Welding Thin Sheet Metal Stick Welder

As a rule when mig welding sheet metal never use a body filler metal that is thicker than the base metal.

Welding thin sheet metal stick welder.

How to weld thin gauge steel similar to car body panel down to 8mm or 1 32 of an inch thick with arc or stick welder. Forget the larger 1 8 inch tungsten electrode and use a smaller one. For sheet metal i use ine welding wire and it is just as good as their flux cored wire if you want you can grab one here. It is recommended that a welder should use 023 or 024 inch wire for light gauge sheet metal work.

It only takes a little bit of practice to make it happen. A good heat setting for 1 8 6011 rods on thin material is about 80 90 amps. Gas metal arc welding gmaw is an effective method for joining light gauge metals such as carbon steel and austenitic stainless steel. Try going for a wire of 023 inches when welding sheet metal.

Don t attempt to weld thin materials like sheet metal with flux cored wires which put more heat into the base metal. Just grab a piece of sheet metal to get the heat set correctly and go to town. The hobart handler 140 mig is the best affordable mig welder for sheet metal. Short bursts or tacks will help.

This is a quick video showing how to weld sheet metal with a stick arc welde. It s one of the highest quality machines available and comes incredibly low priced. I guess the moral of the story is you can do just about anything with a stick welder in a pinch. Carbon steel and 18 ga.

To weld sheet metal with solid wires use electrode positive ep or reverse polarity. While sheet metal is primarily a tig welding job there are times when it s handy to have an available mig welder to fuse sheet metal. Stainless steel are used in applications such as hvac automotive mobile machinery guards and cabs and small parts as well as stainless steel food service and processing. While wire feed welding sheet metal go for short bursts of welding instead of a going on a long bead.

Want to weld your car exhaust pipe and only have your old grandpas stick welder. I was hoping to manage a butt weld too but the metal was far too thin for mig and i just blew holes.