The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Welding

Going to start bodywork and will need to do some welding. Friend of mine has loaned me a welder. Its a Hobart Handler 135 (MIG?) with a CO2/Argon mix shielding gas. Have read the instruction book and about all it says is " these instructions are parameters only, you may have to adjust to suit your conditions". I think I can do this but am I being overconfident? I can do oxy/acet fairly well but I guess this system should not be used for bodywork because of the excess heat and warpage that might result. So what say you? Jump right in? Practice? What? Weeds

I did my learning in the floor area. I intend to have a floor mat there some day!

You should find out from you friend what flow setting he uses and the wire speed. I found that every time I did some work, I learned something new. After a while you will be amazed at what you can do.

Best advice is get the metal as clean as possible. Also it is very important to be able to see clearly what you are doing. This sometimes means making sure that the arc is lighting the path for you as you push the puddle along.

Get some metal the same gauge as what you are welding on to practice and get the settings dialed in before you start in on the truck. A couple of hours practicing and you should be good with the mig, especially if you have welded before. I like to tweak around with the settings and even make them wrong so I get a feel of how its supposed to be and which way to tweak things when they are not going right.

That's a nice welder and Mig welding is pretty easy to learn.

I am no weldor but, I do have a welder that I used to do my floors with some success. I practiced on some scrap sheet metal and on some old wrought iron just to see if I could create a good bead and stick stuff together. Clean the metal well. And make sure the metal on your truck you are welding is clean and full thickness (not ground thin or rusted thin) or you will make more holes.
If you have floor panels to do do them first for practice. no one will see them anyway.

Let us know how it goes.

I've got the Handler 140.....great little machine. Are you using MIG wire or flux core wire? If you have gas, you want MIG. It's a solid copper-colored wire, and it's cheaper.

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. You want your amperage on the lowest setting possible (A) and you want your wire speed to be around 25-30. Start there, and adjust WIRE SPEED, not amperage. Also play with your Contact Tip To Work Distance (CTTWD) - how far away you hold the contact tip; the piece that's inside the cup. The farther out, the more heat you're putting in and the the wider the bead. Also, try to do as much downhand welding as possible; the best penetration, and the flatter and smoother the weld.

Most of all, get relaxed. Wrap that whip around your arm once, and get in a good position to stay for a while. The less starts & stops you have, the better. Try to keep the whip as straight as possible; too many bends in your whip and the wire will want to 'jump' or skip on ya.

It's been a long time since I have used a MIG. I never tried TIG, but out of all the rest, MIG was my favorite. Easy to get the hang of and the most versatile. I hope to do a little MIG on a fender this summer...

Once you learn to use the MIG, I am guessing you will want one for your very own.

I've got the very same welder. Used it to replace the rear rollpan on my '46 Panel. Like it has been said lowest amp and play with the wire speed. I had mine to the slowest speed and it worked for me just fine on 20 ga metal. The trick I learned is just do spot welds, nothing over 1/4" or you'll get to much heat and warp the metal. When I place a piece in I spoted one end went to the other, went to the middle and so on just spliting the space between welds each time till it all filled in. Also keep a wet rag or a air line and blow gun handy to cool the metal down quickly if you over heat it. I hadn't welded in over 20 years and never used a mig before. I practiced for about a week on scrap metal, cutting it into strips and welding it back togeather before I went near my truck. And you will find that the older metal will burn thru faster than the new metal your putting in. Most importantly relax work slowly and if you think you are getting frustrated, walk away. You'll do just fine.

46 and Blue thanks for the replies and encouragement. I am going to give it a try and see what happens. Weeds

Two things to remember:

#1: As BLUEPEN said: You don't weld sheet metal with a bead. Use spot welds - jumping from side to side until all the gaps are filled, never heating any one area too much. If you use a bead, you WILL warp the piece.

#2: Make sure there is a gap between your original piece and your patch piece. This is the area you 'fill' with weld. If you try to weld a patch piece in that touchs the original piece, with no gaps, the weld WILL fail.

One more tip that works for me.........

Get a short piece of 3/4" copper tubing and flatten one end in a vise. Hold or clamp it underneath the area you're welding. It acts as a heatsink and as a "backing plate" for your weld. Much less burn through.