Welding Vertical Ups and Beginning Overheads

My mother tells me she checks my blog every morning, and likes it when she has something to read. So...this one's for you, Mom. :)

Frank has been working on updating his resume, and conversations about that have led to short lectures (for me) on many a controls engineering thing. This morning it was on solenoids. Solenoids are some rather magical sounding things that, among other things, control or initiate the flushing of this automatic toilet, which I observed in action today:

There was a request pics of me in my welding get up. Here's one. Maybe I should have taken it with the hood down. :)

This (below) is NOT me, it's a classmate. That's a fire proof/fire retardant jacket he's wearing. It had caught on fire when he got too close to his welding rod. Imagine if he had NO fire retardant jacket. I think I need to get one. Also, because, I started welding in the overhead position today and the weld berries (the sparks) were attacking my bicep and armpit. OUCH!! I also felt one shoot across my eyebrow, though luckily it didn't leave me bald. Not that a jacket would help with that, but it made me pull my bandanna lower (as you can see above).

This is a vertical up corner weld with a GMAW machine. I had to turn the voltage and wire speed way down. I think I did this at 15.5volts and a wire speed of 145...inches per minute is the unit, I think.

This is the GMAW (a.k.a. MIG) machine I use in class. It's very heavy duty.

This is what my weld station looks like: It's inside a booth of vinyl curtains. That's a vertical up 3-layer pad that's clamped up there.

Vertical up 3-layer pad close up with welding nozzle in view.

Here you can see my earliest attempts at overhead welding. Pretty nasty, right? That's how it is starting a new position. Perhaps you can understand why I didn't like welding my first couple of weeks. It's very frustrating at first.

Overhead welding string beads (below) once I got the swing of things. This was with 19.5 volts and a wire speed of 320 (inches per minute, I think). The two welds on the sides are butt welds. Two pieces of metal butt to butt, welded together.
Today was the first day I felt like:


1) I really wanted a welding fire proof jacket because the weld berries fall onto your bicep/armpit and attack it when you're welding overhead. I have four little singes on my bicep.


2) I really wanted an auto adjusting hood. I've been using Frank's dad's old hood which it quite ancient. A couple of my classmates *still* like to give me poop about it. If you don't know, an auto adjusting hood is one that when you look through it in normal like, it's like looking through dark sunglasses. As soon as you begin to weld, it darkens immediately to the appropriate darkness. The advantage of this is that you can place the electrode at the exact place you want to begin your weld, so it can be much prettier. Without it, I can't see exactly where I'm starting the weld until after the arc has been struck. Also, the newer hoods have much larger lenses which make it easier to see up, when I need to look up for these overhead welds.


and 3) ...I don't remember. Frank just got home from band practice and distracted me...and now I'm hungry. Later, ya'll!