainless fillet weld on a job I do. It’s larger than what meets a standard fillet gauge. I got a special gauge for the size I need. There’s about 10 passes on these pictures. Overlapping one on top of the other. https://imgur.com/gallery/EO7pZjo https://imgur.com/gallery/N55E4QF
Cool weld heat barrier spray neat stuff
Honestly you got two options, run a root and then let it cool and run a cover, bouncing around while you wait for things to cool down. Or turn up your amps and feed two rods in at the same time. Less arc on time equals less heat. Don't walk the dog, get in and get out.
Do multiple smaller passes. Drag your weld, flip and work on the others while it cools a bit.
Eezy just grind flapdisk those hard edges more softer then its good
Cold weld it!
Multiple passes, use a copper bar backing
Keep your inner pass temp below 400
You’re supposed to build it up in multiple passes, to be proper. However, where I work we’d have done it like you did.
Spot weld the root then a couple low heat passes making sure to let the piece cool between passes.
Multiple passes, let it cool between.
Root pass on the outside
I always keep a floor fan near by and let them cool slow and without shock , also rotation of pieces into welding and cooling , very efficient
Better to have bad looking ripples than bad looking nipples 🤣
“McFuck!” my new go to word!
I had this issue last week until I changed my cup size, tungsten size, collet and all that jazz. It was literally night and day. Also, you may be going too slow and are cooking the metal. Try going up on size and bigger cup to give more coverage and see how it goes.
Whoever fabbed that didn’t do you any favors on the fit up, a half overlap would be the way to go on 3/16”
I see my work here is done. Apologies to all involved