1/ went down and finished welding the busted 12' sheep pen gate slightly tricky bc the mesh is made of 1/4" steel, and it's tack welded on to a tube gate made of 20 gauge wall thickness tube (0.0355") so there's a 10:1 ratio, and using the MIG welder even at power level 1 >>>
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2/ would burn holes right through the tube wall...so I'd often start w "these two pieces aren't connected" and end up with "these two pieces aren't connected...and there's a big hole in the tube" I solved this!
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3/ * better welding prep (grinding, to get the tube wall REALLY clean, so I'm not pouring in heat trying to burn through contaminants) * paying much more attention to heat control (a) working in short bursts, moving on, coming back later >>>
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4/ (b) angling the MIG tip to put heat into 1/4" rod, then QUICKLY dancing to the side to stitch into the tube, before coming back. SUCCESS !
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5/ ...of course, I also had to go back and fix up the holes I'd already melted. And I had success there too, welding out from the existing weld bead, horizontally, OVER the hole. Basically building a cantilevered plate. Let it cool, come back, stitch it to the tube.
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6/ Of course, paying attention to this new skill meant that my stitching technique was crappy half the time, so the welds don't look like dimes...or even mud puddles...for the most part. Still, very excited. This is the first time I've leveled up in welding in quite a while.
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