Technical Ran out of gas half way through weld. Porosity!!

As the title says, I was building my motor mounts this afternoon and it was really coming out nicely. I began welding the gussets an in the inside corner the weld bead became rally porous. I checked the gas and I was out. Can I dig out this weld fillet with a die grinder and lay a new bead without structural repercussions? I'm so pissed about this.

 

Yes you can. Just be sure to cut out the porous medium. You will have no structure issue at all.

 

Thanks. It's like a fly in the frosting if your birthday cake. Driving me nuts!

 

This shit usually happens to me. I feel your pain. Welder friend of mine showed me to be in the habit of putting my hand on gas bottles as I walk by and check that the valves are shut.

 

Be absolutely sure you cut it out deep.
If you have any hidden porosity it will spread into the new weld. If that happens start again.

 

Get someone to rerun it with a mig or if you are not afraid of warpage a acetylene torch.

 

I have run out of gas..OK a pain but really minor compared to when you go to change the spool of welding wire and you lose grip of the end of the wire...................

 

A "rats nest" of .023 wire is not a pretty sight!

 

Iva actually run out of wire this week and did the rats nest thing changing it too. Frustrating because I think my welds have really become pretty decent. I guess I have to check my gas and wire every time I fire the welder up. Lesson learned.

 

Grind it out all the way and make a new pass.

I turn my bottle off very frequently. My weld process is - check dimming helmet is on, position and check pass, turn on welder, hit trigger while watching gas, clip wire, check heat range wire feed, drop helmet and make the weld. Turn off bottle, hang mask on the bottle.

Small routine but it's become second nature takes a few seconds. Drilled into me while weld training on heavy industrial - verify all set up before the weld, scarfing out those welds was not pleasent.

 

That is the only way to repair it, dig the weld out and reweld it.

 

I don't have a Mig but on my Tig I always looked at the lbs in the bottle when turning it on, and hit the foot petal and make sure the correct amount of gas was flowing before any welding started

On a another safety note always stand to the side when turning on your Oxy bottle, because when full it can blow the regulator front off and get you right in the chest etc

And be sure to turn the valve handle slow !!!

DND

 

LOL I used to work with a guy that slammed any gas bottle open because he liked to hear the diaphragm pop. he learned the hard way not to do that.

 

Any got a good suggestion about when to refill the mig bottle to get the most gas out of it without running out?

At my local gas supplier they charge me for the full capacity of the bottle regardless of how much may be left when I bring it in, so I try to use every last bit without running out. But of course if I do run out it will be on the weekend when I can't get it filled....

 

Simply monitor your pressure. The minimum amount will of course depend on how much you plan to weld and how much pressure you are allowing to your nozzle.


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I solved that problem when I got a 2nd bottle. At least now I can keep going after I change the bottle out. When I became sub-dealer for the welding gas company, that made it easy not to be out of gas more then a couple minutes it takes to change the bottles. It still hurts to have to pay for it, I'm also the 1st guy to know when the price goes up!

As far as the running the bottle dry, I check the bottle pressure level every time I turn it on, and when I know its getting low, I watch it more closely. When the bottle pressure gets down to where it shows 50 lbs, I replace it. Depending on your settings & that amount of moving air around the weld, 50 lbs gets you about a 3" long weld bead before it runs out.

I'm happy this thread came up, it reminded me I had to order a roll of welding wire, gas truck comes Monday. Thanks. Gene

 

I know the pain
I always run out of gas at 5.00pm on a friday [usually a holiday weekend]
You can damn near set your clock by it

 

Getting The last bit usually costs way more than getting it filled when it's low.

Running a bigger bottle is generally cheap when all factors are included in the calculations. Certainly cheaper than a small bottle.

 

Good advice fellas. Thanks

 

I bought a new Millermatic 200 in the late 80's (IIRC), setup the .030 for heavy stuff and all was good, then did some sheetmetal floor replacement so changed over to .023 and could not get the tension on the drive right to save my ass, wasted a bunch of wire.
It was either too tight and would not drive or too loose and would rat nest. Finally did a "Rube Goldberg" by making an overiding flap from an old karting number panel, fit between the wire spool flanges and that fixed it, pretty expensive baling wire though.

 

I bought my machine a Miller 252, gas bottle of argon co2 mix, plus
Acetylene and oxygen bottles from the local Prax Air distributor
here in the New Orleans area. All was well as they were only ten minutes from my shop. I did ask them if this small outlet was secure as far as
remaining open and doing business with the walk in public. Of course they said it would remain open. Now it is closed and the nearest outlet
is in Baton Rouge 80 miles away. They cannot be reached on the phone as all Prax Air calls are routed through their Houston offices who have no interest in dealing with a small account like myself. So now I have to haul my bottles all the way to Baton Rouge, and hope they will deal with me
as I have been told it is not a retail outlet. This is a real problem were as the bottles were 900 bucks or so.

 

Before they fill a bottle, they purge it and will lose all the gas that is in it. they can't verify the gas in the bottle unless the do this. I watch Craig's list and local auctions and have bought three bottles for 1/3 the price of a new bottle. Another thing to check is whether you supplier will exchange a argon bottle for a oxygen ( example) bottle of the same size. This way you can run argon for tig and if you switch to wire for a while, exchange that bottle for 75/25.

 

MickyC if those are your bottles you can get them filled anywhere.

 

Not familiar with the Millermatic 200 but does the drive roll say .023 or did you continue to use the .030 drive roll?

 

I have both .023 and .030 drive roll sets.

 

Thanks Pat, I have in the past had bottles refilled from a local gas distributor. However when i contacted them recently they said I would have to pay for an inspection on the bottle, an additional 50$ fee as well as proving ownership of said bottle. I have receipts for the bottles, but
seemed to have misplaced the one for the argon. It has a plastic collar that simply states "customer owned." When I would swap out the bottle Prax Air guys would just slip it on a swap bottle and I would be on my way.
The local guy says he cant or wont assure me I will get my actual bottle
back which is a Prax Air marked item. I am sure you can see the problem here. I will make a run up to the Baton Rouge facility and see if I can get this resolved. A bottle lasts me a while but it is an aggravation.

 

You can get them filled anywhere that fills right there on site. Most welding supply houses don't do that. Most places are exchange facilities, and the competitors may exchange them any way. You own the one brought in but now you'll own the one you left with.

 

Return the emptys and get your deposit back. Go with someone closer. Maybe airgas?

 

Has anyone noticed how the big gas companies are marketing their mixes lately, seems like a lot of "snake oil" to me. My local supply house was bought up and the familiar guys were no longer around and I did not care for the new guys.
Needed a refill so did some shopping around and read some of their fancy literature, the gases have names on them now, not just the old 75/25, 90/10 type numbers. They don't seem to work any better than they have in the past.

 

My business is an exchange location only. I've been dealing with the same company for 23 years. We don't have any fancy names for the gas I handle, but I only stock welding gas in the mix of 100% argon, 75/25 mix, or 100% CO2 (which very few sell). They do have other mixes of welding gas (both type of gas and % of mixes), but I do not handle them.
Unless you have the paperwork that says you own the tanks (our paper work calls bottles tanks), I can only exchange tanks from the company I do business with. If your tank belongs to a competitor, I'm not allowed to accept it unless it is smaller then 100 cf (all smaller tanks are customer owned and can be exchanged by everyone). Anything larger then 100 cf needs to have paperwork, and I still need to call the company before I can accept it. Occasionally I've seen billings for a customer owned tank pressure test, but that was usually for new customers with outdated pressure tested tanks. The last one was 4-5 years ago and it was in the $20 range then. Once someone is in our system, the pressure test fee goes away because the tanks are all exchanged. Gene