hiring a welder to give me an intro/demo to welding

General
#1

I’m planning to hire a welder to show up at Hive13 and show me a basic intro to MIG setup / welding on Saturday morning Jan 21st.

I’m going to buy

  • a pair of welding gloves and a welding mask.
  • A couple of pieces of plywood propped up on edge will block out the glare for others at Hive13.
  • I’ll set up some sort of metal workbench for us to practice on.
  • We will need welding rods.
  • I have a reciprocating saw and an angle grinder.
  • Is there any scrap steel laying around I could practice on?

If a few others would like to join and split the pay for the welder that would be great. Ventilation might be an issue.

And where at Hive13 is the MIG welder?
Brent

#2

This is a great plan, thanks for moving it forward!

The MIG welder is in the dirty room on a cart - easy to move around.

The 220V wall socket for it is on the wall right behind the Galileo’s Finger display.

We do have at least 1 welding mask already, but more would be good. Probably the most important thing we need is welding curtains / shields / mats to keep from burning the place down.

#3

You won't need rod with a MIG. It's a wire-fed welder. You'll need
MIG wire and argon gas. I don't know if the tank we have is very full
or not. I don't know how much if any wire we have on the spool.
These are things you should check.

It probably would be a good idea to confine the welder to an area with
a concrete floor.

-DaveB

#4

The tank was full/new when the welder was delivered. My contact has been busy so I’m glad to see this move forward!

#5

the overfused 220v with one of the fuses removed that is being fed by 14ga?

i'd keep an eye on the temp of the feed line if you're gonna run it
for a while.

#6

I would suggest you get him to start you with stick welding. I donated my welding helmet to the Hive, so we have two now, but it needs a battery (AAA) if you want to make use of the auto-darkening.

Might I suggest you pick up a welding jacket while you’re out. I bought mine at http://www.weldcobuildco.com/, I bought my mask at Harbor Freight. Besides a few pairs of gloves (leather garden gloves were used for MIG / TIG), I also had a pair of welding pliers, brass brush, a Sharpie, and a soapstone marker (for marking dark metal) as part of my welding kit. These are the things we had to get for the welding classes I took.

The classes covered stick, TIG / MIG, and brazing. We started with stick and then moved to TIG. Stick taught us the basics of maintaining a puddle and creating a solid join. We welded small pieces (4x6) of metal in different configurations to learn welding vertically, overlapping, etc. MIG was barely touched on. (Here’s the gun, here’s what can jam, etc.)

Oh, and we had an area for quenching, so you may want to get a bucket or something to stick pieces in (if you go with stick or TIG).

That’s all I remember off the top of my head.
tif

#7

Whoa, if we have two functioning helmets, I can teach you how to weld. Using a mig welder is the easiest style of welding. You don’t need any kind of crazy gear unless your going to be under what your welding. There is plenty of scrap steel around to practice on. Just let me know what night you’ll be down there…

Rick