Need advice for making fillet welds

I agree with both previous posts. You want to make sure your base metals are clean and oil free. The 3/4" plate is going to require that 2/3 of the bead is held on that piece with letting the molten puddle swing over on the 1/4" piece.

A amperage dial is like a thermostat. It's strickly a "refference dial". What one machine says 180 amps, is 150amps on another machine or 200 on another. Your indicating cold lap when your electrode starts and is a good indication your amperage is too low or an electrode or ground problem. Check your lead connections and be sure your lead is not coiled.

With Too many amps then weld spatter will be alot. You also need to concentrate on rod angle, 0-15 degrees. Arc length should be held tight due to the heavy flux of the 7014.

Besure your watching the molten puddle and not the slag puddle. With proper weld puddle control your flux will go where it needs too.

T_Bone

It got frustrating because I had the same problem when welding a frame using 2" square tubing (1/8" thick wall.) Some of the beads would stick to one piece only and be piled up, and some of them would look smooth and fairly flat. I was using 6013 1/8" for that.

I'm still getting used to stick welding with the heliarc welder, so the amperage setting is still trial & error. I don't remember having this problem this bad with our other welders on the farm. We used to buy Lincoln electrodes; are they any better? Our other welders were AC only. Since I now have DC also, should I use that mostly? Is DCRP the polarity I should be using for this? I tought myself to weld as a kid, so I never had any formal training other than reading quite a few books about welding, so I appreciate any suggestions. I'm going to start practicing more using the TIG mode on the welder, to use for sheet metal work and aluminum.

Your discribing two different problems and it's confusing. With 1/8" rod 180amps would be smoke'n and with a long arc length a molten puddle would be scattered and very unlikely would result in a bead being layed or what could be called a bead. I would look for a bad ground/electrode clamp.

Leads that are coiled create a magnetic eddy and will pull a arc all over the place and is very difficult to control. Also called arc wander or arc blow by.

Again with the 6013 it sounds like a bad ground or low amperage problem. I would take the time to take apart both your ground and electrode clamps looking for a dirty or loose connection.

I've noticed some of the newer machines are very poor rated for multi weld process by the mfg. If the mfg is saying your not going to have much luck I would think it really sucks big time for a non-rated process.

This would be caused by the type of power supply of the machine. A invertor based machine may only work well as a Tig machine and not worth a darn for stick. I would list your equipment and see if that gives us some insight.

6013 works well with AC or DCEN. DCEP would be a poor choice.

7014 works well with DCEP and ok AC with DCEN being a poor choice.

T_Bone