How To MIG Weld Thin Gauge Material
Paul is back to sharing tips on how to MIG weld thin gauge material (thin carbon steel).
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This perfectly illustrates the difference between a pipe welder and a sheet metal welder. I have no doubt that you are a badass pipe and structural welder, but you would get run out of a sheet metal fab shop after that first weld. Lol... Different disciplines, different worlds. Cheers all the same! :)
Paul is an excellent instructor. I’m a certified ag mechanics instructor myself. I am impressed
I got a weld test comming up for light gauge mig welding so thank you for the tips!
This guy is awesome I can see me asking a dumb question and just as fast he back hands me in the mouth and sends me to the back of the classroom We need to see more of him !
I really appreciate this video. I teach welding at a high school, and fit up is always a major issue. I will be showing this to my kids. Great content and good technique.
Sounds weird but I really started to understand welding processes in whole by learning how to weld thin gauge on mig.
I started electric welding on thin material with stick, and it does teach you a lot...
@@ypaulbrown I started to try and master tig first with no real world experience using youtube as a guide.... It went OKAY but it was hard. If you can ever have someone show you in the flesh you're off to a much better start. its a HUGE advantage to have a pro point out your mistakes. Figuring out what you're doing wrong can be costly and aggravating.
It was definitely a learning curve for me, I started welding thicker metal 1st. Thanks for your feedback!!
@@FrequencyOfThought you are so right, one on one is helpful.....lots of seat time as the old timers say.....keep at it, and sometime the problem you always have will just go away.....even though you feel as if you have been doing it the same all along.....one of weldings mysteries.....Paulie Brown [the other Paul] from Weld.com
I started out in the sixth grade gas welding on thin sheet metal my dad was a very old school welder.
For me personally, "thin gauge" category would be automotive sheet metal and thinner
It seems like everyone has there own perspectibe on what they call "Thin Gauge", depends on what industry you work in to me! Thanks for your feedback
'can you bend it with one hand' I think Is a good metric.
Cool.
Ive never mig welded before, and i just put new floor pans in my car, new pan was 16ga and i used 18 and 20 for some patches around it
Yeah was clickbait. I weld 14 alot with .035. Was hoping 18-22 would be what he covers.
Fantastic info! This channel has been so helpful, thank you!
Thanks, it's good to see that my welds look OK and what to expect. I work on a ranch so I encounter many different welding situations. Central California watching
Thanks for watching!
Thanks. I picked up a couple good tips from you. Awesome video
Thanks for the video, it was really informative, I do a lot of minor repairs with my multi-process welder at home, and I always have trouble considering the metal tends to be 16th inch thick or less, the 16th inch thick isn't as much of a problem but once you get down to 20 gauge to patch a mower deck it gets frustrating, You can end up putting more holes in the metal than you started with if you're not careful 😂😭
This is so valuable
Thank you for making this video. I’ve been at my current shop for less than 2mo & 90% of the work is 14ga, so I’m looking for good settings. This place uses .035 wire. But I have some .023 & will try your settings on Monday. What’s been working as a baseline, so far with 14ga & .035 is: 165ipm, 16.8V and I set the pulse for .4sec on, .5sec off.
Every welder welds a little different, just have to tweak the perimeters to your liking! Thanks for watching!
thank you 👍 great video
Paul, looking great in the Bright Green welding shirt......good information here,,,,thanks so much for sharing.....good to see your smiling face, Uncle Paulie....
Thanks Paulie!
That was excellent, thank you so much!
Thanks for your positive feedback!!
Corner light gauge steel such as you have there can be done beautifully with a Low Hydrogen rod or even a 12 or 13, providing it has a good fit up and tacks in place. The trick is to 'extreme' whip the arc up and down the joint perhaps two times per second as you move along watching the puddle doing its job. The finish is smooth and hardly needs sanding. The amps are high and the whipping action is like TIG pulsing.
at my old job, we were welding on 14 guage steel and the settings i used was 23.5v and 500WFS with 0.035 lincoln wire on an older millermatic. things were set up in fixtures so that's how i was able to get away with it, no way of a bad fit up, just squeeze the trigger and the most important part, GO, hang around for a sec too long and you'll blow through. sometimes there would be porosity and the way we "fixed" it was by keeping same volts and lowering the WFS down to around 250ish *all welds were fillets*
Those are definitely Go,Go,Go perimeter settings on 14 gauge and with a perfect fitup, Thanks for your feedback!
Thanks for this video 💥
Great video!
I use similar technique with GTAW. Zero root gap, if need be, hammer the tacks to close the gap. Cool metal with compressed air between tacks.
Good info, Appreciate the tip!
Wouldn’t hammering the tacks open the gap?
@@timwallace8126 Outside corners.
@@timwallace8126 naa but you need to time it just when its red Not molten too fast and the tack Will explode to sparks but just right and it Will just sort of compress and close the gap and keep it closed
grinder.....a welders best friend
Amen to that.
I weld 16 and 18 gauge pressed door frames every day, thin material is pretty easy once you are used to it. I run my settings hot, more for 1/8 or 3/16 plate and run a really fast bead since welds for my work have to ground smooth anyway
Hey Ryan, I do similar work. Steel windows and doors. On profiles with 0.060" thick walls (1.5mm actually). What settings do you usually use, and with what size wire? If I may ask? I'm curious to compare notes.
Machine in using doesn’t have a digital readout for voltage and wire feed so it’s hard to tell, millermatic 212 set for the high end of 1/8 according to the diagram, and 50 out of 100 for its wire feed setting. With 0.054 wire
Once you get used to a repitious weld I'm sure it becomes easier day after day, Thanks for the feedback!
I do similar work, I also run hot and move fast on 1mm sections. Just loads of tacks and lots of clamps
Nicely done thanks a million
Thanks for Watching!
I'm currently learning T-joint, lap and circle welding on REALLY thin automotive material. My lap welds are coming out fine but my t-joints are just blowing through the material. Not sure how fast I'm supposed to move but it's definitely a struggle. I've tried different speeds. Any tips?
Great tip, i have to try that, I weld lots tin gauges. Been on market for mig welders…
Thanks for watching!!
Do I set the parameters the same if I'm not welding on the perimeter?
i think most people wanting to weld thin stuff wanna do rust repairs on their cars which is mostly 1mm-1.5mm thick doing butt joints and lap joints. but most of them are trying to do it with a cheap flux core welder as they just wanna get their car back on the road but keep blowing holes in lol .
Doing rust repairs takes alot of patience, and yes you will blow alot of holes!! Thanks for your feedback!!
Thank you!
Thanks for watching!
How would you change your technique if the joint is meant to be water tight?
When I have a gap on thin material I try and put a copper plate as the backing and weld it out in sections. Makes the back really clean and flat, and the front easy to grind
Thanks for the tip, that's Good info!
@@paulsableski6507 no worries then you won't be known for being a "tack welder"
I need to learn this. 🙂
Looks good to me! Thanks!
Thanks for watching!
Thanks LARRYMOORE
A lot of the welding I do is on 1mm thick tubing with 0.8mm wire. This "thin" material is nearly 2mm thick and would be considered excessive for a lot of the things I commonly weld. Even when welding plates I regularly only do 2-3mm thick as surface plates for workbenches.
The sound your arc makes also sounds iffy and sadly most of the welds don't make it look like the machine is set great either.
Excellent video. I’m MIG welding a rocker repair panel into my car. It’s 19 gauge. I’m planning on butting up the edges and tacking it around the perimeter of the patch, skipping around as you indicate to avoid warpage. Should I just weld in tacks until the entire perimeter is fully Tac welded? Or, go continuously (Tac to Tac) maybe leave an inch between tacs?
I thought I was going to watch you welding thin material like 20swg or less. 14 or 16swg no problem.
That will bring another video welding thinner material, Good Idea! Thanks for watching!
You can easily stick weld 14 Gauge steel XD. 14G isn't thin
Hi all, could you direct me to a good resource on gmaw parameters abd procedures when fillet welding 3/4" to 1" thick steel plate t joint using 1/16" metalcore wire, 90/10 argon/CO2.
Can you do on 0.8 mm or 1mm
We weld 22 gauge in auto body.
The thinner the better to learn on! It took me a short time to figure out the thin stuff, I call thin material welding "PoP" welding, because your actually just poppin a little spot weld on the metal and not continuously welding!! Thanks for your feedback!
Ya know… the color of the welding jacket and pattern of the cap makes you look like a surgeon in scrubs about to start a procedure… 😉
Lol, Thanks for watching!
Can you show the back side so we can see the penetration- great video, thanks
I'd have to dig them out of the scrap pile, good tip for another video!! Thanks for the positive feedback!
On thin gauge material you'll usually get full penetration cause the metal is just so thin
@@MistaE probably true, but as a new welder I am sure I can screw that up too.
I love Mikala
Don't forget to watch them perimeters! Lol
Is there anyway to minimize the spatter of welding
What specifically are you asking? Sure there is! Thanks for the reply!
@@paulsableski6507 well one of my instructor told me about controlling the current helps reducing the spatter and sometimes wrong material do spatter too Is it true
@@aaryanpanwar6405 Yes it is! You can practice on tweaking your perimeters on the same thickness and material you are welding on until you get the results you are trying to achieve. Thanks for watching!
Yep, use a pulse mig.
95% up burns cooler 👍
I'll have to give it a try, Thanks for your feedback!
What’s that in “rest of the world” measurements? About 1.9mm, so thicker than most car body panels. C’mon guys, this says “global welding community”. It takes near zero effort to give some global measurements.
Yes, thicker then most car body panels!! Thanks for your feedback!!
👌👍👍
Thanks for watching!
maybe add metric measurements for the rest of the world! thanks
It’s not what the title promised wielding “thin” plates. These are much thicker than 0.075 thick plates.
This brings up more ideas on videos for welding "Thin" material, In the future we will be more specific on the title! Thanks for watching!
Nice welding. How about mma welding thin steel settings and electrode size. Alot of videos out now and every 1 of them is just joining tacks unlike your mig welding which is legit welding of thin steel.
If my mig weld looks terrible l use my tig to melt it all in real nice . Heat it beat it and paint it black.
Thanks for your feedback!
Definitely a bad fit , good example 😎👍👍
as with a lot of welding videos lately it would be much better if the speeded up the talking and left the welding at normal speed
there is another form of measurement called metric , the whole world uses it except the U.S
You stick weld it.
Thanks for your feedback!
2mm sheet metal is thin material for you? Try welding 0.6mm sheets...
Thanks for your feedback!
Should increase volts and amps and run in a straight line, move faster. This weaving from bottom plate to top plate is no good. To much heat build up. To big of a fillet weld on such thin material.
Thanks for your feedback!
Don't fire that eyeball helmet, keep it! Fire those ugly safety glasses!! Your doing a much better job at looking at the camera instead of looking off to the left or right of the camera (annoying). I'll have to try what you teach on thin metal, thank you.
Thanks for your feedback!
Why don’t Americans use the metric system 🤦♂️
Cause we stopped using the metric system in 1776
Inertia in society. Most people here don't see the need for every day things to change. Industrial and Scientific has been metric since the 70's in the US.
@@burn_learnearn_welding7101 why?
@@burn_learnearn_welding7101 That's the most 'murican comment I've ever seen🤣🤙. The Brits also used the imperial system so technically you never gained "full" independence ... Perhaps you should go metric so you can finally let go.
I get all the math advantage and stuff but other than that there's no real reason to change. Sometimes tradition just wins. Zip+4.. the terms MIG, TIG.... hell there are still 9 planets in my book.
When you take a grinder to a weld, your a grinder, not a welder
First.....😉
you young guys are so fast on the keyboard....congrats, old guy Paulie Brown
Appreciate your feedback!!
lot of spatter on last weld
14 gauge thin? Lol ok bud.
Title is How to weld thin Gauge And the guy is using 14 Gauge 0.078 inch metal. That isn't thin. Let's see you mig weld 22-24 Gauge.
So you only know about inches....Wake up and talk to the rest of the world in measurements we don't have to convert. Metric isn't fractions of an inch...... DOH!!!!
When i get prints to fit and weld things from other countries, like Canada, i don’t cry because they are in metric. I simply just use the metric side of my tape measure. I get that metric system is easier but imperial isn’t rocket science.
Thanks LARRYMOORE
Appreciate your feedback LARRYMOORE!!