mobile welder coming tomorrow...quick dumb question

Bodi, tallking and typing don't work What I meant to type is GMAW.

 

A good 110 should be ok.A weld bead can look good to the untrained eye and not have good penetration.Chamfer the edges where you can, for better penetration.Work your way from side to side as not to warp the frame.

 

And beyond that I think your concern lies with an ER70s6 styled solid wire often called "hard wire". You are correct in that it is a "cold" process. It is globular transfer compared to true spray transfer of something like ER71T in a gas or non-gas backed situation. I can understand your concern with hardwire, but, I assure you an experienced hard wire weldor can do this just fine.

 

Exactly, My concern is that this is some plug in harbor fright that the guy is going to try using. Maybe I missed it but did the OP tell us what machine he was using? Maybe some pictures would help with our understanding of the situation.

 

I love these threads, I have both, a 220 hobart and a 110 century, both good mig welders. I've had the century for a dozen years, it inspired me to learn to weld properly, went and got my tickets cause I discovered that its something I love to do. I would and have many times used my 110 for chassis work, I welded in my mustang in my 36 with it, have driven many thousands of miles in it with no fear of killing myself or anyone else.
What gets me is the expert opinions, if you're gonna weld with a mig, the surface must be prepared properly first, clean shiny new metal bonds best. Grind all the rust off, make sure its good. Every car I've done certainly doesn't have any 1/4 inch anywhere on it, which my 110 will do easily, nothing wrong with a 110, provided you spend the bucks to get something that will do the work, not the cheapo buzz box at the bargain store.
Stop scaring the op, if the welder comes with the credentials, he'll be responsible, don't be afraid to ask to see them, you're paying the bill.

 

stick welder for sure would be strong enough if hes good, and as far as mig welding with a 110, id be more concerned with the welder itself not the actual person welding. I've seen plently of motorcylces and motor mounts welded with a cheap fluxcore, not my doings but Ive seen it work. My family owns a welding business (we have the miller generator/welder) and everything almost ever need on our truck and weve been around since the 50's. my stepdad has been welding for almost 50 years, the right guy with the right briefcase welder can do some amazing things. 3/16 isnt extremely thick. If he goes with the mig welder just make sure its a good welder, one that can for sure burn hot enough

 

Is this a $1500 110v machine, or a $250 110v machine?

 

I just find it weird that a "professional" welder would make his opening pitch for using a 110V welder. He might be good with it, I'd suggest meeting him and maybe having him do a sample weld on something similar to your construction project first.

Bob

 

If the guy shows up with a beat up Toyota car with duct tape holding the fenders on and gets a cheap no name 110v welder out of his trunk, throw him out.

If he shows up with a 1 ton truck with the name of the welding business on the side of his fully equipped truck, and brings a Miller or other name brand welder in, see his papers, have him weld a sample using the same thickness steel your parts are. He should not have a problem doing that, if he does, send him packing.

There is NO reason a qualified person can't use a quality 110v machine to weld your suspension parts on your frame. An unqualified person or someone having a cheap welder is a different situation. A professional welder can not afford to have a cheap welder. Unfortunately, a piece of paper and good equipment does not mean the guy is a qualified welder. Gene

 

Not for nothin' but... if he allready has an a bad feeling of the guy, why is he even thinking about letting him work on his car? I didn't look where the OP is from, but by the time I post this it may allready be too late.

Edit: "Unfortunately, a piece of paper and good equipment does not mean the guy is a qualified welder. Gene "
Thank god somebody said this!!! Try hiring someone that "just got certified" through a local vocational school with no real life experience.

 

Besides you, Bodi, and very fwe others it seems that everybody thinks bigger is better no matter how!
I hope the OP will read through the advice carefully.
This said, and 110vs220 aside, i would require to see some work from this dude, or find someone with proven reputation.

 

well said. i also went to school for welding. the let me graudate and everything...it doenst make me an expert but if the machine is a good quality there is no reason its not enough to do your cross member.

there is a lot of good and bad comments on both sides of this thread. stick or mig you can come out with a solid, sturdy, good looking weld. when i bought my welder i choose to buy a bigger welder because of the few heavy duty things i needed to do. but most of the work i have done could be done with a 110. those little millers and lincolns are great machines. i have never used a hobart. i bought a cheap asian plasma cutter (only cause of limited funds) it does not work nearly as well as my unlces thermal dynamics. there is something to the manufacturer and the technician

 

i'm interested to know what kind of ticket or credentials there are in the US that state welding on a vehicle frames, i know there are no tickets here in Canada with the "Canadian Welding Bureau" for welding on vehicles.

 

use the 220v stick welder...you won't be disappointed....use the mig on small stuff....not your front suspension.

 

There's a misconception in the novice welding world that more power will improve the chances of making a better weld. Many would rather ignore the fact that companies like Miller, Lincoln, and Hobart have spent millions developing a machine, and rating it to perform a certain task. If a reputable company like Miller says a machine will weld 1/4" single pass, you can be pretty certain that machine will weld 5/16" or better single pass in the hands of a good operator. However, if the machine doesn't jump out of the box, and perform the task on it's own for the majority of users, it will get a bad reputation, and then you get what we have here. Now, I'm not saying that in a perfect situation I wouldn't take the larger machine to do most of this stuff. That's why I have a variety of machines, but, the question was, "will a 110v welder do this task?". I'm just trying to point out some things to consider. If I went to do a job like this with my mobile truck, I would use my 110v machine for portability, and sleep just fine that night. Besides, a Millermatic 300 isn't exactly a blast to load, and unload. As for stick welding it, yeah, you could, I just don't like the look of 7018 on automotive. Personal preference.

Not really anything around here that I know of specifically for welding on frames. The American Welding Society offers more certifications for welding wire than state institutions, and probably the most common one for this type of work would be their ER70s6 cert. I got mine when building long duration test fixtures for Boeing, and Paccar. It is the most commonly used "shop" wire. Nice clean stuff that makes good looking welds. Only problem is it makes me crave bacon when I'm welding it.

 

When i had my Lincoln 110 and 030 i could blow through 1/8 with no problem, and yes it penetrate just fine. the thickest i had welded with it was 3/8 that was pre-heated, i needed to make a pull plate for a frame i was fixing, it held up to the 20 ton port a power with no problem.

 

I wonder what the OP ended up with. Maybe he'll post pictures.

 

If the machine as rated for the thickness of material and the welder knows what they are doing then no problem.

 

For stick,
If you use E7018 Low Hydrogen rod make sure it is dry. If the rod is wet, you could get porosity (not good) in the weld. The joint should be clean with good fitment. If he is good, the slag will lift off the weld by itself as the weld cools. (horizontal)
6011 is a good repair rod for dirtier joints. It is a penetrating, fast fill rod but will produce more splatter. The splatter can be knocked off with a chip hammer or grinder after. It like 7018 is all postion, suitable for overhead or vertical.
I would not pay someone to run a 110volt mig on my frame.
I have a Miller Dynasty 200 Deluxe that will run on 110V, 220V, 460V. I will only tack the frame together using 110V. For final welding its hooked to 220V. Good luck with whatever you decide.

 

A certified weldor(person) (welder is the machine)should have no problem burning in a m2 front suspention with a good machine.If it is only 1/8 to 3/16 thick i think no problem.Even stick welded by a pro that knows what he is doing,7018 rod i think not,prefer 6010 or 6011.

 

So a bakor is the person who makes bread?

 

There is NO Problem welding 3/16" Steel with a quality 110 welder and a guy behind the trigger that knows what he"s doing. Miller's smallest machine, the 140, will easily burn 3/16 at 90 amps with a 20% duty cycle. More than enough for a crossmember, again WITH A GUY WHO KNOWS HOW TO WELD!
And they make two other 110 machines that will weld 1/4 in a single pass.
So don't discount the ability to do this just because he mentioned 110. If he has a good machine and knows how to use it, there will be no issues. If he has a Fisher Price machine then no, but a quality Miller or Lincoln - no problem.
Of course if he's not a good welder, it won't matter if he brings a 300 amp machine!

And for reasons mentioned above, many mobile guys like the 110 machines for portability, ease of use and set up.
A few years ago I needed something done at home, and my welders are at my shop. I called a portable guy, he asked if I had at least 20 amps in the garage, said I did and he walked in with a nice little 110 machine and welded some 1/4" structural plates for a beam I was having added. Worked great and was much easier than firing up his big old generator and dragging giant cords from his truck to the location.

 

Yeah, I can't wait to read the update tonight to see how the dust settled on this deal.

 

For a forum that requires as much welding as this one does...Many of you are very mislead. A GOOD 110v/140v Mig (GMAW) machine in the right hands and the right prep will do this job, the only downfall is D/C, and NO DOWNHILL welds. As far as stick(SMAW) I would not use 6010/11 because it is a brittle rod and only rated at 60k unlike 7018, which can be run as smooth and as nice as a mig weld and rated at 70k(first 2 numbers= strength). 3/32 7018 would be more than enough for this job and look very good too(nice shiny bead). Another option would be a TIG, many of these machines are very portable, (Miller Maxster,Lincoln Invertec, Thermal Dyn) all have 140-200 amp machines that are about the size of a small cooler... and are also very capable of the task at hand... Some of you really need to do a little more research about welding esp, SMAW before commenting or offering advice, and yes I am also certified.

 

I'm not certified, but am certifiable. A friend spent his life working on boilers (think really hot, high pressure vessels) and was adament about using stick welding on car frames due to flex. He claims the stick weld, compared to a wire feed, is a softer weld that would allow flexing without cracking.

 

Boy, surely is a lot of hot air going on here. Call me a skeptic. No, call me an optimist. In all the air, nobody seems to have proposed that anybody post or dig up the actual facts of "weld strength" vs "voltage". I suspect that in the final analysis, given clean surfaces, same thicknesses, etc., etc., that microscopically and after placing test pieces in a tension "test to failure" machine, the any differences probably could not be measured.

And besides, the original poster did not post any pictures to indicate exactly WHAT is being welded. If he is ADDING any additional framing materials, all he is doing is DISTRIBUTING the stresses to new parts of the frame that weren't there to begin with, making the frame stronger no matter how crappy the welds are. But that's just me.

And by the way, I LOVE my little chinese welder. (though I really hate that so much manufacturing has been driven overseas by our government policies and taxes).

 

I am glad I don't know anything about welding or else this thread would really piss me off.

If the welder is rated at 1/4" and the part being welded is 1/4" or less it will be fine assuming the person operating the damn thing knows what he is doing.

The issue with those small welding power sources is duty cycle. Duty cycle really doesn't change anything with regards to weld quality.

Duty cycle is a function of arc on verses time. i.e. a machine rated at 10% duty cycle means that it can weld for ONE minute out of TEN. After that first minute it needs to cool for 9 minutes. This is the problem with the smaller machines, it takes to long to weld with them when they are welding on 1/4" or whatever their max capacity is.

With an average travel speed of 12 inches per minute you can do the math. Say there is a total of 12 feet of welding. That little 110v machine will take two hours to weld that twelve feet due to duty cycle. This means if the guy is charging by the hour your cost goes up. If you have a machine with 100% duty cycle the 12 feet of welding would take 12 minutes (yeah I know there are other factors but I am keeping it simple with arc on time) thereby saving you some dough.

GMAW using ER70s or hard wire can use all three transfer modes, which are...

short circuit (what you might think of as cold as the wire dips into the weld pool in order to make a deposit thereby cooling the weld pool. However it is a sufficient transfer mode for most chassis work)

Globular whereby there are large globs that fall from the electrode (I am keeping this simple)

Spray transfer. This is not wire specific but voltage, amperage and shielding gas specific. You can spray with ER70s wire all day long.

Making a bevel does not increase weld penetration. Weld penetration is a function of volts, amps and shielding gas.

Stick welding or SMAW is a fine process for certain applications but GMAW can do the same job for our purposes. Stick welding DOES NOT = MORE PENETRATION and I hope to never read that it does here on the hamb ever again, jesus!

Stick welding is great if you are welding outside, it can also be used inside. However I would never use it if I had a MIG or TIG set up while doing and indoor job. It is inefficient can cause slag inclusions, has little benefit over GMAW or GTAW for chassis work being done in a shop. It has a place for sure but why in the hell would you use it unless you just didn't have the money for a decent MIG set up?

Okay, I am now done bitching.

 

Good lord man learn something and stop it already.

Weldor, give us a break. I have been a professional Welder my whole life. A welder is the man who does the work, a welding power source is the machine.

As a professional I get a kick out of all the guys who said no way to the 110 volt Mig.

I have a 110 volt mig ,a Miller 135 and I can assure you that in my hands it would weld that MII in place with welds that would pass any kind of test you ever wanted to put them through.

We are not talking thick metal here.

 

I have had a saying for many years, which applies to welders, guitars, or any tool you can name: ... it ain't what you got, it's what you can DO with what you've got.
As Blue One said....

 

Some really good thoughts and the only part I am quoting here has to do with duty cycle. And I agree with you , BUT on the typical Mustang II crossmember, You usually have small section to weld at a time. On each end there are usually around 3-4 " sections of Boxed square tubing to be welded to the frame. In most cases you will weld a section, then re-position and weld the next, again, most of these are 3-4 inches long. The upper spring perch "Hats" might be more like 6" or so long. So that being the case, a 20% duty cycle, like on the smallest Miller machine, doing these short sections at a time should not really cause any time delays for the welder. Duty cycle is figured for continuous welding and it goes up quite a bit doing small sections at a time and then a short wait, as it is not heating up the machine the same. So I don't think it would really be an issue here.