I have been busy over the past few days welding up a gate and fence from 35mm and 50mm gal SHS. That's just for the side of my house, spanning the 2.5m between the house and the boundary. I've been using my old arc welder.
Everything went reasonably well until this afternoon when I tried to weld on the gate hinges. I bought these
http://ift.tt/1BnnLXV
cheap Chinese hinges, not because I like them but because I couldn't find the proper Downee ones locally. I welded outside with the gate set up on the posts, everything clamped in place.
Anyway, I could not succeed in getting any good welds of these hinges onto the SHS tube. A lot of slag inclusions in the metal, and very poor adhesion. Current too low? Well, I bumped it up (not that much) but the hinges began to burn away and drip off. Current shouldn't have been that far out anyway. Try as I could, these were the worst welds I've ever done - about as bad as when I first began welding and was still trying to weld scrap together. I'm not a great welder, but I can get passably good results most times. Its a bit like my pool game at the pub I reckon - 5% brilliant, 10% sh7t, the rest more or less average.
When I tried opening the gate after all the bad welding, the hinges had really stiffened up. As I opened the gate, the bottom hinge just peeled off. Ok, tried again, ground all that off, redid it, same cr#ap welds, same poor adhesion. Total defeat. I can do most things myself, maybe not perfect but always good enough. I'm dejected.
What is going wrong? My borderline skill level finally found its limits? Something about Chinese metal? Somebody stole my mojo????
Everything went reasonably well until this afternoon when I tried to weld on the gate hinges. I bought these
http://ift.tt/1BnnLXV
cheap Chinese hinges, not because I like them but because I couldn't find the proper Downee ones locally. I welded outside with the gate set up on the posts, everything clamped in place.
Anyway, I could not succeed in getting any good welds of these hinges onto the SHS tube. A lot of slag inclusions in the metal, and very poor adhesion. Current too low? Well, I bumped it up (not that much) but the hinges began to burn away and drip off. Current shouldn't have been that far out anyway. Try as I could, these were the worst welds I've ever done - about as bad as when I first began welding and was still trying to weld scrap together. I'm not a great welder, but I can get passably good results most times. Its a bit like my pool game at the pub I reckon - 5% brilliant, 10% sh7t, the rest more or less average.
When I tried opening the gate after all the bad welding, the hinges had really stiffened up. As I opened the gate, the bottom hinge just peeled off. Ok, tried again, ground all that off, redid it, same cr#ap welds, same poor adhesion. Total defeat. I can do most things myself, maybe not perfect but always good enough. I'm dejected.
What is going wrong? My borderline skill level finally found its limits? Something about Chinese metal? Somebody stole my mojo????
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