Fascinating, Sam. Would a silicon bronze facing have been an option? I was merely wondering that silicon bronze and the mild steel pin might wear better than mild steel on mild steel. I appreciate that the original design was mild steel against high carbon steel.

Was the job caused by a failure to carry out good maintenance ie regular lubrication?

Very interesting to see how you determined the nature of the casting.

Looking forwards to the follow-on.

Thanks, Sam.

Very helpful and interesting.

I have run into the problem of the HF failing to establish an arc, so I too have scotched through the oxide with the tungsten; I’m pleased to learn it’s not a fault or quality issue with my inverter.

Good to hear the warning it’s a waste of time to check and fine tune the settings on a hot test plate.

Here’s another reason to test settings on switching a machine on: my inverter failed on switching on one day - i had full amps all the time - but until I worked out I had no control, I blew half a dizen holes.

Very helpful to realise AC frequency is a “level 2” setting priority, whereas AC Balance and gas flow rate are “level one”, as well as by how much to increment adjustments.

Many thanks Brad & Jody.

Just one volt in 19 Volts allowed you to double the travel speed! That shows just how sensitive short-circuit MIG is to a small change in voltage. (And a 30% increase in wire feed speed (at 20V) resulted in a 100% increase in travel speed.). Not sure what it all means, but it’s food for thought. Thanks, Jody.

Nice one, Sam. I hope the excavator is of a better build quality than the bucket, otherwise the bucket’ll now be the most valuable part.

Great video, Brad. You don’t see many like this -setting up a machine - but it helps greatly because, unless you’re an advanced welder, you don’t even know all the subtle points you should be looking for on a test weld, so you just keep welding hoping it’ll get better on its own. Or if you do know what to look for, you’re not sure which of the various possible settings will improve things or by how much and which way to adjust, so there’s a lot of frustrating guesswork and simultaneous tweaking of several settings, possibly by too much.

I like your tips about the cleaning action ahead of the puddle, and the mirror-like puddle. I love the mirror puddle because it shows you precisely how far your tip is from the puddle - a real help for consistency . So it’s good to know what to adjust if I’m not getting the mirror.

The starting current is the current flowing only during the HF arc start? My inverter puts that setting inside the hidden nenu

More please, Brad.

Martin

“Pretty ok” is a big understatement. Had you been recording here in the UK, you would have said, “6013, 6013, or 6013”. Good to see how you manage to capture such fantastic close-up arc shots. Another very helpful video. Thanks very much, Jody.

Jody,

On carbide precipitation, if you were welding 304 stainless that wasn’t the L, low-carbon, variety, how much more sensitive to carbide precipitation would it be? Perhaps you could make a longer video covering the various common different types of stainless and the precautions against carbide formation, including any post-weld heat treatment.

And the pipe superintendent’s comment, did the welding procedure not call for cleaning of the workpiece prior to welding? In general, if a welding procedure doesn’t call for cleaning, but the welder decides to clean it, using a disc or even acetone, is that a breach of the procedure? I can see how it might be: if a coarse disc were used, stress-raiser marks could be introduced that might lead to fatigue failure down the line.

(Strange comment coming from a supervisor in the nuclear industry; I would have expected him to want to fire anyone who DIDN’T clean the workpiece (and filler wire)).

Great video; lots of interesting points

If only the welding instructors on the various courses I attended over the years had been as helpful, I would have learned much faster. I’d get comments such as, not enough penetration, or the top edge has been chewed away, or poor technique. But they didn’t tell you what you needed to do, or change, to improve matters - perhaps they weren’t sure themselves. That’s why videos such as this one are so helpful. One can learn more in one seven-minute video like this, than in a whole welding course.

Customer must have been delighted with the finished article. Thanks, Sam.

Pure beauty. I can imagine your dog bowls being auctioned for millions at the finest art houses. The bad news is it’s always after the artist is long dead.