want to learn a bit and then work on a few rust patches on my car, anyone have any advice! was thinking either buying a mig or tig thingy and just playing around, or going to a welding community education, or doing a beginners NZQA night school term at unitec
whats the best way!
drew2009,
May 9, 8:27pm
Any way. the more welding you do the better you get. Start with simple flat position joins and work your way up to vertical, overhead, ect. I can weld in any position with whatever process with my left or right hand. Night school courses at polytech are good, You have to decide really if you want to go for the Fitter/Welder course and apprenticeship. or just be a ticketed welder.
whqqsh,
May 10, 3:42am
a tech course isnt a bad idea, as a turner my welding experience wasnt too great (as stated before the more you do the better you get) but I didnt get a lot of welding time on the job even though my welding was average. Since then Ive done a basic maintenance welding course then did the advanced maint welding course as well to get more mig/tig knowledge. Great stuff, it gives you the correct methods & theory to back it up rather than poking around for ages doing what looks right. Since then Ive had a few jobs where Ive been the recognised welder in a shop (which means yet more experience), got my own mig havent looked back.
skiff1,
May 10, 1:58pm
if you want to learn to weld, rusty sheetmetal is the worst place to start. You will have completely buggered the car before you learn the key- sheet metal is rubbish to weld unless you have a nice TiG welder. Buy a 6 meter length of 50x10 mm plain black flat bar. cut it into 100 peices and weld it back together. Cut it up again and weld it together in vertical up position. at the end you will know enough for someone else to spend a bit of time showing you some finer points. Get a good auto darkening helmet as you will learn heaps faster not mucking around in the dark. good luck as it is good fun when you get it going well
h.e,
May 10, 3:58pm
forget the tig its not for beginners,if you want to learn to weld start with arc welder.dont bother with the mig until you can arc weld.it will teach you the basics correctly arc lengh, speed, rod angle etc.the problem with learning on the mig is you will put down great looking welds fairly quickly but lack of penetration is very likely.the amount of failed welds i have seen done with the mig is plenty,great looking weld but only stuck to one of the parent metals.
skiff1,
May 10, 4:00pm
yep all of the above
whqqsh,
May 10, 7:10pm
Tig is far more akin to gas than anything else & among the easiestIMO, mig is point & shoot but pretty doesnt always mean good like most self taught guys think & the methods for all are quite different
skiff1,
May 10, 8:04pm
yes much like gas welding, no not easy
phalanax,
May 11, 8:22am
Evening tech course tig .waste of time learning arc unless you wanna build a skyscraper.lol.migs still to grunty for car panels unless the metals near new.even then it can make a bigger hole than the one you already have if your settings arent right or if you hit a contaminated area. Tigsteel/stainless is not as hard to learn as some posters say.alloy tigs tricky but tig steels about the same as oxy/ace.Unitecs good but i think they only do arc and mig evening. Auckland city techs better as i think they specifically run Tig evening.however unitech had an instructor Peter Ramsey i think.best welder ive ever seen.wonder if hes still their.
Since the public registrations are closed, you must have an invite from a current member to be able to register and post in this thread.
Have an account? Login here.