weird welding?!?!
 

Guys
Looking for a bit of advice, I gave my beloved welder an early christmas pressie as I haven't used her for a while and treated her to new shroud, nozzle, wire and tank of CO2/Argon

Ran a few beads with power set at 4 (range 1-6) and speed at 3 (range 1-10) and got OK results, played with power and speed and got a decent penetration bead (see attached weld 1)

I then used the same set up and ran a bead on a join and got horrible holey welds (see attached, weld 2)?!?!? any ideas/suggestions as to what's gone wrong here?:confused: :confused:

Apologies for the poor quality pics off the BB

Rapid

http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...0Car/weld1.jpg
http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...0Car/weld2.jpg

My welds look like that when I forget to turn my welding gas on :)

looks like a weld over paint or some sort of contamination, is the steel thinner in the joins ie. ground down?

Skov
welding gas was on for both pics no change made to regulator

Locky
yes the steel is thinner as it's ground at an angle

maybe I'll run a few more beads on a sample piece of steel and have a play with the wire feed settings

Didnt weld in a different part of your garage, where it is windier and its blowing away the gas?

yes I did actually... I shifted location so that could have been the issue, didn't think of that :o

cheers locky

No shielding gas
 

Definately looks like a loss of shielding gas to me.

Would have needed to be quite draughty to have a total loss of shielding gas, perhaps you need to up the gas flow rate a little ;)

Definately make sure that you protect the welding area from draughts tho.

Can't tell by the picture but if that is 3mm material being welded, personaly I would up the welding current up a little ( assuming you are using a 150 amp mig ) :)

found out the problem!!!! despite the fact that I had a brand new tank and only used it for 45mins just disconnected the tube to the welder and found the tank was empty!!!! absolutely crazy! I know they are disposable but 45min is a joke... best get onto the supplier me thinks!

Thanks for the help guys

Rapid

No probs

thanks for that, i now know the small bottle of argon isnt going to last long..... yell.co for gas suppliers here i come

I think I read somewhere you only get 6 - 10 minutes of continuous welding out of those little disposable bottles!