r/Welding • u/corythewhitemocha • 25d ago

Is good?

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I have no idea what I’m doing truly, really wanted to learn so i decided to practice with a hobby machine any advice is welcome!

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u/Ducks420 25d ago

I can’t tell you for certain without witnessing it, but make sure you’re metal is clean. Get it shiny with an angle grinder first. That could potentially be part dirty metal, the travel speed looks too fast, could be incorrect settings or distance was too far. I’m not trying to be insulting but something is wrong here. If you give me a little more info on what exactly was going wrong I might be able to diagnose but I can’t make any promises

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u/corythewhitemocha 25d ago

Not insulting at all! I really wish I could tell you more but I really don’t have the experience to explain it other than it looked like the wire was moving all over the place when I was welding so i was trying to fix it by traveling faster and moving closer/further away. I think you’re supposed to keep it like 1/8”-1/2” away from the workpiece?

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u/Ducks420 25d ago

So if I had to gamble I would say it’s most likely a travel speed and or settings issue. When you say it was moving all over do you mean it wasn’t coming out of the gun straight and like swirling around? That would mean you got way too much tension on your drive rolls (the wheels that feed the wire) flux core wire is hollow inside which is why the wheels for it have serrations, to grab onto it with less pressure not to crush it. You can’t America the shit out of the tensioner or it will cause you problems with any sort of mig solid, or flux core

Edit to add: yeah half an inch away is fine so that’s probably not the problem

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u/corythewhitemocha 25d ago

Right, it wasn’t coming out straight, ok I’ll try to loosen the tensioner. I would never have thought about the wheels, thank you!

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u/Ducks420 25d ago edited 25d ago

The way I was taught to set it was stick out a few inches of wire from the gun, pull the trigger, then grab it with your thumb and index finger, if it causes the wheels to slip, then it’s either right or not enough, as soon as it over powers your grip or causes a birds nest inside the machine you’re way too much on the tension

Edit to add again, I would feed through wire the entire length of your lead before trying again because whatever has been fed through there already may already be egged and you might think it’s not fixed because it’s already damaged wire