Technical MIG WELDING.....How did you learn to do it ?

I took a welding class in high school so learned the basics of OA welding and stick welding. Got my mig welder 25 years ago, there were pretty good written instructions on welding, I followed those, built my own welding cart for practice. Took a bit of practice on sheet metal. Nowadays there should be plenty of YouTube videos demonstrating, just need to make sure they are teaching it right.

 

My next endeavor is to get my oxy/propane setup going. It uses an oxygen concentrator instead of a tank. I am sure the learning curve will be much steeper than MIG!

 

The company I was building water towers and storage tanks with got a contract to build pool liners in a nuclear powerhouse and couldn't find enough qualified stainless MIG welders. They ran me through two days of instruction followed by a 1, 2, 3 and 4G plate test. I only had one chance and made it. Another tool in the box for me.

 

My welding education came from desperation I was a young guy I the Air Force and needed a second job. One day I see an ad for an industrial spray painter. I started painting cars at 14 and was pretty good , so I applied. The job was shooting black paint on ornamental iron at a local iron works. Unfortunately for me, I arrived just after they hired a painter. I must have looked like I lost my best friend because the shop foreman said they had a welder opening if I could weld. Until that point, I only watched people weld, but was so broke and desperate I shouted of course I can weld. I got hired to start the next Monday. On Monday, I was assigned to building wrought iron railings for a mobile home company contract. I was presented to the lead and off the foreman went. My job was to weld metal pickets to a top rail and bottom rail. The lead set up the machine and said, " let's see what you can do!". Well, within seconds, he knew I was lying through my teeth. I asked him for help because I was flat broke and desperately needed the money. He felt sorry for me, and gave me a crash course in welding. It didn't have to be real pretty, just burn it in evenly and don't wobble. We would do, literally dozens of the railings a day. And voila! Suddenly I are a welder! That was over 55 years ago. Now retired, I have gas, stick, mig, and tig in my garage, and an undying respect for a guy that taught me to weld instead of throwing me to the wolves. I can do all 4 processes, but my favorites are gas and Tig. Would I consider my a welder? Not in the professional sense. But, I have never had a weld break and by some standards, I have made some less that pretty welds, but never a failure, thanks to a kind lead man that genuinely helped a dumb and broke kid. He and the shop are long gone now, but not my appreciation.

 

We are all "of an age" here, so I will say that the first thing you should do is get a good helmet with the proper prescription lenses. Yep, you really need to see what you are doing. When I was 16, my dad bought a 180 AMP Miller "buzz-box". I took to it like a duck to water and told the old man; "Try it, it's easy!". I remember him having problems and saying "I can't see!" Lately, I began having that problem and tried it with and without my bifocals, and even a couple of sets of "cheaters". Nothing seemed to work. I talked to a friend who was a union pipefitter and he put me on to the prescription lenses for my helmet. Now I can weld without wearing my glasses and can see what I'm doing. Another technique I got from him was to change the cover glass on my helmet frequently. Being able to see what you are doing is probably the most important thing you can do.

Interestingly, I recently bought a new inverter stick welder. It welds AC, and either polarity DC. I finally did a little bit of study on rod types and what polarity works best for what and even when to use AC. Since I figured this out, I have done most of my welding with the new stick welder and my MIG is gathering dust in the corner.

I'm just a hobbyist, but I can get the job done (when I can see it).

 

On an old P & H Harnischfeger wire feed welder at work. Same machines gave me an intro into 3 phase power; all the outlets and plugs had to be wired the same way as these old welders were motor driven.

 

Learned stick and gas welding in high school shop class, figured out fusion welds on my own. Learned MIG and TIG later, messing with cars.

 

Tried smearing my welds flat with my finger, but just ended up with burnt fingers.

 

I learned Gas in my Dad's shop when I was little. he set me up with some scrap and a brazing tip and it got me out of his hair. LOL

I learned again to gas weld and stick weld in Ag. Shop in high school. I had a key to the Ag Shop so that i could play cars and motorcycles late at night (had to be out before the janitors showed up to work in the morning), but then I had to learn officially to pass Ag Shop. We had to stick to pieces of Aluminum Irrigation pipe together leak free with a torch and some coated aluminum rod for the final.

I learned to MIG weld working for a boat trailer factory. I was stick welding trailer frames and talked to the old MIG welder who was going to quit and played with it during lunch break for a day or two and took over his job when he left.

Learned to TIG weld on the job too.

Actually pretty much anything I ever wanted to do I got a job doing it.

 

NAVY - I was an engineer charged with approving welds on classified projects......got qualified/certified in all position semi-auto MIG for steel, SS, aluminum, and submerged arc. Also qualified/certified inspector.......visual, mag particle, X-ray, eddy current and UT. Ended up with an MS in welding engineering, PhD in fracture mechanics, among other bits of paper.

 

Val, I knew some guys that ground down their welds, and applied bondo with their finger tips.

 

I bought a MIG welder, started welding.....learned along the way. Now I are a welder...

 

takes about 10 minutes . crank it up, if it blows holes, turn it down. Simple

 

With a stick welder I could lay a bead as long as the rod lasted, with MIG there was no control of the wire, it was an antique welder, but it was only good for tac welding, I could never produced a bead.

 

I was a teenager when I had a buddy who had a basic MIG show me some basic stuff. We were all kids then, just trying to stick these cars together the best we could with whatever limited money and resources we had. It was all 110v flux core wire, none of us had the money for a 220v machine or shielding gas. I bought my first welder my first semester of college (I took advantage of the no-sales tax in Delaware), a Lincoln WeldPack HD from Home Depot. It was, and is, a good machine that I cut my teeth on, and it was fun being able to weld up door handles, and actually fill the holes where the emblems were that we took off. I actually did some legit work with that machine, including back-halving a frame for my '67 C/10, and once I got comfortable with the process through trial and error, I was able to accomplish basically all of the welding I needed to do at the time. Best way to learn is to practice, it really is a process you have to get a feel for, a certain kind of muscle memory. Maybe watch a few YouTube videos to help eliminate the learning curve, but beyond that, you just have to do it. Just buy a welder, grab some scrap steel, and start sticking it together. And you don't need a big fancy welder to learn, don't let it it become an excuse or impediment.

 

Took a welding course from a tool supply store 15 years ago. Told us to listen for the even sound of frying bacon. Prior to that I stuck a few rods to some coupons stick welding in high school. Bought a cheap mig and we're keeping it simple welding flux core until we get to our next house where I'll set up a nice shop then switch to gas mig. Eventually would like to learn tig just to master another skill if possible.

 

We might have talked about this...My Dad was with White Freightliner at the Pomona and Chino, CA. plants.

 

I began welding in metal shop class while in Jr. High School in the late 60 thru High School mid 70's.. The typical, gas, brazing and stick welding. I didn't do anything for a lot of years after.
I didn't touch a mig until I was in my 50's. Too easy but a bit to learn. If it fries like bacon and you're not making holes and you're not warping a lot, then your good.

 

Back in '73, I was welding fuel tanks at Freightliner, and one of the guys came out of the office to talk to me. He said, "How would you like to fly down to the Chino plant, and weld some stainless steel". They were building the new plant, and constructing a conversion coating booth, that the cabs would travel through, just prior to paint. It was all stainless, and the seams in the floor needed to be welded, leak proof. He then asked, if I could stick weld stainless, and my answer was, Sure. Well, I had never welded stainless before in my life ! That was in the morning, and he wanted me on the plane that afternoon. I did the job in 2 days, and was back home for the weekend !

 

Trade school + trial and error.
For sheet metal a good weld happens before you pull the trigger. Clean, proper filling metal.
I don’t leave a gap for butt welding sheet metal.
All plug welds are clamped close to each weld and usually taped with a hammer. Move the clamp close to the next weld, use the hammer and repeat.

 

I learned at night vocational school , 2 years , then 30 years in the gas pipeline business . The lessons learned on a pipeline crew are with you the rest of your life . Mental and Physical repercussions if you did not complete the task correctly , and slowed down the gang .

 

I thought it was the other way around? When you have the pacer interrogated RF will show up and the tech will see it. My friend with a pacer can mig but his cardiologist won’t sign off on the tig.

 

A 4 year apprenticeship at a Naval Shipyard.
After mastering stick welding (reading-the-puddle) moved up to MIG Aluminum.
MIG welding steel came much much later in my career. EVERYTHING steel.... was stick welded or TIG welded.
Typical government work...still stick welding when the rest of the industry was MIG.
After YEARS! of stick welding MIG was a walk-in-the-park.
(Never had the occasion to MIG weld in a mirror like TIG and stick)
6sally