Newbie welding question

grandpa Love

Well-known Member
Bought a wire feed ,flux core 110 welder. Used it twice. Fixed my wife riding lawn mower deck. And added a brace on my trailer. Easy enough. I hooked ground to mower deck and on trailer. My next project is welding some nuts, bolts,nails , silverware,and spark plugs together to make garden art. What do I hook ground to? I thought it had to hook to what you are welding? Thanks Kevin in Central AL
 

Make, get a steel table to lay the things you are going to weld. Maybe even bolt a steel vice to the table. Then clamp the welder clamp to the steel table.

Dusty
 
Hello Grandpa love,

Thats easy!!! Vise grip to work ground, and welder ground to your work......done!

Guido.
 
I made a welding table out of a 55 gallon barrel with a screen from an old grinder mixer that i flattened bolted to top. I drop rod ends and lot of spatter fall in barrel. Made it as project in high school, still use it today 35 years later.

Joe
 
Hello Grandpa love,

I meant welder's ground to vise grips. Fingers type faster then my brain

Guido.
 
In my shop the welding table is all metal and has 2 vises on it so you can put the clamp for ground to the table and then hold what your welding in one of the vises makes it easy to hold and weld at the same time
 
Now I gotta find me a good size metal plate.lucky we go to church with the lady that works the scale and pay window at the scrap yard!
 
My welding table top is 1/8 or 3/8 inch plate and about a 3/4. Sits on top of a set of metal legs that came off some sort of old table. One vise was my grand fathers and the other is an anvil vise
 
Most sioverwear is stainless steel and welds fine with your mig as long as rust isn't an issue. You can weld stainless with regular mig or rod, it just takes on the properties of the filler used.
 
Kevin, you might try going to YouTube and typing in the words, "how to weld yard art". Yes, lots of halfwits on there, but there are also some truly talented people whom you can learn a lot from by watching.

Actually, I need to take a little of that advice as well. Bought a small Hobart wire feed several years back, but offhand, can't even picture in my head how to set the thing up. ...Might end up going back to a buzzbox welder. Was never "great", but have toyed with it enough that I still remember the basics.

Each has its pros and cons. For me, I think a wire feed would be better suited for welding very thin material. I could take that little HF buzzbox I had and, in Winter up here, could use it as close to 100% duty cycle as possible. Sure made it nice when making heavier welds. ...For me, "heavier" meant 3/8" on up. I once welded some 1"+ thick steel on the back of my JD 4010. It was ugly with all the passes, but it held fantastic! ...Can't even remember now what I had to reinforce. *sigh*
 
A few years ago I found this place while on a "just drive and see what I can find" road trip. A waitress at the local cafe recommended it, called "The Sculpture Ranch". There were literally miles of this stuff on display along the winding roads of this remote ranch. All just sitting out there, anyone could drive in there and look at it. No sign of vandalism!

Amazing art work! Some of it a little on the strange side for me, but that's art!

But some of the best were the chrome bulls. Some were made of car bumpers, some were motorcycle exhausts, some were just any and everything...

But there were several that were wind operated whirlygigs made of silverware. Ladles were a favorite choice, they catch wind well and make them turn. I was hoping there were some pictures of them, but didn't see any.

If you are looking for silverware to build with, look for a local restaurant/hotel supply. They usually have tons of that stuff used, cheap!

Send pictures!
Sculpture Ranch
 
(quoted from post at 18:10:18 06/16/17) My welding table top is 1/8 or 3/8 inch plate and about a 3/4. Sits on top of a set of metal legs that came off some sort of old table. One vise was my grand fathers and the other is an anvil vise

I would like to see a pic of that.
 
(quoted from post at 17:49:21 06/16/17) Going to be kinda tough welding silverware with it,

Real silver plate is just steel with a silver paling over the steel. when it gets worn down it tends to rust.
 
That's cool stuff. I'm gonna start much smaller​ than car bumpers. Lol. Found silverware at local thrift store. 5 cents each. Or bag full for a buck. Got a bunch in that bag!!!!
 
A friend who is a welder at a power plant made this
of copper plate on a stainless frame. There's no
substitute for talant.
a163068.jpg
 
The cables are a circuit and the workpiece and the electrode both must be in the circuit. from ground to work [metal sculpture , nails , etc] Now squeezing MIG trigger completes circuit.
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top