Start welding your car!
Some people expressed an interest in welding their cars but the whole subject may seem a little off putting. I thought a little post on choosing a welding machine and getting started will hopefully encourage people to get stuck in and have a go.
First up, the welding machine it self…. You don’t need to spend hundreds on a welder but you should spend wisely. Avoid gasless machines, they aren’t worth the hassle. Also steer clear of ones that have a rocker switch to change the amps, min/max or high/low etc. When using a higher current you need a faster wire speed but the preset adjustment doesn’t account for welding up side down under a car. You want a machine that allows you to fine tune your settings.
What NOT to buy!
So what should you buy? Without getting deep in to the technicals, 150-200 amps would be perfect for a home mechanic. It produces more than enough amps and there are two very good reasons for that: firstly, if you are using it at or close to it’s maximum you will need to keep stopping to let it cool down, so only using 70% of it’s duty cycle allows you to keep on going; secondly, once you have a welder you will soon find many jobs to do with it, so being able to weld some 6mm plate to make a bracket or what ever is a bonus! Look for machines that allow you to adjust amps and wire speed, spot timer is not so crucial but most come with that now anyway, and also with a eurotorch. Something like this Supermig 180 from Sealey would be great:
To practice welding car panels, get some car panels! Go to a local bodyshop or scrap yard and get an old wing and start welding on it. Obviously you’ll need to grind the paint off first and surface preparation is something for another article but the sooner you get doing it the sooner you’ll be able to start fixing your car. Usually inside the cover of the machine or in the user manual it should have a table for the settings for various thicknesses of steel. Start with these and adjust as needed. Experiment with turning the wire speed up and down and also the current. Don’t adjust these settings with the trigger pulled, you can damage the machine.
The key is practice practice practice (and maybe watch videos and ask loads of questions!). If people find this helpful I can write more articles covering more of this subject.
Comments
you forgot to mention that you need to disconnect the battery before welding anything on the car
I did indeed, a very important point! My intention at the start was to include actually welding the car in this piece as well but I felt it had gotten long enough as it was so I knida cut it short.
I’m a bit of a dummy in that regard… i am able to do some critical welds to hold the piece together but i have no idea what i’m doing and even a good weld is an accident for me.
Please talk through, what am i looking at in the “high volts” and “high wire speed” section? So far i know that volts are high, when i blow a hole in the steel and high wire speed, when it can’t melt away as fast as new wire is coming on….
That is the general grasp yes. A good way to do it is to do a test piece using an unneeded part of the panel you are going to weld (an off-cut basically!) and start off with the welding machine manufacturer’s recommended setting for the thickness of material, wire thickness and weld position. You then check this for acceptable penetration, other tests if required, and then adjust settings as needed. In reality, set the welder to what you think is about right, do a test and turn it up or down as needed. The best thing is to get some scrap metal and practice.
More articles on this? Yes please! Would be very much appreciated!
I will see what I can do!
Very interesting post! Have done some welding and it is quite fun when you are starting to get the hang of it. So keep these posts coming :)
Thank you. It is the sort of thing you need to stick at and suddenly it clicks!