Expert welders - advice please

Colorado4x4

Colorado4x4

Active Member
Greetings,

I think we have some experienced welders here. I am trying to get better with my welds. A buddy of mine has a Lexus GX and he ordered a weld-together bumper from some offroad shop and I am going to weld it up for him. It is 3/16" plate steel that is CNC bent & cut so it should be a pretty easy fit up and shouldn't be too bad of a job to put together. I'm running a Hobart Handler 140 with 0.030" solid wire and 75/25 gas. Most of the bumper is outside open corner joints and inside fillet welds. I ran a couple beads on some coupons and did a cut and etch to check penetration on them and I thought I had a perfect fit up with no open gap. I was puzzled by the results a little bit because it looks like the fit up overlapped a little bit, or did the top plate pull in as I was welding?

Is this good enough penetration? I might just go with a straight pull or push instead of whip and pause. Any thoughts?



IMG-9230.jpgOpen corner cut etch.JPG
834E9D70-9B7D-4838-B198-2B8A1E178283.jpeg
 
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I'm an internet welder and not an expert, but judging by the machine you are running and given the thickness of your material I'd say you're pushing it's capacity. It looks like your weld is just sitting on top of the plate. A couple options would be to preheat the material in an oven or try .30 Flux core. I know it's not pretty you'll get more penetration on thicker stuff. Go to weldingtipsandtricks.com. That guy is good and explains a lot more than I can.
 
jesse3638 said:
I'm an internet welder and not an expert, but judging by the machine you are running and given the thickness of your material I'd say you're pushing it's capacity. It looks like your weld is just sitting on top of the plate. A couple options would be to preheat the material in an oven or try .30 Flux core. I know it's not pretty you'll get more penetration on thicker stuff. Go to weldingtipsandtricks.com. That guy is good and explains a lot more than I can.
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Yea, it is at the upper limit of the 140 (not even on the chart for current setup for 3/16", gas & 0.30" solid wire). I think I've watched every one of Jody's videos, they're great. I might try running some flux core to see if I can get some better penetration or just go with a straight pull or push to get into the root more.

Edit: the chart on the machine has recommended settings for 3/16" with 0.030" solid wire. I think it should work. I think about welding this whole bumper up with flux core and it man I don't want to run flux core. I will run a few more beads with straight pull or push and a shorter stickout and see what happens. Any other thoughts? :p
 
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Colorado4x4 said:
Yea, it is at the upper limit of the 140 (not even on the chart for current setup for 3/16", gas & 0.30" solid wire). I think I've watched every one of Jody's videos, they're great. I might try running some flux core to see if I can get some better penetration or just go with a straight pull or push to get into the root more.

Edit: the chart on the machine has recommended settings for 3/16" with 0.030" solid wire. I think it should work. I think about welding this whole bumper up with flux core and it man I don't want to run flux core. I will run a few more beads with straight pull or push and a shorter stickout and see what happens. Any other thoughts? :p
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If it's not going to get pulled on or used heavily for recovery (D-ring tabs), and its mainly cosmetic I think you'll be ok running solid wire. I'm with you cleaning spatter and slag from Flux core could easily make that bumper less desirable. It's what I used when I welded in my gussets. Lots of wire brushing before paint.
 
Wire will pull hard unless tacked to a table with pre heat and post heat. If it going to be more of cosmetic thing and your life don’t depend on it I’d run what you have . Even pre heat with a small propane torch will help .
 
Thanks guys. I appreciate it. Honestly it kind of looks like a rickety rack bumper and my buddy only hits real easy trails. Great point about the d-ring tabs. I didn’t even think about that. I’m not sure if it has welded on d-ring tabs or if the bumper is clearanced around the stock recovery hooks. I tried pulling up instructions on the website but they weren’t available.

I will play around with technique on the open corner joint this weekend and see what I come up with. Pre-heating is a great idea too. That should really help as it was in the teens in the garage when I welded these.

I’ve welded with flux core before but since if a bitch I want this bumper to look nice and not like someone blew their Covid infected nose all over it. 😂
 
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