HOW TO WELD
WELDING BASICS
Are you learning how to weld? Then you are at the right place! Read on and learn the welding basics and some important tips to improve your welding skills.
PRACTICE
The number one tip for welding is to remember that everyone has to start out somewhere. It takes time and practise to get the skills down pat. One of the simplest ways to get your skill up is to acknowledge your welding faults, cut them out, and restart them again later. Also, another form of practice that is useful is to ensure you are test welding before you weld only your main work piece. With time you will learn how your welder reacts to your actions and you will get better!
Although practising a lot is the number one tip to improve your welding skills, there are a few other factors that play an important role when learning how to weld.
WELDING SPEED
This is one of the main things you will learn as you practice. What speed you should apply and how it affects your welding effort. It’s a pretty straight forward concept. If you rush, you can expect thin, weak welds, slow it down! If you’re going to slow, you can expect splattering and a wide thick convex weld, speed it up! You’ll get it right once you learn the intricacies of your welding machine.
POSITION
Without getting to in-depth into this topic, the way you hold your welder is paramount to a successful weld. Research, your particular welding method, and how you should hold your apparatus to get a successful weld. Ensure you practise your movement over your welding piece with the welder turned off to get a good idea of what movements and positioning you will need to perform.
OTHER
As mentioned earlier, test welding while you’re still new is very important, in particular, when you are using a MIG welder, getting the right wire speed / voltage / amp settings can be tricky when you’re first starting out. But if you keep at it, you start to learn what to expect from your changes to these settings. Another great tip, and this is something you may get into the habit of, is to tack your work pieces together to start off with, and then proceed to perform your weld. This will help prevent warping, and to ensure that your work pieces stay in place when you begin welding!