MIG Welding Basics For BEGINNERS!! How To Set Up Your Welder + Tips, Tricks & Techniques!!

Summary

In this introductory video on MIG welding, the host from "Make It Kustom" offers a detailed guide tailored for beginners. He starts by explaining the essential settings and techniques needed to create high-quality welds, particularly focusing on the significance of wire speed and voltage. Demonstrations include how to distinguish between inadequate and excessive wire speeds, identify proper welding sounds, and execute different welding techniques like 'whip and pause'. Besides offering tips on machine settings and maintenance, he emphasizes the importance of correct posture and technique for effective MIG welding on steel, ensuring that beginners can confidently start their welding journey.

Highlights

• Learn to achieve the perfect MIG welding sound: sizzling as bacon frying! 🥓
• Discover why the right settings matter more than specified voltage and speed – it’s about what feels right! 🎛️
• Explore the 'whip and pause' welding technique for enhanced control and quality. 🔄
• Observe common mistakes and tricks for welding in different positions. 📏
• Quickly fix wire feed issues by checking and tightening the drive rollers. ⚙️
• Experiment with various techniques to find your best signature style. 🖌️

Key Takeaways

• Always listen for the 'bacon frying' sound when welding for the right wire speed! 🥓
• Remember: your welder settings are crucial – don't just rely on voltage and wire speed; tune by ear and sight too. 🎛️
• Practice the 'whip and pause' technique for consistent, better-looking beads! 🔄
• Different positions and materials might need different settings – adapt as necessary. 📐
• Ensure your drive rollers are tight enough to avoid wire feed issues! ⚙️
• Push rather than pull your puddle when welding to ensure better penetration and fusion. 🔥
• When dealing with issues, check the basic setup first – it's often the small things. 🔍

Overview

MIG welding can be tricky for beginners, but with the right guidance and practices like tuning settings by ear, anyone can master it. The video from "Make It Kustom" stresses the importance of listening for a specific sizzling sound, akin to bacon frying, when welding. This acts as an auditory cue for the correct wire speed and helps avoid the common pitfall of relying solely on digital readouts.

Apart from sound, technique plays a significant role in the effectiveness and quality of a weld. The 'whip and pause' method, a favorite of the host, encourages a rhythmic approach to welding that enhances consistency and precision. Different welding techniques, such as creating 'C', circle, or straight patterns, cater to different tastes and project requirements, allowing for a personalized welding signature.

It's not just about technique; equipment upkeep is crucial. Beginners are reminded to check their machine's drive rollers and set the mig welder appropriately for various positions and materials. The video offers a comprehensive understanding that welding isn't just about following instructions, but embracing an art form that requires practice, adaptation, and a dash of creativity.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to MIG Welding The chapter titled 'Introduction to MIG Welding' begins with a welcoming message to the audience, with the host expressing gratitude for watching the video. The focus of the chapter is on understanding the basics of MIG welding, emphasizing its importance for beginners. Key aspects covered include machine setup, recognizing issues with welds, wire speed, voltage settings, and welding techniques. Additionally, the host shares personal favorite techniques for MIG welding on steel. The chapter aims to provide foundational knowledge and practical tips to help beginners get started with MIG welding effectively.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Equipment Overview The chapter titled 'Equipment Overview' provides a basic understanding of MIG welding. The author uses a Lincoln Electric SP 175T, purchased for $450, which includes a cart and bottle. The machine is equipped with 0.030 wire and a 75% CO2 and 25% argon gas mix, making it a versatile tool for different situations, such as running out of gas or when multiple people are working.
• 01:00 - 02:30: Gas Mixes and Machine Basics The chapter discusses the use of different gas mixes in MIG welding, highlighting a common mix that the speaker personally uses. The transcript further describes the basic features of a MIG welding machine, including voltage settings ranging from A to E and adjustable wire speed. Different machines may offer various display features, like digital readouts for wire speed measured in feet per second or minute, and for voltage.
• 02:30 - 05:30: Setting Wire Speed and Voltage The chapter focuses on setting up a MIG welder, specifically not relying on set numbers like 17 volts and 200 feet per minute wire speed. Instead, it emphasizes learning to judge by sound and sight to make a good weld. The discussion includes machine setup and technique, acknowledging individual styles while sharing the author's preference for welding technique. The material in use is 10-gauge steel, highlighted as a common material for welding practice.
• 05:30 - 10:00: Demonstrating Incorrect Settings The chapter explores the concept of welding settings, particularly focusing on how incorrect settings can be identified through sound and sight. The instructor demonstrates this by intentionally setting the welding machine incorrectly to showcase what a poor weld sounds and looks like, starting with insufficient wire speed. This practical lesson is aimed at helping learners understand when a weld is not being executed correctly and emphasizes the importance of proper settings, drawing from personal experiences shared by a welding teacher.
• 10:00 - 15:00: Techniques: Whip and Pause, and More The chapter discusses the nuances and techniques involved in achieving optimal MIG welding. A comparison is drawn to the sound of bacon frying, suggesting that the perfect welding settings produce a similar sound. The example highlights the importance of correct wire speed settings, with an ideal balance indicated by a certain type of "sizzle". If the wire speed is too low, the sound will be slower and less intense, suggesting an adjustment is necessary.
• 15:00 - 18:30: Vertical and Overhead Welding Techniques The chapter discusses vertical and overhead welding techniques, focusing on the importance of adjusting wire speed during the welding process. It highlights common issues such as wire burn back, which can damage the welding tip, and suggests that inadequate wire speed or loose drive rollers may be the cause. The need for proper tack welding as a preparatory step is also mentioned.
• 18:30 - 21:30: Inside the Machine: Drive Rolls and Wire This chapter discusses the importance of the sound of welding and the effects of wire feed rate on welding quality. It emphasizes the 'bacon frying sound' as an indicator of proper welding and explains that inconsistent feed rates cause issues in the welding process.
• 21:30 - 22:00: Final Tips and Closing Remarks In this chapter titled 'Final Tips and Closing Remarks,' the speaker discusses techniques for optimizing wire speed in welding. The speaker suggests increasing the wire speed when necessary and provides an example to demonstrate the difference it makes in the quality of the weld. Despite the improvements, the weld is perceived to be slightly on the cold side, indicating that further adjustments may be needed to achieve perfect conditions.

MIG Welding Basics For BEGINNERS!! How To Set Up Your Welder + Tips, Tricks & Techniques!! Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 what's up everybody welcome back to make it custom thank you all for being here for this video today we're going to go over the basics of mig welding this is something that everybody needs to know it's something that could be confusing if you're just starting out how to set up your machine how to listen for or look for the different things that could be wrong with your weld so we're gonna see how you know your wire speed your voltage setup how your technique could affect your weld and what my favorite techniques are to do mig welding on steel let's get into the video
• 00:30 - 01:00 [Music] all right so what we're going to learn about in this video is just the basics of mig welding i'm using a lincoln electric sp 175t i bought it on craigslist for i think 450 bucks with the cart in the bottle just as an extra welder in case i run out of gas or or whatever somebody else is working in here it's a great little machine i've got 030 wire in it and i've got 7525 gas mix 75 co2 25 argon there are a couple
• 01:00 - 01:30 of different gas mixes that you can use but that's a really common one and it's the only mixed gas i use in my mig welders this machine it's pretty basic it's got voltage and wire speed you've got uh you know a b c d or e for voltage and we've got uh you know just variable wire speed these numbers don't really matter every machine is a little bit different my miller has a digital readout as to uh you know feet per second or feet per minute on wire speed and it also has a digital readout for voltage so i want you to be able to
• 01:30 - 02:00 understand how to set up a mig welder without looking for 17 volts and 200 feet per minute wire speed that shouldn't matter i want you to be able to listen to it be able to look at it be able to hear it make a good weld that's what we're going to do today we're going to focus on setting up the machine a little bit of technique what technique i use everybody's got a little bit of a different signature as to how they you know whip their welds around when they're mig welding you're either making c's you're whipping and pausing that sort of thing i'll show you the way i like to do it this material is just 10 gauge steel this is very common this is
• 02:00 - 02:30 kind of what most frames are made of if you're building a hot rod or whatever i use this stuff a lot for brackets but the same thing goes on all thicknesses of metal on how to hear it and how to see it to know that you're making a good weld so what i'm going to do is i'm going to set the machine wrong and let you guys listen to it and look at it and see what's wrong with it and then we'll get into setting it right okay so what i'm gonna do first is uh let you listen to what it's like if you don't have enough wire speed basically it's something that a welding teacher told me
• 02:30 - 03:00 one time and it really sticks in my head is you wanna hear like the perfect temperature of bacon frying like you got a mint pan you got a fresh thing of bacon and you drop it in there and it's like that's what you're looking for with mig welding a less scientific way of trying to figure out your your correct settings so i'm going to have not enough wire speed basically you're going to hear a little bit of like a slower sizzle and that indicates that you don't have enough wire speed i'm going to put it on c right in the middle have not enough
• 03:00 - 03:30 wire speed it might burn back on our tip a little bit that's another sign if you're if your wire ever burns back and damages the tip then you don't have enough wire speed or your drive rollers inside your machine may not be tight enough to be pushing out your wire okay well actually i'm gonna i'm gonna tack it properly first this is gonna be not enough wire speed [Music]
• 03:30 - 04:00 so you hear that sizzle sizzle pop sizzle sizzle sizzle pop that's because the wire is going and touching the puddle and then it's burning back because it's not feeding at a fast enough rate what you want to hear in slow motion basically is the wire is coming down it touches your puddle it burns back touches your puddle burns back touches your puddle burns back in it and it just keeps going like that that's that's what's up that's what makes that bacon frying sound so you can see this weld i mean it doesn't look
• 04:00 - 04:30 terrible but it is definitely not enough wire speed so i'm going to turn the wire up a little here and let you listen to that this still may not be the perfect setting but you'll be able to hear the difference see it's a much better sounding weld i would say this weld is a little bit on the cold side
• 04:30 - 05:00 and what i mean by that is that the weld itself has not wet out on the edges it has not flowed out a little bit flatter than what this is it's a little bit too convex so you want your weld to be able to flatten out or wet out and be nice and consistent this one is a little bit on the cold side so what i'd like to do is i'd like to hit another notch on here this is my voltage and then proportionately you need a little bit more wire speed if you increase your voltage so let's
• 05:00 - 05:30 give this another try okay so this one here is a much hotter weld you can tell that it's a little bit flatter looking i could tell it's a lot hotter you can see that the heat has gone a little bit wider there i think it's pretty decent but we could probably still get it a little bit better what i'd like to do is i'd like
• 05:30 - 06:00 to do a little bit longer weld and just fine tune it and i want you to really listen as to what it sounds like when you've got proper settings it's already sounding pretty good but i'm going to do a little bit longer weld here and we'll really be able to see what it's like
• 06:00 - 06:30 okay so it is pretty decently set up i don't think there's a ton of improvement that we can make with the settings on this machine but uh i want you to hear now what it sounds like if you have too much wire speed okay so we're gonna jack this up and it's gonna kind of sound like a bit of a machine gun basically what's going to happen is that the wire is going to be feeding faster than it can burn at the voltage that it's set at so right now you're going to hear what it's like to have too much wire speed
• 06:30 - 07:00 [Music] okay so this right here just has way too much metal now and you can hear that it was just trying to shove way too much metal in for how hot the voltage was so it couldn't burn it as fast as it was depositing it i mean even more extreme you'll hear it now i'll show you what happens with just way too much wire speed
• 07:00 - 07:30 you know there's just there's so much spatter everywhere i really wanted it to start to bird nest a little bit to show you guys because i've seen some bad welts okay one sec i'm gonna try this again make it really horrible there we go okay yeah so you've seen that well before i've seen that well before on many occasions on uh on a couple of cars that have come in here before that have been previously
• 07:30 - 08:00 repaired that's just way way way too much wire speed and uh maybe not enough voltage as well it just cannot handle it when you see terrible welds like that it's a setting issue like that person maybe their technique is okay maybe they're the way that they're whipping the torch around is okay but they just have the wrong settings so don't get discouraged by uh by seeing horrible welds and think you're the worst welder it's your setting settings are very important let's get to another coupon here we're gonna try this again now i'm gonna show you what the different
• 08:00 - 08:30 positions are so this technically is a horizontal position weld if we were welding like this that would be a flat position if we were welding like this that would be vertical vertical up and down are acceptable they're both kind of for different things and then overhead welding is when you're when you're welding like this with your settings correct overhead welding isn't as scary as it sounds really i mean you might get a little bit of sparks in your hair or whatever but it welds much the same as horizontal
• 08:30 - 09:00 welding so basically when you're welding with mig let's go over a little bit of the technique here i am holding this gun pointed in the direction of travel that's something that i guess it's up for debate but the way i was taught is that you always push the puddle you're always pushing it in the direction you're traveling the way i like to weld is that i start my puddle and i'll burn forward it's called the whip and pause
• 09:00 - 09:30 technique i burn forward and i come back to fill a little bit i burn forward and i come back to fill a little bit and what that almost does is it almost preheats the area that you're about to fill you whip it forward and then you come back and fill it up and now when i'm looking at my weld i'm able to almost see that when i burn forward i can come back and my weld will become the same size as the previous weld deposits so i can keep things
• 09:30 - 10:00 pretty consistent you'll get the hang of it you'll get a little bit more of a signature going some guys like to do like little c's some guys like to go up and down some guys like to make little circles i personally like to kind of whip and pause for my technique to get my beads to look decent so that's something that you can play with everybody's different machine settings are the most important some guys just just like to make their welds you know totally smooth and not even move and you can do that too and and i don't think it's a bad weld you just have to set your machine accordingly let's try a
• 10:00 - 10:30 couple of different techniques now and just have you look at them i'm going to do this i'm going to show you kind of the different signatures that i just talked about oh better change my machine settings to something that isn't going to be bird poop if you've got the same machine on 10 gauge this is the machine setting i like d and five [Music] okay so right here i'm going to try the
• 10:30 - 11:00 totally straight technique i'm not gonna move around at all i'm gonna just push the puddle basically i'll be at the end of the puddle and and just pushing it along totally straight at a 45 degree angle [Music]
• 11:00 - 11:30 so there you have it totally straight no moving around welds okay could be a little bit hotter maybe now i'm going to try little circles
• 11:30 - 12:00 [Music] little circles does actually look pretty damn nice actually maybe i should change my technique and here's the whip and pause technique
• 12:00 - 12:30 okay so now i just want to show you guys a couple of different ways to weld so one of the things that if you ask a welder who's a structural steel welder they will laugh at you for welding vertical down and vertical down is something that i guess it's controversial i don't know i use it i have a bit of a technique in my own to weld vertical down that i know works wicked the problem is
• 12:30 - 13:00 is that when you're welding down it's really easy for your weld to pool up and not sink into the metal it doesn't burn in so it's not strong and it could look like it's kind of strong but it just isn't because it's not really getting into the metal and it is going to sound weird but i push my welds down i stay ahead of the puddle and i'll push my weld down staying ahead of the puddle so i'm not actually i guess pushing it down the puddle stays up i can keep the heat in the material
• 13:00 - 13:30 by going down hand but pushing down if you if you try and weld down hand like this it'll just drip and be disgusting and it'll it'll be a crappy welt so i'm just gonna show you my technique for that if you feel the need to comment and tell me that i'm wrong go for it okay first off i'm just going to show you me trying to make a weld
• 13:30 - 14:00 doing it the way that i i believe is wrong i'm going to be holding this welder up like this it's kind of natural for you to want to keep your welder pointed up and drag it because you know you're fighting gravity but let's first try that the weld looks okay
• 14:00 - 14:30 and i'm sure it did burn in some i do believe that it's a bit dicey to weld that way so i'm going to show you my technique now where i'm actually pushing the weld down you can tell i got tons of heat in there it the legs of the weld wet right into the side it got lots of penetration i did do a little bit of a whip and pause technique on that but that's welding
• 14:30 - 15:00 vertical down okay now let's do an outside corner weld because we're welding on the outside corner edge it will be a bit of a different heat setting as to welding on the inside of a corner that reason being because you're right on the edge of the metal and it accepts the heat a lot quicker i'm gonna turn this down a little bit and just guess at it and see how we do it's almost never that you get a weld that's perfectly flat like that so i'm going to do it this way
• 15:00 - 15:30 so that you can see in more of a real world scenario you can see that one worked out quite well i did turn down my machine for that like i said because the heat does get
• 15:30 - 16:00 absorbed by the metal much quicker when you're on the edge of a piece of metal so you can see that it it burned the edge of this metal away and really sunk in with the penetration so this is the whip and pause technique where i i burn forward and i come back to fill i burn forward and i come back to fill i move about an eighth of an inch or 3 16 of an inch each time that i burn forward and come back to fill i'm at a 45 degree angle this way and
• 16:00 - 16:30 approximately a 35 degree angle this way okay so now this was our whip and pause technique i'll do my next weld with a little bit of the circle technique and then we'll finish off with the c so doing little circles it it works
• 16:30 - 17:00 quite well still you're definitely moving the heat around a lot when i'm doing these little circles i find it's a little bit more difficult to be consistent but that's just me and i don't do that technique so i find it a little bit more difficult so like i said whip and pause technique is my favorite technique let's do another one here we'll try doing a little c's and then we'll finish off doing one just totally straight
• 17:00 - 17:30 and then i'll try going definitely as straight as i can you know that can look nice as well okay so one thing i definitely want to go over when you're welding because it's really difficult for you to see through a camera i wish that i had a really dark lens so that we could film
• 17:30 - 18:00 this with the video looking like through my eyes what i can see this is what i would like to explain to you is that here's our weld [Music] and this is our puddle here this is our whip our whip our whip this is our puddle what i mean by pushing the weld you would think that you would want your wire speed behind it to push it that's that's incorrect i'm depositing my wire right here that's where i where you want to be you want to be ahead of the weld
• 18:00 - 18:30 pushing it along but staying at the front of the puddle so i might i might burn a head a little bit so i'll move this way and then i'll come back to fill but i'm staying ahead of the puddle or in in the puddle but at the front of it and you'll see that your weld will just build up behind as you move along but you do want to stay at the front of the puddle always and this will keep you moving
• 18:30 - 19:00 along and keep you putting heat into the material as you go trying to think of what else i can tell you guys for this quick little demo oh let's quickly talk about the machine itself when i was talking before about your wire speed not being enough and you have the wire burned back a little bit that may or may not be because of the wire speed adjustment on the machine something else that you can look for if you don't feel like it's changing when you adjust your wire speed is the
• 19:00 - 19:30 tension of your drive rolls so if you open up the inside of your welder this one has to pop up a little bit to the open there will be a spring and a nut almost on every single welder when you load your spool and your wire goes in here these are the drive rollers that i'm talking about so i'm just going to turn the machine on so you can see them work these rollers are powered that's what's pushing so if this
• 19:30 - 20:00 is too loose then those rollers might slip and that could give you the same symptom as not enough wire speed because it's not consistently pushing your wire out so what you would need to do there is just to tighten that up a little bit what else i can tell you about the inside of the machine is tip that off and you can pull your roller out there are different size grooves for different thicknesses of wire this is 030 wire but you can use o23 you can use 035 you
• 20:00 - 20:30 can use 0.45 which will be in a much larger machine but those rollers must have the right groove for the size wire you're running i couldn't just change this to 035 wire without changing my rollers i couldn't just change this to o23 wire without changing my rollers but for the most part if you are a beginner and you're welding on your hot rod if you've got a little bit of sheet metal work to do and a little bit of structural stuff my personal suggestion
• 20:30 - 21:00 is the o3o wire i've welded sheet metal with it as well as welded chassis with it my other suggestion is that if you are gonna do any welding on your chassis you really need a 220 welder i know people can do it and it can be done with a 110 volt welder my personal feeling is that it's a little bit too small and a little bit too dicey for a beginner to get a strong weld out of a small welder like that so make sure that you are welding as hot as you can
• 21:00 - 21:30 with the welder that you've got for the material you're using hopefully i've covered the basics for you on a little bit of mig welding and the setup how to use it how to get it to work right what to do if it's set up wrong thanks everybody for watching make it custom i also just want to thank everybody that have supported us through our metal reborn premiere and apologize for our technical difficulties in the first little bit of the metal reborn online premiere that was something we've never done before i kind of regret doing it at the exact same time as the regular
• 21:30 - 22:00 premiere since we weren't on the ball enough to be able to get it fixed immediately but uh hopefully you guys all enjoyed the movie and it's up there for seven days so if you did get the premiere go ahead and watch it as many times as you want for the next seven days and uh if you were really bummed out about the technical difficulties at 8 pm on wednesday hit us up for a refund and we'll refund it thanks everybody for watching mega custom we appreciate your support your comments your likes everything so don't forget to like click subscribe hit notifications and we'll
• 22:00 - 22:30 see on the next video thanks a lot bye-bye [Music] you