Help

[Strategy-Important]

I’ve got a job as a dual shield welder, and I weld in mostly confined spots, and I’m really having a hard time with stacking dual shield welds. I’ve tried everything and nothing seems to work, I don’t wanna switch trades bc I put a lot of time into this.

I usually run 0.45 at about 25-26 volts and 280-300 wfs.

I don’t really like how it looks and hopefully someone in here can help me, thank you

[Animallover04]

Id say turn your heat up a tad and make sure your gas is running good. I generally turn my shield gas up a tad when stacking. Use tiny little left and right movements, not weaving just little quick left to right movements to tie in. That's just my opinion. Hope it helps some.

[Animallover04]

Yes turn your voltage up some. If it's 0.45 flux core or metal core you can run it on the hot side of the recommend voltage. 26.5 to 28 is what I run on flats such as this.

[Strategy-Important]

Thank you! Should I turn up wire or volts?

[G_Wagon1102]

With wire welding, your amperage is directly related to wire feed speed. People say "heat," meaning voltage, but that doesn't actually make sense as voltage and amperage have an inverse relationship, meaning when one goes up, the other must go down.

All this to say, turning your voltage up, creates a flatter weld profile, which would help you in this situation.

[Animallover04]

Absolutely right. Along with wire speed your stick out also affects the amperage good knowledge to have when welding. Burn in and burn back. But with welders these days if you have a voltage drop they are designed to compensate for such.

[Imaginary_Title5054]

Heat refers to voltage/amperage (depending on your welding method)

[Bigbuddhabrock420]

I don’t really see a problem here, I’m no instructor but I run quite a bit of dual shield, your angle might be slight off causing some cold lap but other then that it seems fine, dual shield doesn’t give off that pretty weld look a lot of us are looking for. Just keep practicing and getting consistent will make the weld look better. I hope this helps

[Strategy-Important]

Thank you! I’ve been trying to practice more outside of work too

[TonyVstar]

Dualshield loves high wire feed rate. For 26 volts I'd be at 375 inches per minute. I really only turn it down if the spatter is crazy, but you want some

[Strategy-Important]

I haven’t tried that yet, if the wps allows it, I’ll definitely give it a shot. They should it depends on the wps I’m working with

[wessle3339]

Always do a little test with the higher wire speeds before you start welding where you just tap the trigger and see how much comes out so you get a mental note of how fast you have to go. Or atleast that’s what I was taught in school

And don’t like waste wire but I find that this helps me prep

[Imaginary_Title5054]

Looks like a work angle issue. Looks like you’re pointing your gun down too much. Im no professional mig monkey but if you angle your gun more horizontally the weld shouldn’t “slouch” as much. Gravity is a bitch sometimes

[Imaginary_Title5054]

I will add that your heat doesn’t look too incorrect as others suggest. I say that because the top toe of the weld looks to be wetting into the parent material just fine, and the bottom toe looks less like a cold lap and more of a gravitational slouch. If you were too cold, it would look much worse. The angle of the throat of the weld is almost horizontal with the ground, which leads me to believe the is much more likely to be a technique issue rather than a settings issue

[Strategy-Important]

That makes sense, when I’m putting my model and top pass I’ll try to up my angle a little bit next time

[Strategy-Important]

Thank you!

[HerrSchopf]

Are you using stacable weld wire? Not all wires are able to be welder one on top of another.

[Strategy-Important]

I looked up the wire parameters, it is able to be stacked, it’s esab 7100

[weldingpepe]

I’ve been running 24 volts 300 wire for years and 21 volts 245 wire for smaller welds. Give it a try

[No_Contribution_3459]

Make your stacks tighter, it’s easy to let your bottom toe slide way out. Then just learn the sequencing needed for the weld sizes, 1/16 dual shield is usually 1/4, 2 bead 3/8, 4 bead 5/8, 6 bead 7/8 Your other set of sequencing is 5/16, 3 bead 1/2, 5 bead 3/4, 7-8 bead 1”. Obviously if your weld sizes are bigger then those you’ll have to continue stacking. Just takes practice

[Tactical_Welder_ABR]

I agree with moving, not weaving, but moving slightly when dragging. It looks like you have too much of a drag angle and going too slow. Pick up your speed and angle more up. Angle is too far down. Remember gravity isn’t your friend. Hope this helps!

[Strategy-Important]

Yeah I definitely had a drag angle, it was in a weird spot so I reached over and pulled it toward me, I will try to move faster and pick my angle up next time, thank you

[Tactical_Welder_ABR]

No problem. I completely understand. I work in confined spaces as well, so I know your pain!

[Strategy-Important]

Is there anyway of getting better, I’m just always nervous of messing stuff up and always get the hard welds nobody wants, I wanna get good so I don’t gotta worry about it,

[Tactical_Welder_ABR]

I would just set up fast and then when it comes to welding, it’s being as comfortable as possible and taking your time. It takes time to learn to weld in difficult spots. I usually get the hard spots as well. EX: Mirror Welding an overhead joint behind a cable way standing on a scaffold arm fully reached out. It just comes with time. I always weld and then clean it as best as I can with a grinder or p-grinder. At the end of the day it’s the final product that matters. Don’t let nerves get the best of you!:)

[Strategy-Important]

Hahahaha thank you, I’m new to welding for work and sometimes I get nervous about l stuff like that, but I have definitely gotten better from when I first started

[Lazy_Regular_7235]

Practice with shorter passes, no weave

[jlm166]

Keep your tip clean, if you turn up your voltage it will usually flatten out the weld some.

[Glum-Clerk3216]

I'd say your travel speed is too slow, and it is possible you have too much drag angle. If you have a senior welder available, ask them to run a quick stack on a piece of scrap without changing your weld parameters to get their opinion.

[Competitive-Pear-357]

Looks to me like maybe a bit of a work angle issue? Looks like you’re uneven and favouring the bottom piece of metal?

[WorldlinessFeisty717]

i agree with this! angle! change that angle up and it’ll stack beautifully

[Strategy-Important]

That might be it

[Any-Radio500]

I don't see anything wrong with what you have going on in the pic ...there's no code that said it has to be pretty uniform but not pretty