Had to weld a 1/2" thick full hydro bracket to a tie rod made from two 1/4" thick tubes sleeved together with my titanium 125 flux welder and a map pro torch this spring. Ran about 10 passes on each side. Held better than the dinky PSC clamp it came with that had the bolts all shear in half. Pre-heating helped a lot. Super impressed with the little HF machine.
Sounds like you’re into building off road stuff just like me 😀. A preheat and flux core wire will weld thick plate no problem. The difference between short arc and flux core penetration on 3/8th plate is pretty crazy, I tested this in a video that will be out in a few days. Keep up the solid welds, and building off road stuff 😀.
Nice comparison Greg. When I used to work in a fab shop my eyes were opened to mig with mill scale. I used to have to make hundreds of the same part which was 1/8” mild steel and for speed I would downhill a good bit of the time until I realized that some of the time I wasn’t even burning through the mill scale. The welds looked slick as hell but they weren’t holding a damn thing. Downhill is know to burn in less then the millscale just made it worse.
When I get around to doing downhill I bet that will be a huge deal with scale lol. What you described is exactly what I have seen. A long time ago I ran some downhill MiG welds on a 1/4in steel tie down/chain pocket on a side of a trailer. I hit it with a hammer to bend it a bit straighter and it broke off like I didn’t even weld it lol. The weld actually didn’t look that bad overall, vertical down is definitely not the way to go lol.
Great video and info. I guess stick with 6010 would be better for this situation. SC MIG can only go so far, it seems. We are doing SC MIG now and moving on to oxy acetylene soon. Thanks for the great info!
No problem. Have fun with the oxy fuel 😀. If you can do that you can tig, it works just like tig. No joke it is very slow to oxy fuel weld though, it makes you thankful tig exists lol.
Flux core tends to have far more penetration on material 3/16th to 1/4 than gas shielded mig. Especially with machines below 140 amp. The downside is in material thicker than 1/4 flux core wire (.035 or smaller) tends to produce porosity in the weld.
That was a pretty surprising result. I’m curious what my titanium 125 meg welder would do. I only use flux core wire and I weld on quarter inch stuff regularly. But I go in a C pattern welding. I wonder how much of a difference that would make when you move around versus a straight line weld.
So I have tested that and a video will be out soon 😀. Flux core wire has much more penetration than gas shielded mig. However you want to be cautious on “riding the puddle” or carrying too much metal. In the video where I attempt 3/8th plate the difference between straight in stringer bead and a circle e type movement at the same (about 170 amps) output was night and day. The bigger the molten pool is generally the worse the penetration is with wire processes, you want that wire hitting the root so it’s biting in. On second and 3rd passes making weaves/circle e/wider welds isn’t a issue, since you need fill and not root fusion. Edit: I did actually test the titanium 125 on 1/4in steel in a video a while back. It did have adequate penetration to safely weld 1/4in. The first pass should be done straight in and subsequent passes could be weaved. The machine can’t put down enough metal in a single pass to get penetration and enough weld to equal the thickness of the base material.
I thought so too. I was expecting far more significant results. I have been doing weld break tests and that has proven to be far more interesting and different lol.
You’re the man! I need more money for more metal to mess around with so I watch your videos so I’m ready to go when I get my hands on some scraps!
With more knowledge you will get more out of your practice, so watching videos isn’t a bad thing while you wait to get materials 😀
Had to weld a 1/2" thick full hydro bracket to a tie rod made from two 1/4" thick tubes sleeved together with my titanium 125 flux welder and a map pro torch this spring. Ran about 10 passes on each side. Held better than the dinky PSC clamp it came with that had the bolts all shear in half. Pre-heating helped a lot. Super impressed with the little HF machine.
Sounds like you’re into building off road stuff just like me 😀. A preheat and flux core wire will weld thick plate no problem. The difference between short arc and flux core penetration on 3/8th plate is pretty crazy, I tested this in a video that will be out in a few days. Keep up the solid welds, and building off road stuff 😀.
Nice comparison Greg. When I used to work in a fab shop my eyes were opened to mig with mill scale. I used to have to make hundreds of the same part which was 1/8” mild steel and for speed I would downhill a good bit of the time until I realized that some of the time I wasn’t even burning through the mill scale. The welds looked slick as hell but they weren’t holding a damn thing. Downhill is know to burn in less then the millscale just made it worse.
When I get around to doing downhill I bet that will be a huge deal with scale lol. What you described is exactly what I have seen. A long time ago I ran some downhill MiG welds on a 1/4in steel tie down/chain pocket on a side of a trailer. I hit it with a hammer to bend it a bit straighter and it broke off like I didn’t even weld it lol. The weld actually didn’t look that bad overall, vertical down is definitely not the way to go lol.
Another great test & info- Thanks!
Good evening,
that was even impressive as previous Video!
Thank you!
Great video and info. I guess stick with 6010 would be better for this situation. SC MIG can only go so far, it seems. We are doing SC MIG now and moving on to oxy acetylene soon. Thanks for the great info!
No problem. Have fun with the oxy fuel 😀. If you can do that you can tig, it works just like tig. No joke it is very slow to oxy fuel weld though, it makes you thankful tig exists lol.
Just a great video along with the preceding ones related to this topic. Missed why fluxcore would be better for thickness greater than 1/8
Flux core tends to have far more penetration on material 3/16th to 1/4 than gas shielded mig. Especially with machines below 140 amp. The downside is in material thicker than 1/4 flux core wire (.035 or smaller) tends to produce porosity in the weld.
Good info as always.
Thanks 😀
That was a pretty surprising result. I’m curious what my titanium 125 meg welder would do. I only use flux core wire and I weld on quarter inch stuff regularly. But I go in a C pattern welding. I wonder how much of a difference that would make when you move around versus a straight line weld.
So I have tested that and a video will be out soon 😀. Flux core wire has much more penetration than gas shielded mig. However you want to be cautious on “riding the puddle” or carrying too much metal. In the video where I attempt 3/8th plate the difference between straight in stringer bead and a circle e type movement at the same (about 170 amps) output was night and day. The bigger the molten pool is generally the worse the penetration is with wire processes, you want that wire hitting the root so it’s biting in. On second and 3rd passes making weaves/circle e/wider welds isn’t a issue, since you need fill and not root fusion.
Edit: I did actually test the titanium 125 on 1/4in steel in a video a while back. It did have adequate penetration to safely weld 1/4in. The first pass should be done straight in and subsequent passes could be weaved. The machine can’t put down enough metal in a single pass to get penetration and enough weld to equal the thickness of the base material.
Can you tell us at what voltage you were welding?
21.5 volts and 300-310 on WFS 👍
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Excellent Thanks!
That’s crazy, I figured the mill scale side would have been horrible…
I thought so too. I was expecting far more significant results. I have been doing weld break tests and that has proven to be far more interesting and different lol.