A pair of welding googles are all you need. The puddle will be clear as day. Here is how I MIG weld in 20 simple steps: 1. Roll out cord. 2.Find a good ground for clamp 3.Set Gas 4.Set amps 5. Set wire speed 6.Crawl under car 7. Notice "torch" almost reaches spot I need to weld 8.Crawl out from under car 9. Move welder 10.Crawl back under car 11. Notice wire speed too slow 12. Crawl out from under car. 13.Reset wire speed 14.Crawl under car 15. Notice amps too low 16. Crawl out from under car. 17. Reset amps 18. Run a bead 19. Crawl out from under car. 20. Put everything away Here is how I gas weld in 8 easy steps: 1.Roll cart to car 2. Unroll hoses 3.Set gas 4.Crawl under car 5. Make any needed adjusments with knobs on torch 6. Make bead 7.Crawl out from under car. 8. Put everything away I'm much more experienced and comfortable with a gas set up and that's what I prefer to use. If I had the hours on a MIG I have with a gas set up, I'm sure the result would be different. One big advantage to the MIG is it can be done one handed, which has some real benefits at times. Both have methods have their place as does Stick and TIG welding.
I like this thread, been looking for one like this for some time. I'm going to build my 40's AV8 using only a gas welder. I'm much much younger then my car and want to build it with only the tools you could easily get back in the day. My gas welder is the best tool in my shop.
I'll use a pair of magnifier reading glasses when I weld and it really helps me. I also use a trouble light alot. A little extra light makes a big difference if you are welding under a car or in a dark hole. It can be tough to see the puddle mig welding thin sheetmetal. It all happens alot faster. I have to admit I rely alot more on the welder setting if I weld thin material using the mig on light sheetmetal.
Have a look at any of mindover's posts here on the hamb to see what is possible- or buy his DVD. I find my gas setup usefull for heating and bending stuff as well as welding.
take a look at this video on you tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGElSHzm0q8 Mindover on here, this says it all.
Check out this Meco N-Midget that Kent White sells. 6oz. and very precise, get the lightweight hoses, too. Got it 5 yrs ago and its the best O/A investment I've made! I hold the tip in my fingers kinda like a pencil. Never get fatigue and its really easy on gas. Perfect for sheet metal. https://www.tinmantech.com/assets/images/welding/meco/meco_torch_lg.jpg
I've got a MIG and a TIG, but I've been concentrating on using gas for my sheet metal work. Strted with a regualr outfit, picked up a Henrob, but now, when I do sheet metal, I've really learned to love my Meco Midget. Small, light, more easily adjusted. But if you only had ONE to pick, the Henrob is best all around...heating, cutting, soldering.
Gas welding is definately an art to "master" and is a little slower, but as said before, the welds are much easier to work and gives you a better overall finish especially on sheetmetal
Nobody gas welds? A mig welder has its uses but if you want to get a good finish on your panels you need to be able to work the metal, this is very hard to do with a lumpy hard mig weld and all that grinding of the welds? something that is not needed with gas or tig if done in the right way. Mig welds tend to crack if they are planished. Distortion is caused not so much by the amount of heat that is put into the panel but by the heat being uneven - If a piece of steel is heated it expands, when it cools it contracts beyond its original state, it follows that if it is heated more in one place than another the heating will be uneven and the contraction will be uneven - this is what causes distortion. This is another problem with mig that the heat input may be less than with gas or tig but the heat affected zone (HAZ) is uneven. If gas or tig is used the weld will be soft and workable with mig this is not the case. If the correct method is used to join sections of panels together little distortion is caused and what there is can be dressed out. I prefer gas welding to tig because it is less cumbersome to use - tig is OK on a bench where you can sit down and use a foot pedal but for working on panels I use gas. Below is a photo of a weld done using gas you can see how even the HAZ is and this means that little distortion was caused. This weld was done by James my employee. I taught James this method. David GAS WELD
For welding aluminium (English spelling) panels, gas is the only method I would use. Aluminium tig welds tend to crack when they are beaten. Gas will give a perfect joint every time and it can be planished to a metal finish with ease. Of course it takes a little practice to learn to gas weld aluminium because you have to move at the speed the heat dictates. I have some footage of gas welding steel and aluminium on my youtube videos. I do quite a bit of aluminium welding - some of my work in ally... David
I'm another nobody, then. (Thanks again, Roo!) This week at work, the squirtgun welder ran out of gas due to some moron leaving the bottle on after welding. I dug out the torch, and was able to continue working on my project. Had to explain to several of the guys that I wasn't brazing, but was actually welding. I don't use coat ahngers as many recommend. I don't like the idea of the impurities from the coating being in my welds. I use TIG rod.
Learning to gas weld FIRST, is along the same lines of learning to drive with a STICK SHIFT first IMO. You can see a gas weld form, you are bonding two pieces of metal into one, every MIG weld I've seen is a gob of hot shit ploped on top of metal with very little penatration, then the extra shit gets ground off. If you can GAS weld TIG is a cake walk, just finding the funds to buy the TIG is the hard part.
I don't have a tig so I gas weld anything light that has to hold liquid or air. It's to easy to get porosity with a mig.
I still use my O/A on sheet metal, exhaust systems. I use the Victor Professional torch that I've had for 30 yrs. I took my radiator shell (30 model A ) to the collage to have the cracks Tig welded, the instructor said that the state was dropping the O/A welding from the curriculum (they say that it is OBSOLETE ) I think that is a bunch of bull crap. Lee
I learned gas and stick in meal shop, back in 63-64. I learned how to hammer weld in the 70s from an old guy who was a master craftman. If you used the word "BONDO" around him, he acted like you had cussed his momma.. He would tell you "I AIN'T THE FASTEST, BUT IM THE BEST.. R.I.P. Willam and thanks for your time and knowledge. Everyone working on old sheetmetal should know how to gas weld, it's more fun that way.
I agree. Have them all. I have gas welded everything including aluminum. I only gas weld 4130 tube. Less likely to get a brittle weld during cool down. That's what the experimental air frame guys use too.
As a welding instructor and a professional welder for over 35 years I have never been able to get my head (Or rather my hand ) around a pistol grip torch. I have tried them and find them the most awkward contraption I have ever tried to use. I'm a tig welder and weld plenty with my OAW jewelers torch but that pistol grip torch is just awkward and hard to handle and puts my hand and arm into a seemingly un-natural position to me, and I can't achieve the steadiness and control I can with conventional equipment.
Are the Jewlers torches like the Smith little torch a good setup for sheetmetal? They look pretty nice. Todd
Before MIG was invented most all bodywork was done by brazing. No it does not lift the filler if you do it right. You must have NO pin holes and you have to get ALL the flux off there. I like to weld a few inches then rub with a wet rag, it shrinks the metal and the flux pops off. When you are done clean the weld with a wire brush in a drill or sandblast it. To do a real neat job you have to fit the patch like the skin on a grape. If the metal is tight with no gap the bronze just soaks into the joint. When you get good you can turn the oxygen up and get a very hot, oxidizing flame. It will not burn thru if you go very fast, get it right and the bronze runs into the joint like water, you don't heat the metal any more than a MIG, by that I mean the heat doesn't spread and the metal doesn't warp if you go fast enough. Once you get the knack you can braze a patch on as fast as a MIG or faster and with no warpage.
I am alot better at gas welding than wire feed. I prefer TIG, but have found a quality TIG welder is out of my budget for quite awhile. Gas welding and brazing is becoming a lost art. I had to teach some of the so called maintenace men at my old job how to braze. It was sad, but comical to say the least. Rod
Gas welding for me - not hard to learn and as many have said softer so more forgiving than mig and able to be hammered out and smoothed. I use Mig for chasis but gas for all panel work. Car in avatar bottom 6 - 8 " all replaced with gas Tried mig but cracks when you hamer it
Definately all about practice - I did go to a trade school to learn but all they showed us was how to weld thick material - I think I could have welded a bridge when I finished but could not weld thin car panel
Then you had a moron for an instructor or you didn't tell him what you hoped to learn. When I teach beginner OAW welding courses, or any other beginners welding course I ask the students why they are there and what their expectations are. Then I can cover the course basics and add in some special elements to help them achieve their goals.
And brazing body metal is the route you take if you are lazy or have no skill. Not the right way to do it. The proper way to weld body panels is with a fusion weld using steel. I have great success with a .035 mig wire as a filler rod with the small jewelers torch. Brazing will cause all kinds of problems from cracking to poor adhesion of filler or paint.
I bought a Smith (I believe) jeweler's torch a while back, Used, but I never tried it. Somehow I forgot about it, and picked up the Meco one, and am using it. If you'd like to try the Smith, I can send it out to you, and if you like it, we can work out a price. You'll have to have the smaller diameter hoses to attach to it...the ends on the torch are barbed for small hoses. That's probably why I didn't use it right away, and it got put away.
OK 88 posts so far,.. I'm not motivated to read them all,.. so if this makes no sense,... well,.. whatever. Love to gas/fusion weld with my old Oxy/ Acetylene set up's, and still do that occasionally... But the consumables (Oxygen & acetylene) have gotten crazy expensive,.. so the mig has been my "go to welder",...
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