When I thought about this project I really thought that getting to grips with welding would be down to my abilities and practice. There is a part of me that wants to blame the welder but I can't, it is just my lack of experience and learning what I need in order to weld successfully.
Just for anyone reading this who is keen to do a restoration project and has, like me, never welded before, find someone who has and get them to tell you every tool that you need and every little tip that they can show you. Then persuade the guy to spend as much time as they can with you, showing you what to do.
It has taken me literally months to get things sorted, but that is part of learning. So I guess I will share with you the hurdles that I have been through so far:
- Friend lent me MIG welder and two gas bottles
- Bought welding mask, gloves
- Start to practice
- Not arcing - this was caused by old wire that had oxidised
- Was told to buy 0.8 wire to replace it
- Bought 0.8 wire and new tips and shroud to go with it
- New tips and shroud didn't turn up from ebay seller
- Had to reorder tips
- New tips were wrong type, but found old tip worked ok
- Welding buddy set up welder and found I could weld in a straight line!
- Ran out of gas of first bottle
- Then weather got colder and wire stopped feeding ok.
- Found out the tip was 0.6 and the hole shrank in the cold making wire feed slow
- Ordered new 0.8 tips
- Tried out new tips all seemed ok, good clean welds
- Had a go at first weld on the chassis and immediately blew a hole in the metal
- Welding buddy came back and reset the welder for me and told me to order some aluminium to use as a backing plate to help stop blow through during butt welds
- Ordered aluminium from ebay
- Tested weld on test butt weld and all went well
- Tried out on chassis again...
- ran out of gas on second bottle
- no more gas!!
So I have learned so much in my restoration journey, which was the plan so I am happy really.
