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[EMD]

Can anyone recommend somewhere that will supply steel offcuts , just need some to start my welding practising . Box section offcuts ect  Prices on egay are for new steel lengths and extortionate just for a 6ft length   

[EMD]

No worries , i found a stock pile of box section locally 

[EMD]

Well i have an omega rear door to practice my welds on ,
going to angle grind some squares out of door an see if i can weld
them back in seamlessly 

[Webby the Bear]

I don't know how much welding you've done Steve but trying in a car door (exactly as I did) is a bad idea. It's too thin. And I struggle on thin stuff even now.

Go to J E Matthews in Northampton and spend £20 and they'll give you a big bag of steel to practise on. Assuming this is MIG then start with 3mm

 

[EMD]

I don't know how much welding you've done Steve but trying in a car door (exactly as I did) is a bad idea. It's too thin. And I struggle on thin stuff even now.

Go to J E Matthews in Northampton and spend £20 and they'll give you a big bag of steel to practise on. Assuming this is MIG then start with 3mm

 

None 

Got to pick up some box section in the week for practising on too . Its arc , you should have been able to weld the door with mig surely  I know arc's not really for bodywork but it is possible with correct settings and rods , i bought it for making stuff out of box section mainly and thicker steel 

[Webby the Bear]

I don't know how much welding you've done Steve but trying in a car door (exactly as I did) is a bad idea. It's too thin. And I struggle on thin stuff even now.

Go to J E Matthews in Northampton and spend £20 and they'll give you a big bag of steel to practise on. Assuming this is MIG then start with 3mm

 

None 

Got to pick up some box section in the week for practising on too . Its arc , you should have been able to weld the door with mig surely  I know arc's not really for bodywork but it is possible with correct settings and rods , i bought it for making stuff out of box section mainly and thicker steel 

Erm, no! Lol  the problem is that there's so many people on all sorts of forums (referring to welding forums, not OOF before someone throws their toys out) who make out they're billy big shit and say stuff like 'you'll pick up MIG and be welding like a pro in 30 minutes'. Well I can tell ya, perhaps there are people like that but after 6 months of welding most days I was just getting to grips with it.

Even now I still can't weld thin car body stuff (the stuff is about 0.6mm). I welded some parts of a Nissan micra and it looked shit.

As for doing arc/stick welding on car bodywork . . . I've never seen it done. Usually that's reserved fir the thick stuff or so I thought. Though perhaps it's possible? No idea.

Post up the pics of your attempts mate and hopefully they'll look better than my chicken shit attempts when I first started! 

Ps I still weld but lately it's only been bearing races (weld them up and knock them out with a hammer) that's good fun dos you can turn the settings to max and put loooooads of heat through it

[deviator]

A lot of it is down to the teacher, the setup of the welder, the materials and the preparation.

My first (& only to date) weld was a repair on the end of a chassis leg of a MX5. I am talking about 3 x 4 inch piece of plate. With the right setup and teaching, I went from crap to acceptable in that one repair piece. Granted, if I picked up a torch now, I'd be making the same mistakes I did then, wrong angle, not tack then filling etc; Thick stuff is always easier to weld, 3/4mm wall will pretty much allow you to keep a constant weld in one. You need to look at all the different types of weld as well. By that I mean plug, seam are two examples I am aware of.

[Webby the Bear]

Yep exactly that. I'm clearly just a slow learner 

You got butt welds, flat, horizontal, overhead etc. so many different things and the thing about it is even if you do get a quality weld. . . You still might not have the penetration which is key especially if welding something critical. I personally would never weld anything critical (I.e. Jack stands as I'm know I'm not that good lol

[EMD]

Only critical thing ill be welding is a shoe rack for now 

Ive studied the online vids and seems you can weld anything with any welder given experience  Think im right in saying if you can stick weld then mig weld is easier ... im use to seeing how its done when years ago my mk5 cortina was welded up most weeks from a mechanic friend 

[deviator]

The FiL is currently welding the garage door frame for me. He's a retired mechanic/body repairer and welder (peace work). I hope to learn a lot from him, because he has been there and done that. Currently the garage door frame is being built out of 2x4 inch 3mm wall box section in a H around the door. With a frame above the door to taken 8x4ft sheets and other security measures to make sure the door is as good as I, sorry he can make it.

I get the off cuts 

[YZ250]

Well i have an omega rear door to practice my welds on ,
going to angle grind some squares out of door an see if i can weld
them back in seamlessly 

If you are learning to weld, in any shape or form, use clean unpainted metal with a good clean earth point, otherwise it will frustrate the hell out of you when you get bad results.
It's all about controlling the pooling, regardless of what weld method you are using. Arc is better suited to angle iron/box section (cleaned off in area of weld). Only thing to control with Arc is the heat setting so relatively straight-forward, but when you are new to it the rod is long and awkward, your hand will shake and you will have the desire to waggle the stick all over the place.  Get the heat right for the material thickness , a steady hand, a good clean clamping point, a crisp constant crackle and you will be sorted.  After twenty odd years of welding on a daily basis (doing a different job now), if it doesn't sound right, it ain't welding right. 
Dirty metal can make a good welder look poor, but then again a good welder would know this.

Good luck, you'll get there eventually. 

[EMD]

Well i have an omega rear door to practice my welds on ,
going to angle grind some squares out of door an see if i can weld
them back in seamlessly 

If you are learning to weld, in any shape or form, use clean unpainted metal with a good clean earth point, otherwise it will frustrate the hell out of you when you get bad results.
It's all about controlling the pooling, regardless of what weld method you are using. Arc is better suited to angle iron/box section (cleaned off in area of weld). Only thing to control with Arc is the heat setting so relatively straight-forward, but when you are new to it the rod is long and awkward, your hand will shake and you will have the desire to waggle the stick all over the place.  Get the heat right for the material thickness , a steady hand, a good clean clamping point, a crisp constant crackle and you will be sorted.  After twenty odd years of welding on a daily basis (doing a different job now), if it doesn't sound right, it ain't welding right. 
Dirty metal can make a good welder look poor, but then again a good welder would know this.

Good luck, you'll get there eventually. 

Thats what i did take note of mate  Crackle , thats a good tip too .


Webbythewelder

Post up the pics of your attempts mate and hopefully they'll look better than my chicken shit attempts when I first started! 

Yes i mite even make a metal bear 

[Marks DTM Calib]

Arc is quite a different technique to MIG, far more to fiddle with on the MIG 

[EMD]

Arc is quite a different technique to MIG, far more to fiddle with on the MIG 

Will do a bit of stick testing on Wednesday . There's a mig welder going for 99p  but its been stored a few years so wonder if its any good  More stuff to go wrong on a mig welder , feed wheel , wire lead , tips and shrouds , flux core , gas gasless ... think i remember webby saying the little gas bottles dont last long so maybe go for flux core gasless mig which i think this one is

[Marks DTM Calib]

No point in going for a flux cored one, you might as well use stick!