Learning how to repair rusted metal with holes starts with one rule: you cannot make a dependable weld on metal that has already rusted thin. You must remove paint, scale, coatings, and weak steel until the remaining edge is solid…
One of the first times I worked with stainless steel outside of the shop, I ran into a funny but common problem — the customer wanted to stick magnets on their stainless steel fridge, but nothing would hold. Most folks…
MIG welding aluminum without gas sounds appealing because it would remove the cost and hassle of an argon cylinder. The problem is that ordinary aluminum MIG depends on an external inert gas shield. Without that protection, air contaminates the arc…
Calculating weld thickness starts by naming the dimension you actually need. For a fillet weld, that usually means the leg size and effective throat. For a groove weld, it means the effective penetration provided by the joint detail. The final…
Not every hole in metal needs a welded repair. For non-structural sheet metal, enclosures, gates, toolboxes, and cosmetic automotive panels, you can often use a metal-filled epoxy, an adhesive-backed patch, a riveted patch, solder, brazing, or a reinforced filler system.…
When I first got my Lincoln 140 MIG welder, I was excited — until I realized setting it up wasn’t as plug-and-play as I thought. Between figuring out the right wire feed speed, voltage settings, and choosing between solid wire…
You may see videos or product listings that claim you can weld aluminum with ordinary gasless flux-core wire, but that advice mixes together several different joining processes. Standard self-shielded flux-core wire is made for steel, not aluminum. To make a…
One of the first joints I learned to weld in the shop was the butt joint, and at the time I didn’t realize how much it would matter in real-world fabrication. MIG on mild steel, TIG on stainless, stick welding…
Brazing HVAC copper lines can feel high-pressure because one poor joint can waste time, refrigerant, and money. Reliable work comes from verifying the equipment instructions first, preparing clean copper, flowing dry nitrogen, heating the entire joint evenly, selecting the correct…
Worm tracks in a flux core weld usually show up as narrow grooves or trails after you remove the slag. The most common cause is excessive voltage for the selected wire feed speed, although damp wire, incorrect electrode extension, poor…