cruz7876
02-04-2011, 09:47 AM
can someone recomend a good manual for sheet metal body work and/or set me straight on the settings of a 140 .
trying to fix my truck.
urch55
02-04-2011, 11:37 AM
Cruz,
Don't your machine have a chart under the lid.? That would start you off in the right direction.
cruz7876
02-04-2011, 01:20 PM
yes, is brand new.i have only used it once with regular wire on repairing a eng. bracket,it work find.but i saw that a sheet metal manual may help me somehow.
Hotfoot
02-04-2011, 08:31 PM
You will find many videos on You Tube on sheet metal, auto body, and hammer welding. Also look for plug welds, stitch welds, lap weld joints, and butt welding sheet metal. It is probably the most difficuly type of MIG welding to learn (and yes, you MUST use gas and do MIG, not flux core) because of the tendency to just evaporate the metal and "blow-through".
It is a welding skill that you can and will acquire with some practice, however. the HH140 it the PERFECT machine to do it with, so you're well on your way.
Frustrating at first, but it gets to be down-right fun, and you walk out of the shop feeling like you can really do it!
Invest in some panel clamps (Harbor Freight's are identical to the much more expensive ones), some Vise Grips of various tpes, some C Clamps, and buy a simple copper union for copper pipe, and flatten it out in a vise (I put a crook of welding rod in it first, so it'll have a handle)....to use as a backing plate when welding on that thin stuff.
Ask a few body shops for some scrap body panels (free) (Tell them what you are doing). The new high strength steel is very difficult to weld (High catbon content, and thin), ALso some tin cans are good practice (very thin). Some thicker sheet steel will be easier to begin on. :)
usmcpop
02-05-2011, 11:12 AM
There's some info here:
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/thin-metal.htm
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/butt-weld.htm
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/removing-floor.htm
http://www.aws.org/wj/2002/03/feature/
Roger
02-05-2011, 09:58 PM
I have welded 26 gage steel using .023 solid wire with 80/20 mix Argon CO2 shielding gas. No pulsing needed. Your HH140 should do this without manual pulsing. Sometimes a company sells a poor 110 Volt MIG welder that can't weld thin sheet metal. Beginners need lots of practice to do this but it isn't real hard to do. Using .030 fluxcore wire you can weld 20 gage steel without pulsing.