My Dart Swinger Project!

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About 15° is a good angle to start with, pushing the protective gas just forward of your weld so you are welding into it as you move along. The gas shield protects the molten puddle from the impurities of our atmosphere as you are welding.

Best practice to get the angle down is to take two 12" long x 1" wide pieces of new flat stock gapped at 1/16" laying side by side. Then practice starting at 15° moving the angle until you find your sweet spot for a nice looking, good penetrating weld.

Can test the stength of your weld by putting it in a vice and trying to fold it over. Can also visually see the penetration depth on the back side too.
By 15° do you mean back towards me with the wire perpendicular to the bead or 15°to the side with the wire at a angle also?
 
What a piece this thing is! LOL Seriously, your welding is getting better every time.
 
What a piece this thing is! LOL Seriously, your welding is getting better every time.
Lol yea I just took a bunch of pieces of the the mounts that i cut off the rear end and stuck them together to get some practice. I was pretty happy with some of the welds this one is probably my favorite I was pretty happy with it. Like gearhed said I could see my bead really well and it flowed nicely. It is rock solid to I beat on it will a hammer and couldnt break it loose.

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Looking better every time. Definitely widen that V notch to 90° all the way around like the blue lines in my pix. Clean out all the oil in the tube halves with some lacquer thinner and clean paper towels. Slow circles to make the puddle. You will get there. If you have to do multiple passes to fill it, no problem, just wire wheel off the flux core crusties before your next pass.
 
Good luck to you! You seem persistent about learning to weld with that. I was trying to use the "weld a washer" method to remove LCA bushings this weekend with my flux-core but couldn't get a decent weld without welding to the control arm too. Even when I thought I had a good weld the welds would break when I tried to punch the bushing out. Finally had to split the bushing case to get them out.

You'll get it, your welds are starting to look way better than acceptable. Way to keep at it.
 
I’m also in the novice category of welders. I have a flux core welder as well and after reading a the comments on here, I went searching on YouTube and found this video which I found helpful and you might also.

 
Good luck to you! You seem persistent about learning to weld with that. I was trying to use the "weld a washer" method to remove LCA bushings this weekend with my flux-core but couldn't get a decent weld without welding to the control arm too. Even when I thought I had a good weld the welds would break when I tried to punch the bushing out. Finally had to split the bushing case to get them out.

You'll get it, your welds are starting to look way better than acceptable. Way to keep at it.
I went thru the same thing with the washer I couldn't get it to hold either so what I did was took a large nut and bolt and welded the nut then threaded the bolt on the nut and smacked the bolt with a LFH! I got some pics of that process somewhere on here.
 
I’m also in the novice category of welders. I have a flux core welder as well and after reading a the comments on here, I went searching on YouTube and found this video which I found helpful and you might also.


Wow that guy is good he makes that look easy lol.
Thanks for sharing bud!
 
Wow that guy is good he makes that look easy lol.
Thanks for sharing bud!

O have to disagree with one thing on the video. For vertical, no down, go up as gravity is pulling the slag down. For a clean weld up is the way to go.
 
By 15° do you mean back towards me with the wire perpendicular to the bead or 15°to the side with the wire at a angle also?

15* with wire perpendicular to the weld. You are asking all the right questions. Keep working it, sometimes you can even answer your own questions. The best thing is to ask yourself the questions, then you will see the answers when they come to you as you are looking for them.

The power of the question, our brains are constantly working to answer the questions we lay out to them . . 24/7 non-stop. That is why when you wake up in the morning after a night's sleep you have the answers you have been looking for. The old saying: "Let me sleep on that". Really cool how our brain works, subconcious works 24/7 problem solving too.

Welding is looking good . . .
 
Very true, but, and I will say but... There has been quite a few of the harbor freight welders. Most were built as AC. You will have a hard time getting a good weld, but with some/alot of practice, I know you can make them work. For 3/16" flux is more than capable of doing a good solid weld. Clean, Clean, clean, and clean again... Preperation is more than important.
 
^^^^^^^^ This. Clean clean clean. Including one place I'm noticing you're not cleaning up is where you put your ground. Think about our cars. The ground is important if not more important than everything else.
 
Thanks for all the advice guys. I am gonna work on it some more in the morning I'm gonna work on the bevels and getting them to 90° and getting everything straight and square and clean and keep practicing my welding over and over till I feel its good enough to continue. I think I'm gonna stop and buy some steel to practice on I dont have much scrap laying around. I gotta find someone around here that has the 3 inch c channel for the "jig" i havent had no luck finding any yet. Lowes dont have it and rural king dont have it. I will check tractor supply next.
 
Any steel supply or scrap metals places? I got my 3" c channel out of a scrap metals bin. Made sure it was straight by sighting down it like you sight down a 2x4. The scrap place just gave it to me. Lol.
 
Any steel supply or scrap metals places? I got my 3" c channel out of a scrap metals bin. Made sure it was straight by sighting down it like you sight down a 2x4. The scrap place just gave it to me. Lol.
Not that I know of. I havent ever seen one just the steel bins in the hardware store.
 
It's about 1" × 3" heading off to bed. Can get a definite in the morning.
That's about what I was thinking . I found a piece at metals depot it 3x1.3 x 4 for 21 before shipping depending on how much shipping is I may do that
 
Just from what I have read, you are set up for failure.

First is the 110 flux-core welder.
Second, I hope you are not even trying to run it on an extension cord.

What I would do is clean everything up for a clean weld, tack the pieces where you want them.

Talk to a local voc-tech school, every high school has one near-by.
Make a donation for school supply's, have the welding teacher, weld it the rest of the way together for you.
The welds will be nice and strong, plus you can learn some welding tricks for a small donation.
 
Just from what I have read, you are set up for failure.

First is the 110 flux-core welder.
Second, I hope you are not even trying to run it on an extension cord.

What I would do is clean everything up for a clean weld, tack the pieces where you want them.

Talk to a local voc-tech school, every high school has one near-by.
Make a donation for school supply's, have the welding teacher, weld it the rest of the way together for you.
The welds will be nice and strong, plus you can learn some welding tricks for a small donation.
This whole entire project is setup for failure.
1 lack of money
2 lack of time
3 lack of resources (tools etc)
4 lack of proper space (no garage)
5 lack of experience
But what I do have is a determination to learn and patience to correct my mistakes and practice till I get it right.
 
Just from what I have read, you are set up for failure.

First is the 110 flux-core welder.
Second, I hope you are not even trying to run it on an extension cord.

What I would do is clean everything up for a clean weld, tack the pieces where you want them.

Talk to a local voc-tech school, every high school has one near-by.
Make a donation for school supply's, have the welding teacher, weld it the rest of the way together for you.
The welds will be nice and strong, plus you can learn some welding tricks for a small donation.

I agree, but will disagree. Flux welds a little hotter than mig. Just like running straight co, runs hotter than 75-25 gas on a mig. Now, I will say, it has to be Clean, he better have his A-game on, and he better have the right wire. As long as he stays away from the single pass wire, he should be ok. But that turns around and complicates the other passes. Hard to control warpage with 3-4 passes. Can I ask a question? What is with cutting the middle of the tube? Why not just the outside end, put in a new axle end, weld it in and call it a day?
 
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