It’s no secret that there generally is a difference in weld quality, depending on the operator. You may blame the equipment all you want. But towards the end of the day, a great welder can get clean, smooth results even from crappy equipment. Here’s a few ideas to enable you to get on the road to welding nirvana.

Suggestion 1: Use An Auto Darkening Helmet

Do you really like grinding? All those sparks, discs and hard work? Didn’t think so. Well getting a good auto darkening headgear can definitely decrease the degree of grinding you want to do. That minute between beginning welding and your flip down helmet coming to position, or heaven forbid, you get your hand held mask in place, can have you travelling off your intended welding route. And that means grinding, lots of grinding. Couple to this the point that auto darkening helmets have really dropped in price during the last couple of years and you’d be insane to not get one.

Tip 2: Two Hands Can Beat One

Given that you’ve regained the use of both hands, assuming you had been using a hand held mask, you’ll place that added paw to good use. I know exactly what you’re thinking, real men use one hand. But a pair of hands will be steadier, thus producing cleaner, high quality welds. You can also use one arm steadied against piece being welded to guide the neck of the torch. This isn’t a position you can keep for very long periods since it becomes much too hot, but in short bursts it truely does work nicely.

Suggestion 3: Good Prep Leads To Excellent Welds

Don’t forget your mother telling you to wash your hands before dinner? The same thing goes is true with regard to welding. Not necessarily the washing hands bit, but the cleaning upfront. To get a great weld to happen you need the surface of both pieces to be corrosion free and clean. This not merely helps make the welding less complicated, it genuinely increases the weld. Unclean areas result in contaminants getting into the weld and weakening it. But don’t just stop at cleaning the weld area, be sure you clear the clamp position as well. You may use an angle grinder to easily clear away almost all corrosion, dirt as well as paint. In harder to get spots you may need to make use of a dremmel.

Suggestion 4: Make Sure Your Ground Clamp Is Solid

As pointed out cleaning your ground clamp location is essential. The reason why? Just because a very poor ground is probably the most frequent problems student welders have and often don’t realise. If you ever haven’t got a superb ground you’re never going to obtain a good weld. Except for having a shiny clean surface to make contact with to, you want to provide some consideration on the actual ground clamp alone. Most of the more recent types tend to be thin and covered in less copper than you’d get in a brand new penny: very little. If your rig is new and your clamp looks flaccid and puny, you should think about replacing it with a clamp off an older unit. In older days clamps were large copper affairs which could be depended on to conduct. Get hold of these and your welding will be the much better for this.

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