How To Weld Thin Sheet Metal With Arc Welder

It is an arc welding process that where you feed a solid wire electrode through a welding gun.

How to weld thin sheet metal with arc welder.

In order to avoid the usual problems that come with welding thin metal you should carefully consider the process you are using. Welding in a sequence that limits the amount of heat can help minimize distortion in thin material. For instance when producing a 3 ft. Weld in the vertical down position weld 6 in.

Mig is one of the best ways to weld 20 gauge sheet metal. The stitch welder has a solenoid that pulsates the rod and also a diode that can be engaged to convert the buzz box output to dc. A good heat setting for 1 8 6011 rods on thin material is about 80 90 amps. While welding work back and forth over the seam or opening and cover each area twice in order to properly join 2 surfaces together.

On larger thin gauge material spread out several smaller welds over the joint. Precision welding methods are preferable like pulsed gas metal arc welding gmaw p short circuiting transfer gas metal arc welding gmaw pulsed gtaw and gas tungsten arc welding gtaw. Years ago i bought the stitch welder accessory from them and with the 1 16 electrodes it works well on thin sheet. For 3 32 7018 s it s about the same.

Just grab a piece of sheet metal to get the heat set correctly and go to town. You ll also need to use an arc welder since a mig welder won t properly join the galvanized steel together. Set up your arc welder to straight polarity dcen that will keep the heat on the rod and not on the base metal dial down to 20 30 amps set up the sheet preferably over two bricks so that the bottom of the sheet is hanging in the air. Mig welding for thin metal.

If all you ve got is a stick welder and you need to weld some 1 6 mm square hollow section it can be done. You are basically burning the rods down on top of the metal in straight lines. Metal inert gas is then used to protect the weld from contaminants. This video shows a basic t joint using 6013 grade.

Mig welding is one of the simplest to use for welding.