Trouble with plug welds

Lizer

Lizer

Mad Scientist
I'm having a real hell of a time with my plug welds.

I'm welding together a bed to a 70 F250. 18g metal, 1/4" holes. I'm sitting down under there in an uncomfortable position, there's not a lot of room, my welding helmet can barely fit in some spots, bad light, and I'm welding a vertical surface. I've tried all kinds of heat and wire speed settings. My main problem seems that I'm getting poor penetration. I can put a mirror behind the panel and look at penetration and they look weak.

If I'm doing practice welds on a flat surface they look great, nice and flat with lots of penetration. I tried one of those notched plug welding tips for a mig welder tonight and that doesn't help at all either. The problem, as you might guess, is the bead wants to run down.

I'm royally pissed off and frustrated tonight. So looking for suggestions.
 
Eastwood 135 is a re-badged Lincoln SP 135, which is a pretty good 115V welder. I have one.

Not enough penetration means you need to turn up the heat. What settings are you using now when. doing the plug welds that are giving you trouble?

My other thought is you need to practice doing them vertically till you get a setup that works. Horizontally is fine if you are doing horizontal plugs, but if you are vertical you need to practice with scrap vertical.

Looking at my Lincoln 135 now. I'll take a pic of the min settings to start with 18 gauge vertical.
Your panel should look the same as this one This would be the minimum to start practicing with. In all likelihood you may need to go hotter. Wire speed should be the least you can get away with. Adding wire speed cools the weld puddle, less wire speed makes it hotter.
20220927_232724.jpg
 
Chris_Hamilton said:
Eastwood 135 is a re-badged Lincoln SP 135, which is a pretty good 115V welder. I have one.

Not enough penetration means you need to turn up the heat. What settings are you using now when. doing the plug welds that are giving you trouble?

My other thought is you need to practice doing them vertically till you get a setup that works. Horizontally is fine if you are doing horizontal plugs, but if you are vertical you need to practice with scrap vertical.

Looking at my Lincoln 135 now. I'll take a pic of the min settings to start with 18 gauge vertical.
Your panel should look the same as this one This would be the minimum to start practicing with. In all likelihood you may need to go hotter. Wire speed should be the least you can get away with. Adding wire speed cools the weld puddle, less wire speed makes it hotter.
Click to expand...
This is really helpful. I am using that same heat setting except my wire speed is 6.5. I can try it a lot slower. I'll practice vertically as well.
 
Like I said you may need to increase the heat to more than what's in the pic And you could probably turn the wire speed down to less than the 4.5 in the pic. But that is a good place to start. Good luck. You'll get it.:)
 
Are you not going for the sizzling bacon sound when plug welding? It seems with that high of heat and low of wire setting you won't achieve that.
 
It will sound right when you get the setup right. 4.5 is still quite a bit of wire speed. You are filling a 1/4" hole. Too much wire speed negates the heat setting too a certain degree as it cools the weld puddle. Then you get poor penetration lumpy plug welds. You are trying to find the balance between right amount of heat and just enough wire speed to fill the hole. Just play around with scrap and different settings. It will become clear what I'm trying to say....hopefully.:)

The setting in the pic is where I would start. One other thing that comes to mind. With your gas off, turn on the welder, set the wire speed to 5 or 6 and pull the trigger. Make sure you have a nice even feed. That particular welder (eastwood and lincoln) can sometimes have feed issues, especially with the smaller rolls. If it isn't feeding smooth you'll have a heck of a time using it and will not be able to do a good plug weld. So check that to be sure.
 
Remember the basic stuff too. Correct stickout from the nozzle. Keep the electrode the correct distance from the work.Etc. If you epoxied the backside and scratched it off it will burn dirty a little. Again turning up the heat helps with getting it to burn off. That type of plug is harder to than one without any epoxy on the backside. Gotta do few before it gets easier.
 
ditch the helmet and make you a muffler paddle to weld under stuff like that. put a cheap mini led flashlight on the welding gun or have a good flood light under it so you can see the work while welding..
 
Not trying to be a smart A , but really you are doing nothing wrong and most likely your equipment is fine , it all about practice . you need to practice welding in all positions , this is why there are certifications for welding. Vertical up position is one of the hardest positions along with over head . I understand it is frustrating but its all about practice you need to make up a bench jig that can hold practice coupons in all positions to get the feel and understand your settings .
 
dhutton01 said:
If I was doing that job I most likely would have flipped it over to do all those plug welds. Or maybe stand it up on end.

Don
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With the way the sides install to the bed floor, gravity was essential, but now that I have some of the welds done all around the bed, I probably can flip it up on its end to finish, this is a good idea.
 
Lizer said:
With the way the sides install to the bed floor, gravity was essential, but now that I have some of the welds done all around the bed, I probably can flip it up on its end to finish, this is a good idea.
Click to expand...
Tek screws are your friend on a job like that. They make sure there are no gaps between the two panels

Don
 
I have the same Eastwood welder and this thread has been a godsend. I will need to do plug welds on my floor pans which involve metals of different thicknesses. The floor pans are 19 gauge and the chassis that I'm welding to is about 2 mm thick. How should I approach it to make sure the welds are sound and structural?

-----
Emil
 
crashtech said:
Also if the hole diameter is a bit marginal as it might be in this case, make sure you clip the wire each time for a fresh sharp wire end, and establish the arc right in the center of the hole in the underlying material. That will help with penetration.
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Clipping the wire each time is something I have been doing, but making sure it's centered in the hole is something I've been failing at badly despite my best efforts, due to visibility and contorting.
 
Embarrassing story.....years ago(2011ish) I bought my 110v Lincoln welder, never really welded thin sheet metal before. I brought the machine home, got some gas and went to town. Anyways it always welded like complete shit, well compared to what I saw in my youtube certification classes anyways. I just chalked it up as a junk Lowes welder.., never really used it much other than shaving engine bay holes and what not. It wasn't until like 2019 that I opened the mig machine to clean it out and noticed that the leads were hooked up backwards. It was initially setup for flux core.
 
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