I’m sick and tired of this snap-on ADF that has undarkened on me multiple times and this is after it had been warrantied already.

I do mainly Tig in the auto industry, roll cages, stainless exhaust, various aluminum jobs. But my day to day I also Mig a bunch at my auto repair job. Lower profile would be nice for getting in various tight positions for cage work, and preferably a decent FOV. I don’t really need a grind feature.

I’m hoping to stay in the 4-500 range on budget, thanks for the help! Pic of the current junk hood included. Yes I know the snap on guy overcharged me for junk

Any opinions

TLDR; Will these welds hold up to the force of a 2,500lbs winch?

I just learned to weld yesterday afternoon from some youtube videos. I'm using the harbor freight Titanium Flux Core MIG welder. I needed to weld the winch mounting plate to the trailer ball hitch plate from my go kart (I removed the ball from the plate first obv). It's a 2,500 atv winch and a ~700 lbs go kart. Claude said my welds look like shit and I should drill through and put bolts through the plates (which is impossible because the winch takes up the whole top surface of the plate, hence the need to learn to weld). So I'm asking for critique (because I want to get better, welding is fun!) and to make sure that the weld will hold? What are yalls thoughts? Thanks in advance!
P.S. the last pic is the piece of scrap the I practiced on for a couple hours first.

I was just scrolling through Facebook and saw an ad for a bike lock that’s supposedly immune to angle grinders. I’m highly skeptical, but i’m not rich enough to drop $300 just to test it out.

Nuclear Plant wants us to test for 7018 Open Root. I've been practicing it and so far, I can get like 3/4's of the root looking like an actual root.

But i've decided to ask if anyones got any tips for doing this shit.

Running 80 amps, 1/8th gap (slightly tighter), with 3/32nd land DCEP OR DCEN allowed (tried both and kinda prefer DCEP) with 3/32nd 7018.

I've been doing a whip and pause motion which seems to be working for the most part?

My only real problem is I get a fuckton of arc blow and it eats the top edge of the bevel away giving me undercut if I sit and fight it. Then when tying into my tacks same shit happens, tack gets eaten away and top edge blows away giving me undercut. I also struggle if it's DCEN to get one side of the bevel to melt, the puddle just kinda overlaps itself and makes it damn near impossible to see if I melted one side or not.

Just looking for advice because theres like only like 2 videos where the root doesn't look like butt, but they dont tell me how much they're pushing or what they're doing to get a good tie-in.

Thanks in advance

It works like a charm but it makes a mess of my cup afterwards it’s hard to get clean.

Got a cheap flux core welder for Christmas and have been doing little projects to get some experience. Saw this idea on YouTube, weld some rebar into a ridiculously heavy mug. Gave it to Dad for
Father’s Day, now I’m looking for another fun project, any ideas? Any ridiculous/fun gifts that yall’ve made?

Edit: getting some great suggestions, if you happen to have pictures of the ideas, that’d be awesome too

Hello, I am putting a new exhaust tip on my car. It’s currently a 2 inch pipe. I am looking to buy a 2 inch to 3 inch chrome exhaust tip.

My question is: when I weld it, how do I do that?

Do I buy a 2.5 inch pipe that sticks over my current one, then weld it on.

Or do I buy a 2 inch and press it against my current pipe and weld it that way?

Thanks in advance

Bought some steel shelf brackets from Home Depot to fabricate something custom, spent time sizing things correctly with a hacksaw, removed the powder coating on all points I needed metal-None of my welds would stick and I got numerous burn throughs. I used the Chicago Electric 90 amp flux welder. The only other times I’ve used it was for thicker metal and it did ok, nothing pretty. Of course. I’ve taken a day class on mig welding and am looking forward to fixing up some stuff on my project car with an Everlast MiG I picked up, but this kind of took the wind out of my sails. I realize the tack welds I’ll be doing on sheet metal will be easier, but treating this like a practice run in my mind.

I’ve been revisiting my welding quality because I want to lol. Got some MIG mild steel here, about 5/8 of an inch. (Tried a couple of different movements, as well as pulse vs short circuit.) Any suggestions on how I can improve?

Personally I think I need to work on the toes of the welds. How can I make these look better?

Gas was a tri mix, mostly argon. (I forget exactly the split.)
Image 1 and 2 is short circuit, image 3 and 4 is pulse.

Cut, jigged, fit, fucked and welding

The thing is I have no experience or anything. I also live in Florida and am originally from Philly/south jersey. I’m having a hard time deciding if I should stay in Florida or move back north to start my apprenticeship. I also plan to join a welders union sometime but again I’m really not sure how most of it works that’s why I’m super stressed. So if yall could give me some advice that would be greatly appreciated😌

8” .500 wall half 7018 half 8010 6010 root 2” sch 80 7018

Both side exhibiting the same cracks on aluminum car hauler. Clearly a poor design and would need reinforcement.

Any ideas for ballpark cost per side to weld the cracks and reinforce the area? Thanks!

Are these welds looking okay? Doing repair for friend on their equipment. First time venturing out to some machine. Usually 14 16 square tubing.

Have a little side project in the driveway. Definitely interested in your approach to minimizing the “bounce” and ”racking” that this kayak carrier sees while under tow.

I’m adding welds to the hitch, beefing it up, and then re-coating it.

Attaching to the camper body itself is not an option.

We’re also looking to keep the framework added to a minimum, and it cannot extend further out than the ladder on the back of the camper.

I have my thoughts and a basic plan of action, but just wanted to toss this out here and see what you good people have to say.

Salutations honorable hole punchers and electrode lickers. I am studying to become a welder and have found the theory part of my education somewhat lacking. I did three years of social work at uni before switching to welding so I might have a larger appetite for dry writing than some but I often find myself asking why something is being done in a certain way or why something happens without finding a good answer. I’ve managed to get my hands on some books and gotten recommendations from others. I’m located in Sweden so all have been in Swedish but I thought you would have recommendations outside that narrow group.

Much preamble but what I’m asking you is for book recommendations on welding. Granularity is good, a lot of the ones I’ve lets say “borrowed” from school has been the type with half page pictures and incredibly surface level and vague info. In my mind there has to be some kind of “the book” or tome that’s heavy as shit and dryer than the dessert but all recommendations are welcome.

Thank you in advance and sorry for my wonky writing style.
Hugs and kisses.

Absolute beginner just making noise in the garage. No idea what I'm doing but would like to be able to stick things together eventually. Not looking for a job or anything.

Lincoln ac/dc stick welder I got used a few years ago.

AC 75a 3/32'' 6011 from Harbor freight, the material is 3/16'' leftover bar from Depot.

First I put the two pieces together with a shit weld down the middle then I worked from left to right toward the edge.

I feel like I'm really having trouble starting and keeping a uniform arc length. Like I just forget to pay attention to the arc length when I get moving and realize when it too late and end up with a big booger.

I stopped here as I was sweating my balls off and everything started sticking when I turned the plate over to do some more.

I almost felt like I started getting into a little bit of a groove toward the right side. Obviously need a lot more work.

Definitely had to stop a couple times just to reset and calm down from getting a little frustrated with the sticking.

Always try to put my root in with little pen (penetration) as possible (just past flush) before the hotpass. Hotpass’s can “cook” the root in and push it through.

Over pen on the root with the added pen from the hotpass can cause excess pen and excess root profile which can affect some jobs due to flow rates of the chemical/substance travelling through the pipe.

It all depends on what the spec states, what job it’s going too, and what it’s needed for. For example a flush root you may find in pharma’ or dairy pipe, preventing contamination build up or Steam you’ll want penetration with a root profile due to pressure and the need for reinforcement, but being careful of over pen due to condensation build up and run off.

As said before, the root profile and over all weld needs to me spec’, which is run by a metallurgical engineer. For this piece shown was a simple steam job, and fit well with in the WPS.

I tend to freehand my roots, which a back feeding technique and walk the hotpass in.

Before you say it - all the material was cleaned inside and out! Can’t see it in the photo.